What if all you have is 40 years?

Do the math. Let’s say you are 20yrs old already! Then you have a whooping 20 years more. In football, one will say you are at the “half time” period of your life. From your perspective, life is just getting started. You have time; you can always do whatever you want to whenever you deem fit. You can always take it easy, no rushing. No pressure. No qualms.  In reality, you are half way done. Life is like a Blackberry battery, better still, a Nokia battery. As soon as you disconnect the charger, it starts discharging, running low and low, depending on the activities, until it is flat and out.  Of course, some maximize this battery life while available: quality phone calls, presentations, publishing, sharing, ads, quick searches and look-ups, what have you.  Others do other things which just make the phone go hot!

To have a goal is good, to pursue it is better, and to do so on time is the best.  You cannot continue to push tasks off to the last possible minutes. If you think it is stressful to do it now, wait till when you settle to do it later and find out how much pressure has mounted. Executing your idea may seem overwhelming and stressful, pushing it forward only compounds you woe.  Your future is created by what you do today, not tomorrow. The old mantra says “Don’t leave for tomorrow what you can do today”. I’ll rather kill today’s trouble than push it forward, and add it up to tomorrow’s.  If it is worth the effort, then you shouldn’t wait.

The gospel truth is, the longer you procrastinate, the lower your self esteem gets. The sense of fulfillment is not there. Self-doubt creeps in at will. The odds are higher that you may not get to do what you ought to do as you allow time tick by. Start! Dive in first. Something tells me the farther you go, the more committed you’ll get. Come to think of it, I procrastinated writing this blog. Occasionally I just drifted away. I even left it completely for Wordosaur the other time. See! The easy things are always really not worth it after all.

Quick appraisal: What were the targets you set for yourself, say, 1^st of January this year? How many have you seen through? Did you truly pursue them?  Some of them do not take 8 months to achieve, remember? You’ve still got more than enough time before the year runs out….”maybe not”.

You only live once. Sad enough, most people utter this as a defense for the reckless life they lead; the easy escape route. It is the perfect excuse to waste life.  You only live once, but the impact you have could be eternal. Solutions you bring may be unquantifiable. Time is of essence.  Time is a resource, manage it. Idle time seems to pass more slowly than occupied time. In reality the time ticks seconds after seconds. It is our perception of time that differs.

Do something, it’s almost midnight.

follow @bimbolanko

Don’t fold your arms.

Who invented electricity?  

That was the question that came to mind instantly.  I already know who invented Facebook. Mark Elliot Zuckerberg, right? Yippee!!! Brilliant me! I sometimes stare hard and long at the pictures of that guy. 29 years old. He looks as normal…and as distracted as the rest of us. Jeez! looks can be deceiving.  So I turned to Google, my second best companion, to check out who really brought about electricity.  Different names started popping up: Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Edison, Michael Faraday, Allessandro Volta, William Gilbert and soooo many others. I was bent on knowing the friend and the foes. I just needed a name. How on earth will someone invent something that just shocked the hell out of me earlier in the day?

The first link I clicked was reluctant to open, thanks to MTN Nigeria. Then another thought dropped into my mind: what if these inventors folded their arms? What would we have got? My wild imagination resumed full time and I could see a 10-million capacity stadium  filled to the brim with Arsenal and Aston Villa fans, all holding binoculars and telescopes as long as, if not longer than, the Vuvuzela, trying to catch a glimpse of the proceedings on the pitch. It’s either you watch the game live or you get nothing.  I wouldn’t even be able to recharge my phone or laptop – that is if the ones who brought about the invention of these gadgets didn’t fold their arms too.

I imagine our Facebook inventor folding his arms, graduation with honors, being employed by, say, Google? He will not just be on his supposed competitor’s payroll, Maybe we would all still be on Hi5 by now.  It also means there wouldn’t even have been internet. No Google? No yahoo? (maybe naija woulda been better off with the riddance of yahoo bois and girls tho’), no automobiles and aircrafts? It is hard to imagine, but I think all we would have been left with are lush green attires, manna from heaven, and we would have continued to be fruitful and multiply. 

Evidences of engaged hands abound everywhere. Just look around you. From penicillin to the food stacked up in your cabinet. The boogie-boogie you rock and those cute shirts that make you look fly. Imagine a world without cassava bread (laughs), preservatives, anesthetics and you’ll know what I’m talking about. We can go on and on. The list is inexhaustible.

    

We don’t know what we are missing until we have it.There are a lot of thing the Milky Way still deserves. Don’t fold your arm, who knows what you’ve got in there? Maybe you will be the one to bring about the kind of electricity that doesn’t shock!

Do something!

follow @bimbolanko

Vanity: which version?

Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher, vanity of vanities, all is vanity.

But there are varieties of vanity.

The fulfilled, Ferrari driving, empire running, mansion dwelling, fat-account owning, buffet chopping, popular and highly-placed type. This class I refer to as the sweet vanity. Some names are coming to mind, right?

There is the middle class. The average. The comfortable. The unfulfilled. The we we.

There is also the okada riding, garri soaking, fufu-filled, minimum-balance checking, landlord fighting, loan loving "vanitarians" chilling uncomfortably at the base of the food chain.

It is a reality, as much as it is a caution sign, the proclamation above. Some of us however use the quote, or rather, the wise saying too often to console ourselves. It quickly comes to mind when we couldn't achieve a feat someone just clinched. When one is defeated. Wouldn't it be funny if at the end of last EPL season an Arsenal supporter goes to a ManU fan and tells him "all na vanity"? The trophy all 20 teams coveted so much? So it is with success. All is vanity, but succeed anyway.


Don't get me wrong, but if you have settled for what you currently got, except for the few of us at the top, of course (few of 'em I mean), it is a shame. The last time I checked, the ones at the top are even the ones running harder, aspiring higher. Pulling strings so stuffs will be rosier. Wherever you currently seat in the listings, please look up, as we speak, and you'll find space. There is always space up there, out there, and the higher you go in this regard, the spacious it becomes. If however you can't find space, then you are being crushed. probably in a deep mess at the moment. You have a little digging around to do.


Till hell freezes, some golds will never be mined. Hope you are not one of them? Go all out. Be the best you can be, though all is vanity. Kill complacency, though all is vanity. Don't be too conservative, though all is vanity. Bring forth goodies. Be! Or which will you rather choose: Sweet vanity or Bitter vanity?

If you find this odd, then seriously, I'm just kidding.

follow @bimbolanko