Tag: advice

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Is Formal Education A Mistake?

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It seems a lot of people are questioning the effect of formal education on their lives. Virtually every book I read these days is focused on the need to restructure the educational system and promote self-education (in the West especially United States).

I agree that this is the Information Age hence  there is an abundance of information at our disposal however in a developing country like Nigeria, how do you access/critically analyse this information without formal education? How do you seek out answers from books at home, library or Internet without formal education?

Formal education is very important. It is a ticket to our future. Without it, we rely on easier and faster sources for information like television, printed materials, experts, or hearsay from immediate contacts, friends or relatives to save us the time to self-learn, think and analyse.

It must be said that formal education doesn’t guarantee anyone financial success but it removes the scales of ignorance from one’s eyes and makes your thinking mind to explore and seek several answers. As a consequence, it is a ticket out of miserable circumstances for many; a solution to our backwardness.

Nigerians (like the guy I watched on television recently) who claim formal education is nothing, I am curious to know why they think so. And what helped you to form this opinion? I need to know if they’d be opinionated or able to reason the way they do now if they had no formal education. Formal education gives you a certain level of exposure and thence the will to chase self-education and become an autodidact.

“Autodidacts are the self learners who quench their hungry and inquisitive minds by self learning and finding answers to their questions themselves” – Maaher Sayeed

The problem with our formal education is that we are/were all taught to be status- and result-oriented. Most people believe formal education is all about amassing certificates and titles whilst bragging about them to anyone who cares to listen.

The truth is that what really matters is the transferable and non-transferable skills you pick up. Don’t miscontrue my point, I am not saying having a good grade/result is bad. No! Nevertheless, due to the keeness to have titles attached to our name, cram-la-pour has become a ritual. This is beneficial in the interim but useless in the long run.

“Reading without reflecting is like eating without digesting.” – Edmund Burke

Also, many go to school and focus solely on  academics or social life and when they are thrown out in the real world, they realise their inadequacies and deficiencies. There’s definitely a reason why the Igbo word for a University is “Mahadum” but I prefer to call it “Marahadum” which literally means know them all. The best advice you can give to a student going into school is to allow the school pass through him/her as s/he passes through the school. That way, s/he would be equipped with formal, non-formal and informal education.

I concur that there are certain things you can’t learn in a classroom because experiences shape up our lives. However, in this third world country, you need formal education to ditch crowd mentality, hearsays and blindly conforming to borrowed wisdom, and base your opinions on balanced and educated thinking. As a consequence, formal education paves the way for self-education.

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The Godfather: Lessons

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I watched the classic movie adaptation of Mario Puzo’s novel The Godfather for the umpteenth time last week. Twenty-five years after the last of the triology was released, the movie is still interesting and captivating. So let’s look at the lessons one can pick up from the movie.

1. Anger truly rests in the bosom of fools.
“Never get angry. Never make a threat. Reason with people.” – Don Vito Corleone

Don Vito Corleone’s first child Santino (Sonny) was hot-headed and that was his undoing. He smashed cameras, yelled at the Don’s consigliere Tom Hagen and publicly beat the sister’s husband, Carlo to a pulp. In the end, he became predictable, manipulable and was massacred.

2. Money is always an issue even amongst friends.
“Friendship and money. Oil and water” – Michael Corleone

How often have we heard people say “don’t mix friendship with business”? Friendship tends to take a back seat in business because everybody is out to make profits. It is all about personal interests and this can put a strain on a friendship.

3. Wisdom is better than strength.
“The sicker you get, the wiser you get” – Kay Corleone
“Women and children can afford to be careless, but not men.” – Don Vito Corleone

Initially, Sonny was perceived to be stronger thn Michael but in the long run, Michael proved to be a better don with his wisdom. Sonny was temperamental and acted on impulse whilst Michael was wise, intelligent and calculative.

4. Power intoxicates like wine.
“Power corrupts those who do not have it.” – Calo

Vito Corleone built the Don Corleone empire on friendship, humility, loyalty and family. This earned him respect, love and power. He was never power drunk or money conscious; all he asked in return was friendship and loyalty. However, Micheal was the complete opposite. He focused so much on power and money, and succeeded in legitimising the family business but lost all the friends and family around him. He drove his wife, Kay, away, murdered his brother Fredo and his sister Connie’s husband, and questioned Tom’s loyalty – the only person that was ever present for him. He ended up alone and abandoned in contrast to Vito who died at an old age in the midst of family and friends.

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5. Violence is the last resort.
“Once war erupts, lives are lost, business close down or completely halts. I don’t like violence Tom. I am a business man. Blood is a big expense.” – Don Sollozo
“I hoped we could come here and reason together. And, as a reasonable man, I’m willing to do whatever’s necessary to find a peaceful solution to these problems.” – Don Vito Corleone

Despite being a movie centred on the Italian mafia, it is interesting to note that diplomacy was chosen over violence throughout the movie. Don Vito Corleone was always diplomatic and always made an offer you can’t refuse.

6. Family is everything.
“A man who doesn’t spend time with his family can never be a real man. The only wealth in this world is children, more than all the money,  power and wealth” – Don Vito Corleone

The movie depicts Vito Corleone as a family man who gave everything for his family. He adopted Tom Hagen as his son just like the Abbandando family adopted him after he fled Sicily. He repaid the Abbandandos, by making Genco Abbandando the first consigliere of the Corleone family.

7. Keep your business private.
“Never tell anyone outside the family what you are thinking again.” – Don Vito Corleone

Every family has secrets that are exclusive to them. It’s best to keep your business private. Don’t discuss your personal or family issues/business to outsiders. Someone may use the information in their favour or for their own personal gain.

8. Afford people some level of privacy; don’t meddle in their affairs.
“Sonny don’t get involved.” – Carmela Corleone to Sonny after he tried to break the fight between the sister Connie and husband Carlo at the dinner table.
“It don’t make any difference to me what a man does for a living, you understand.” – Don Vito Corleone

Everybody wants a little privacy. Try to mind your own business. Don’t take aspirin for other people’s headache. Giving personal advice on personal matters is a no-no unless your opinion is sought for.

9. Emotions cloud your judgments.
“Never hate your enemies. It clouds your judgment.” – Michael Corleone

People often get emotional and take sides in every situation and become biased. The emotions cloud what they think they see. Don’t make decisions when you are angry and don’t make promises when you are happy.

10. Don’t mix business with pleasure.
“I’m here on business I leave tomorrow now get rid of them. Come on, I’m tired. Get rid of the band, too.” – Michael Corleone to his brother Fredo after the latter offered him some girls.

We all struggle to maintain focus in our daily lives. Mixing business with pleasure can derail your focus and make you lose the big picture. Michael was a very focused business man, which helped him to come up with a solution to problems at a quicker speed.

11. Respect is earned not given.
“Now you come and say “Don Corleone, give me justice.” But you don’t ask with respect. You don’t offer friendship. You don’t even think to call me “Godfather.” – Don Vito Corleone

We often delude ourselves that we are owed respect because of our talent, money, fame, beauty, intelligence etc. The naked truth is that no matter how awesome you may think you are, no one owes you shit..you have to earn it. Don Vito Corleone earned the respect of people in his neighbourhood by making sure he addressed the concerns of the people unlike Don Fanucci who terrorised the neighbourhood and let them weak his beak a little.

12. Health is wealth.
Good health is the most important thing. More  than success, more than money, more than power – Hyman Roth

This is just to reiterate what we already know. A healthy man is a wealthy man. Just because you are trying to make ends meet doesn’t mean you shouldn’t pay attention to your health and take care of yourself. Exercise often and watch what you consume.

13. Don’t cry wolf too often lest people will doubt your sincerity.
“He’s been dying from the same heart attack for the last twenty years.” – Michael Corleone

Regurgitating your words will make it hard for people to believe whatever that comes out of your mouth overtime. Hyman Roth kept complaining about his deteriorating health to a point that no one believed him anymore. Michael eventually got tired of his complaints and made him sleep with the fishes.

14 First cut is the deepest.
We all carry emotional and physical scars from life battles but first cut is the deepest. And it will always be. Our past will always determine the way we act in the present and see the future. Don Cicci massacred young Vito Corleone’s family and made him an orphan. He only escaped because the mum held a knife to Don Cicci’s throat and let him abscond. He never forgot that and returned to Sicily years later to kill Don Cicci.

15. Jealousy is for the weak.
Movie star, Arnold Schwarzenegger once said ‘Everybody pities the weak; jealousy you have to earn .’ We only feel jealous towards others when we think we are in direct competition with them. Fredo Corleone was annoyed by his father’s decision to make Michael the next Don following the death of Sonny. Hyman Roth played on Fredo’s weakness, naivety and jealousy for his younger brother, Michael and used him as a pawn in an unsuccessful attempt to eliminate the Don.

What did you learn from the movie that I omitted? Please do tell.

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Choices & Consequences

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As human beings, we are given the mantle to decipher and choose between good and evil. Everyday, we try to sense what’s right and what’s wrong and make a choice between the two.

Making a choice is one of the most difficult tasks we face. For instance, imagine you are trying to decide whether to marry that man or woman, decide whether to resign from your current job and further your education abroad or continue with the job, choose between two careers/jobs, these choices can be very hard to make.

Even if one chooses to seek the advice of a friend/loved one or ally, in the end it is up to YOU to make the final decision. Life choices are hard to make because of the uncertainty that accompanies them.

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We try to evaluate the options available to us before making a decision. We make choices based on the information at our disposal at that particular time. Life choices are like investments; one tries not to make a risky investment based on opinions but a smart one based on facts & opinions.

Choice and consequences are the central concepts affecting decision making. To every action, there is equal and opposite reaction. Every choice we make in life, whether good or bad, right or wrong, wise or foolish carries maximum consequences.

Our choices have a huge impact on our lives; they can either make or mar us. Our choices determine who and what we are in life whether in the short or long run. We are forced to live with the consequences of our choices.

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However, accepting consequences of our actions can be a bitter pill to swallow for some. Rather than blame themselves, many prefer to blame others for their woes after all it is much easier to do so. Taking responsibility of the consequences of our choices says a lot about one’s character.

We all make choices but in the end, our choices make or mar us. No one is immune to the consequences of his/her actions.

Thank you for making out time to read this article. If you have enjoyed it, please comment and share your views on this issue. Also, do like, share and follow the blog.

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The Friendship/Gossip Triangle by Chukwukadibia Ude

The friendship/gossip triangle represents a geometric series of conversations between three persons who know each other.

This piece explains how these conversations engage many others who revolve inside the triangle thereby instituting positive or negative attributes depending on the nature of these conversations.

A triangle has only three points representing three persons as explained in this piece. (Any shape can be used for this analysis but what matters is the understanding derived from it)

The lines that bind the three points are assumed in this piece to be bound with two things: THE TONGUE AND THE EAR.

Simply put the tongues and the ears of those at the three points of the triangle.

(For emphasis, THE HANDS could represent the lines when you consider the social media or instant message applications that we operate nowadays. In any case, the hands only type what would have been said if it were possible to talk).

THIS ARTICLE WAS BORN WITH A REFLECTION ON THE USE OF THE TONGUE

(The ear is only considered because the next person who speaks, speaks only what is heard or speaks a different interpretation of what is heard)

HOW THE THINGS WE SAY PUT US IN SITUATIONS WE MAY NOT BE ABLE TO HANDLE

Why do we give deaf ears to the Philosopher Socrates’ advice? He said: “if what you want to tell me is neither true nor good nor even useful, why tell it to me at all?” As easy as it sounds, almost everyone disobeys this principle.

Why do we always involve people where they have no responsibilities at all? Joyce Meyer even clarified this stating pro actively that “anywhere you do not have responsibility, do not bother to have an opinion”. With this, even when the speaker has made the mistake to speak what you see as irrelevant to you, you could help stop the flow if you pay attention to Joyce’s advice. The baseline is that when one starts a conversation, the receiver/listener could help shorten it if what is to be said is neither true, good nor useful or as well following Meyer’s statement. This will teach the speaker a lot about what is actually necessary to be said.

Here comes the analysis:

Three persons A, B and C are friends who know each other and represent the points in a triangle while their tongues and ears join these triangle points and as well bring about many companions who are not in any case necessary to the personal friendship of A or B or C or even their group relationships.

Questions to ponder:

Why would any of A, B or C tell their problems with anyone of the other two to the third?

Why won’t the two resolve their problems?

Why explain your personal affairs to the other two? Are they God?

Why mention what someone did to you and even his/her name to the other two? Do they have any responsibility in your problem with him/her? Why can’t he/she approach who offended him/her?

Why would the other two also spread the issue to many others?

Why can’t A tell B what he/she doesn’t like about him/her? Why rushing to complain to C? Why rushing to communicate your issues with another person to someone who isn’t involved? Have you thought of the dangers of involving him/her?

Why would A, B or C act as a friend but actually works as a spy? Are you in party politics or are you practising in the field of detectives?

Why would A destroy the friendship of B and C (or B that of A and C as well as C that of A and B)? Why involving D to Z in your friendship with A, B, C, A & B, B & C, A & C and even affecting the friendship of A, B and C with D to Z?

Even if what A says is true about B or C or B and C to D to Z, how good or useful is it to them?

If you understand this well, you will observe that only the tongue has engaged so many companions.

Oh, the power of the tongue. This power is seen to hold life and death as recorded in Proverbs 18:21 and the advice thereof is that he/she who loves it will eat its fruit.

The ear of the receiver has also helped to transfer the information by hearing and the tongue of the receiver then keeps making it a geometric build up until the triangle makes one’s life almost ruined.

D to Z in the analysis represents many people we involve in what does not really concern them. We multiply our companions by the things we speak out. Remember, Proverbs 18:24 warns that a man of many companions may come to ruin but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. Find that friend and still follow Socrates and Meyer’s advices on such a friend.

Not taming the tongue can be likened to a bad attitude and a bad attitude is seen by some great men as a flat tire which means you cannot go anywhere without changing it.

Most times, the way we see life could make taming the tongue almost impossible. We may want others to be like us. We live by the law and expect everyone to do to us the same we do for them forgetting that everyone sees life differently. Using our ‘do me, I do you’ perspective, we hardly trust, we complain a lot, we give up on people easily, we involve many things and many people even when the situation has not got the extent we think about. The way we think about life has been a contribution to our use of the tongue.  When we see life as a law, there is a low understanding of love and where there is no love, there is dishonesty and all these lead to the way we apply our tongues to irrelevancies. Even the holy book confirms that love is the fulfillment of the law and not the other way round. When we love, we could help shape our lives. Do not forget that mercy triumphs over judgment as noted in James 2:13.

Comparison is another big threat to friendship. The more we compare, the more we take sides. The more we take sides, the more we hardly know the truth. The more we know less of the truth, the more biased we become. The more biased we become, the more we never see something good in people. This in turn blocks the knowledge of the truth. The funniest thing is that we know the truth just that our negativity buries it. The final point is that it leads to hatred and envy.  With this, all we do is TALK, TALK, and TALK. Guess who we talk to: people that have no business in the subject matter. The tongue sells the product of our comparison to markets where there are no customers at all to buy it rather than mere advertisements. No one buys the dummies, they are just samples. Please, let us reduce the extent we sample many people. Why have more dummies in your shop than real products?

If you feel disturbed about someone, please call the person and have a face time conversation. Life is a test; we only pass it when we stick to approaches that promote value. Without the right values, nothing is sustainable.

Someone advised that a right word at the right time to the right person at the right time can’t be a coincidence but orchestrated by God. We all make mistakes but we are also aware of the new mercy of God we have every day so let us always filter our words before speaking.

The way we see life, how we think about others, how we react to what others do to us, the way manner in which we rush to explain things to people who act as if they care, etc. should be our next line of action when it comes to change.

I remember the update someone used on social media; it says “Your thoughts, Your life, Your choice”.

If you have said what is not meant to be said, this is the time to have a re-think. You could be causing a lot of injuries. When you speak what is neither true nor good nor useful, you cause a lot of harm. Like Benjamin Franklin highlighted, the tongue offends and the ear takes the cuffing. He also advised that it is better to take many injuries than to give one. He, whom you have given so many injuries, will be pitied but you who cause the injury will be hated. Be wise. Do not speak off the cuff, otherwise you will feel so injured within yourself as well. For those who listen, when it is your turn to speak, don’t speak off the cuff as well.

If you have been wronged by what someone said about you, do not worry. Rumours do not define you. Even if what is said is true, count it as a something that requires you to grow. Remember, it is only at the tree loaded with fruits that people throw stones. You are so fruitful, that’s why most people are interested in you. Keep shinning. The problem is not the problem but your attitude about the problem.

In all you do, discipline the tongue so well. No plan will survive first contact with the enemy as stressed by Van Molke. Often times, we reveal our plans to people with our tongues.

One thing could help make the tongue always so clean. It is not tooth brush and paste. It is the ability to keep the mind clear and bright. Someone stated that the mind is the window through which we see the world. Most times, the tongue says what the mind feels or the interpretation given to what is seen or heard which revolves around the masterpiece called the human mind.

Despite Uncle Remus quote stated thus, “you cannot run away from trouble, there ain’t no place that far”, I believe that we could still reduce our troubles by minding what we say and listen to.

If you desire the inner zone of the triangle to be filled with peace and true friendship, mind what you say or listen to or discuss. If you desire the inner zone to be filled with gossips, worry and injuries, then keep talking the way you want. Its either you create a friendship triangle or a gossip triangle.

Do not gossip. Do not allow gossips or it gets into you. It destroys the mind. The pain of the mind is more than the pain of the body.

Within us, we have so many troubles. Do not go criticizing others. D.L. Moody even emphasized “right now I am having so much trouble with myself that I do not have time to criticize my friends”.

Settle your issues with who is concerned. Do not make it a debate for others. The others you tell have no business. Such debates make no good history.

Make your friendship triangle peaceful. Find friends who try as much as they can to make theirs peaceful. Embrace them.

Be watchful as it is the only way. If you are just careful, you could still make a lot of mistakes. Being careful is not enough. If you don’t want it to be heard, tell no one at all. Use your discretion to filter words that you want to release; words could uplift or destroy you.

Whatever mistakes you have made, see them as lessons learnt and forge ahead. Malcolm Forbes defined failure as success if we learn from it. The worst is repeating the mistakes; the triangle will grow as a gossip triangle to a gossip decagon and become unbearable. It is always better to have a peaceful network in a friendship triangle even if the triangle is so small. Mind your thoughts, mind your tongue and mind your ears. When you do not know what to reply over what you heard, do not start explaining; just smile. A wise man made a wonderful comment that no matter the language you speak, a smile will never need a translator.

The tongue weighs practically nothing but only a few can hold it. I need to learn, you need to learn, we need to learn.
We can make our relationships sustainable. Let us be truthful. Let us be lovely and lovable. Let us be faithful. Let us forgive. Let us encourage greater values. Let us know. Let us learn. Let us grow. Let us live. Let us be alive. Let us be peaceful.

Watch your tongue, hold it, keep it clean, and discipline it.

Filter what your say and what you hear.

Clean your ears, not with cotton buds, but with listening filter.

Keep your minds clean and bright.

In relationships with people, engage your mind only on what is true, good and useful about people.

Manage your stakeholders; engage who is responsible or accountable, consult who is experienced, objective and unbiased when necessary and inform only who is to be informed when necessary.

Encourage value and you see your relationships become highly sustainable.

AN APPROACH TO LIFE; LET US WATCH IT!!!