THE BEAUTY AND BURDEN OF FREEDOM

“I want to be free! I want freedom. I am tired of responsibilities and I don’t want to answer to anyone. I want to be my own man, make my own choices. Go where I want and do as I please when I please.”

That’s the cry for freedom.

We all have gone through or will go through this phase at one point in our lives.

I loved authority and order but I hated to be told all the time what to do and how to do it. I wanted to be my own boss and answer to no one. I lived in absolute comfort and peace in my father’s house. There was little that I desired and did not have. My father gave me all that life entreats to ensure I lacked nothing good.

BUT, I was restless. There was something lacking still. There was a need I could not quite fill.  I looked at the lives of the seemingly free. They seemed to go and come when they pleased. They could do whatever they pleased and life seemed to lay no consequences at their feet. They were as free and as happy as larks.

I desired that. Freedom!

I walked out of my father’s house. I was tired of the pressures of responsibility, chores, discipline and constant correction. I walked out of my father’s cover and constant warnings of the dangers without. I walked out in search of freedom; freedom to breathe and be; freedom to explore and discover. I walked away from my father’s unending supply. I took what I had and hoped to figure out life for myself. I walked away from my father’s house and...

My father respected my choice and allowed me to leave.

At last!

I found freedom. I took in a deep breath and exhaled. I ran wild and my life was indeed a circus. I did not beg for friends, they found me. They were carefree and kind and fed my need for freedom. They encouraged my exploits and praised my idiosyncrasies. They helped me in my pursuit of freedom and in my bid to abandon all that kept me grounded. I became as free and as happy as a lark.

Yet, I lacked joy.

I had no joy and peace eluded me. I missed my father and longed for his approval. I wished I could talk to him but I could not call him because I knew I had failed him.  I allowed myself tears, once, when I was alone in the dark and scolded myself in the morning, “Be strong and prove to the world that you are your own boss.”

Still, I lacked joy.

How do I explain to you the pain and fear of knowing that you are a failure in the midst of your seeming success? That’s exactly how I felt.

How do I explain to you the envy and the jealousy I felt for those who waited and got their fathers’ blessings? That’s exactly how I felt.

How do I explain to you the strain of staying happy when I knew no peace? That’s exactly how I felt.

I thought.

I ran away from over analysing things and thinking things through but thoughts of how low I’d fallen weighed me down. I was inundated by my fleeting success and yet plagued by restlessness.

I wanted freedom!

I sought my friends to share with them my pain, they deserted me. I drew deep in search of myself and all that I truly lacked. I felt abandoned by my father and all who cared for me. My house of ace cards, built on the sands of my fantasies crumbled around me.

Castle in Spain!

I woke up from my dreams and gnawing thoughts of my fallen state assailed me. Accompanied by shame, I thought I was no better than the pigs.

I wanted freedom.

Guilt gripped me with its iron clad fist. I fought for freedom. Pain sought to rip out my heart with its coal red hands. I ran for freedom. Death hoped to comfort me with its large cold arms. I chose freedom.

I ran home to my father and offered to be corrected, punished, disgraced and then accepted and loved. I threw myself at his mercy and begged that he did with me as he pleased. I was certain that if he flogged me in anger, I would feel loved. If my father screamed at me, I would feel loved. If he looked at me with the pain of disappointment, I would feel loved.

I would feel loved if only, he would look at me, touch me, even if in anger.

I wanted freedom.

I ran home to my father and he opened his arms and embraced me. He kissed me with love and restored me to his original plan for me and said the words I never hoped to hear again; “I love you.”

Freedom is the love of the Father that frees me from the bondage of sin and death.

Freedom is the love of the Father that holds me to a higher standard of right standing with him.

Freedom is the choice of rightness within the confines of His will.

Freedom is responsibility within the sovereignty of our right to choose.

Freedom is submitting our choice to His approval and accepting His will and way as final authority.

Freedom is the willingness to be corrected and accepted in the beloved.

I am the prodigal child and here is the beauty and burden of freedom.

THE FORCE OF IMAGINATION

I am a freaking billionaire!

That isn’t according to your bank account as it spells “BROKE” ... correctly... unfortunately, but according to your mind as it has the power to propel you into action towards becoming a billionaire.

The power of thought is such that the Holy Book says you are a product of your thought. It is the mind of men that produced such grand thinking that the Creator of this ability in man confessed, “... this they begin to do and now NOTHING will be RESTRAINED from them which they have IMAGINED TO DO.”

The question is, “what are you imagining to do?”

What is the image, the dream, invention, concept you have given your mind to feed on?

Imagination has to be strong enough you can see it, wild enough to push you into action, magnanimous enough it can be sustained beyond you and can include others.

Your wealth is subject to the state of your mind. It does not mean that a billion confessions of, “I am a billionaire” will change the state of your bank account. As long as the people were imagining building a tower, God said nothing but when they began to push/ birth their imagination by actually beginning to build the tower, God admitted they would be unstoppable.

Selah!

Your thoughts control your internal environment – the way you respond to people and situations - the reaction of fear, anger, irritation etc.

Fear is the chief enemy of action and until you begin to act on your imagination, you ... (it has taken me a great while to arrive at this) are your own enemy!

What are you afraid of?

Do you see a problem or an opportunity?

Which is best? To take a calculated risk of investing when people are pulling out, especially during a crisis, or to pull out and be safe?

When do you think is the best time to Arise and Shine? When there is light or when there is darkness?

Laziness is another enemy that keeps you from reaching for greatness.

Laziness in thought: if you put your mind to work and keep a journal of your thoughts, you might just succeed at surprising yourself. You may find you are a great writer, a very creative idea spinner. And if you push your mind to break through every known boundary you may just discover what Nigeria and indeed Africa needs to break even.

Laziness in language: Jim Rohn advices to make one’s language useful and to learn to put one’s experience in language that might be useful to others. Communication affects every area of one’s life.  Reading and writing are great ways to improve your language and like I always say if reading is quite a task, start with some nursery rhymes.

Laziness in action: So you don’t know where the money will come from why bother to think or plan!

Opportunity is of benefit only to the prepared, so work on a plan, set goals and keep refining your plan till opportunity knocks at your door.  To produce worthwhile results requires worthwhile actions, no matter how small. Those actions must be sustained over a period of time and that requires discipline.

Discipline cannot be achieved if your IMAGINATION is not STRONG enough to make you see the substance of an idea. 

Think Big!

In conclusion, there is no way our society is going to break out of its rich – looking – poor – man syndrome until we are willing to help enough people get what they want. It is the same principle that guides the banking sector in giving of loans.

Greatness, remember, is simply achieved through finding a way to serve many people. Loan your talents and creativity and skills to helping others get what they want, you’ll be helping yourself get what you want.

I think. 

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Does Free Education Equal Quality Education?

 
Here is a tsunami boiling beneath political propaganda and like everything else we know, it will one day explode in our faces and we will all pretend we did not know about it. Imagine a society of people who cannot express themselves in proper English, teaching your children or great grand children in school, or representing you as your local government chairman or councillor, or governor or senate representative or maybe as your president. It is not that he speaks a native tongue… no, not at all, it is that he speaks English with so much gusto and confidence while his verbs and tenses are scattered abroad like Jews. Forgive my noting the obvious.
The debate is not so much free education as it is quality education. When we do things in our half-hearted manner, we tend to praise our shallow efforts as being the final and only solution to the problem. So here we are praising free education as the solution to illiteracy, when we do not have to look farther than our backyard or the national news to see that illiteracy is a chronic disease that may demands a life changing operation.
Well, here I am on a sunny afternoon trying to cool off in a fancy boutique and the store owner is in a fix. She finally has a sales girl but she might as well be without one. The sales girl is a product of free yet poor quality of education. She claimed to have taken WAEC but cannot read or spell correctly. And this is not one exception among a thousand; this is between 35 and 40 out of a class of 50 in any public school on any given day. It is not enough to send our kids to the best school there is and think it is the only thing to be done, history has shown over time, and we fail to learn, that if the man who takes the lead is somewhat educated, his wife may just be the disease carrier.
Does free education equal quality education? Here’s our debate!

The Politics of the Present Nigerian Voter

Nigerians are at once fortunate and unfortunate to be going to the polls at a time such as this when the world and especially Africa is experiencing change on a major scale. In an age where people are enlightened and unafraid of change we have been called out to “a one man, one vote” election that is praised as being the one time when Nigeria will have elections that are not predetermined.

We are thus fortunate to have this election going on in a time where revolutions are fashionable in the world and in Africa and unfortunate in the sense that we have an electorate whose sense of duty and responsibility has been dulled as far as participating in this process is concerned.

Change cannot be expected to take effect immediately; it is always resisted at the initial stage and praised when it produces positive results. But here is an opportunity to build from the foundation a stable political system, howbeit challenging, by taking hold of this Johnathanistic invention of “One man, One vote.”  This process is not an invention of chance for as Voltaire, my favourite French Writer said, "Chance is a word void of sense; nothing can exist without a cause."

The cause for this laudable process is the corruption that has long coloured this course, one that we have decried for so long. To be then given a taste of something of positive difference and yet to be afraid to embrace the change we have long sought is foolishness to me. And yet again as Voltaire said, "It is hard to free fools from the chains they revere."

 It is therefore pertinent that we do not act as fools but that we put aside our impertinence and desist from looking for everything wrong with our political system. We should act! We cannot hope for any meaningful development if we do not insist on change. We have been given the process, our only politics, is action! We must embrace this opportunity to speak and to be heard.

Democracy indeed is the politics of the voter and America has proven this theory true in the way that her politics is conducted, issues are resolved at the polls and it is not the electing of a man, although his character is investigated and judged, it is the electing of an idea, an ideal whether it is presented by a party or by a man representing the party. It is not, as Obama proved to America and the world, a politics of “I can do that” but that of “Yes we can”.

Having been given this opportunity, what should our response be, should we hold on to our prejudice and be “Nigerian” about it by insisting on that nothing-works-in-Nigeria-except-through-corruption attitude? Should we sit back and watch how this turns out and not be directly involved in how it turns out?

I run the risk of sounding political but I like to think that my views are more nationalistic than political, I am not advocating a party or a person, I am advocating a process that could eventually lay the power of this democracy in the hands of its true owners- the people.

The present electoral process needs to be embraced and used effectively to its maximum if we are truly going to experience the change that we all seek.

It is easier, as I always say, to be complacent and watch from the sidelines, and instead of encouraging, to criticize the process and discourage everyone involved in making it work. In doing so, we not only take from ourselves the right to exercise our authority as voters, but also the right to protest when things do not work.

We cannot afford to base our excuse on what is past. In light of where we are as a nation that excuse fails to hold true and has no value whatsoever.

We need to get off our cowardly stance of lookers – on and get involved in this growth process and not wait to criticize a truly honest effort when and if  it fails.  And should it fail, we will not lay the blame anywhere else but at our doors because this is not about a party, a person or a clown, this is about us, this is about Nigeria. Let us not be cowardly and act with ostentatious swagger by insisting on judging our future by our past.

Our only politics is action - Vote Wisely!