Is this really what we have become???

Something seems to have changed over the last 2 weeks, and I know it’s not just me feeling it. After the Boko Haram bomb threat broadcast went viral on blackberry messenger, it seems everyone has been on their toes wondering when, where and what will hit. God forbid that it does though.

But the changes are as far reaching as they are dramatic. I was at the Galleria with friends last week and at the entrance we were confronted by the kind of security checks that one reads about in the middle east (just joking, it wasn’t that major)…I thought, wow is this really happening to us? And then a friend told me a story of how in her church on a Sunday morning some guy walked in, dropped a bag and walked out. Everyone seated in that row who saw him, stood up and walked out of the church (They didn’t report this to anyone before leaving, and I thought that was cruel of them. If it really turned out to be a bomb, couldn’t they have silently informed an usher and afterward, turned and run? But I don’t blame them, nobody wan die abi?). When the ushers noticed what happened they went to the seat and found the bag there. They later found out the bag owner had only gone to the bathroom.

But this is the kind of paranoia we seem to be living with.  Nowhere is safe anymore and everyone is looking over their shoulder praying nothing happens.

I’ve been a victim of this too, though I must admit I am generally paranoid. On two occasions I’ve almost had the cause to shout bomb and run out of a building (well I’m sure it wouldn’t have been that dramatic).

Last week I was in a building in Yaba area and some guy walks in with a bag looking very suspicious (well I thought he did). He looked nervous and cast furtive glances to his right and left and it was then I thought OMG…is this one of them?! To make matters worse, he came and stood right beside me. At this point I was sure I would pass out. He then opens the bag and reaches into it, searching; and then I see a wire sticking out. Yes, you can imagine how I felt. But just before I hit hysteria lane, , I saw what turned out to be a phone charger and the man was only looking for a wall socket to charge his phone. PHEW…. Sweet relief washed over me, but also alarm at the panic I had just felt. What was wrong with me I wondered?

Today, I headed to Ajose Adeogun on another errand.. At the front desk was a guy who wanted to deliver 2 flower vases to the MD’s office. But the security didn’t want to let him through… Why? He had no I.D but insisted that he was a regular at the office and some of the guards knew him.

I looked at him, then at the flowers, and made a quick mental calculation: Unidentified man + Flower vase (that looked like a good hiding place for a bomb!)+ MD.s office….hmmmm seems like something is about to go down…. (Yes I know I’ve seen too many Mission Impossible-type films).  I figured if I was on a certain floor and MD’s office was all the way up, an explosion won’t affect me right??? (Yeah I guess you’re thinking what kinda crazy thought is that). Apologies, my wild imagination at work. Well I was there for 2 hours, and no explosion so I guess the guy was truly just a flower delivery boy

But all this just keeps me wondering, for how long will this BH, Bomb matter continue? Now things are seemingly calm; but is this the lull before the storm? Are we simply waiting for another explosion somewhere in the North (which we would only shudder and shrug away in the hopes that it’ll never happen to us or someone we know. May it never come to Lagos o is always our prayer)?  What is the government really doing? What can they do? What is the solution to this nerve-racking insecurity in our nation?

Will we continue to live like this believing some day it will all just go away? Infact my question is how in the first place did we get here? Is this what we have become?

CLARITY

I remember when I was in school and the lecturer would say your communication must be “Concise” and “Clear”. Now more than ever the need for Clarity is “clear” to meJ. Clarity in terms of Vision, purpose and goals cannot be overemphasized. In my search I came across this article on www.stevepavlini.com. I found in very informative. Some new ideas and other old ideas re-enforced. It’s a long read but worth your while. Enjoy it.

The Power of Clarity

H.L. Hunt, a man who rose from a bankrupt cotton farmer in the 1930s to a multi-billionaire when he died in 1974, was once asked during a TV interview what advice he could give to others who wanted to be financially successful. He said only two things are required. First, you must decide exactly what it is you want to accomplish. Most people never do that in their entire lives. And secondly, you must determine what price you'll have to pay to get it, and then resolve to pay that price.

Clear Goals Are Essential

Clear goals and objectives are essential to the success of any business, and this is no less true of building your own career. If you don't take the time to get really clear about exactly what it is you're trying to accomplish, then you're forever doomed to spend your life achieving the goals of those who do. In the absence of a clear direction for your life, you will either meander aimlessly or you will build a career that you don't feel good about. You may make some money, and you may do some interesting work, but the end result will not resemble anything you ever made a conscious decision to build, and ultimately you will be left with the sinking feeling that maybe you took a wrong turn somewhere along the way. Do you ever look at your career and think to yourself, "How on earth did I get here?"

If setting goals is so critically important, then why is it that so few people take the time to define exactly where they want to go? Part of the reason is a lack of knowledge about how to set clear goals. You can go through years of schooling and never receive any instruction on goal setting at all. A failure to understand the immense importance of establishing clear goals is also common. But those who truly know what they want often outperform everyone else by an enormous degree.

A frequent deterrent to goal setting is the fear of making a mistake. Teddy Roosevelt once said, "In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing." Setting virtually any goal at all is better than drifting aimlessly with no clear direction. The best way I know to guarantee failure is to avoid making clear, committed decisions. Every day is already a mistake if you don't know where you're going. You're probably spending most of your time working to achieve other people's goals. The local fast food restaurant, TV advertisers, and the stockholders of the businesses you patronize are all very happy for that. If you don't decide what you really want, then you've decided to hand your future over to the whims of others, and that's always a mistake. By taking hold of the reins yourself and deciding where you'd like to go, you gain a tremendous sense of control that most people never experience in their entire lives.

Many people assume that because they have a direction, they must therefore have goals, but this is not the case and merely creates the illusion of progress. "Making more money" and "building a business" are not goals. A goal is a specific, clearly defined, measurable state. An example of the difference between a direction and a goal is the difference between the compass direction of northeast and the top of the Eiffel Tower in France. One is merely a direction; the other is a definite location.

 Define Goals in Binary Terms

One critical aspect of goals is that they must be defined in binary terms. At any point in time, if I were to ask you if you had achieved your goal yet, you must be able to give me a definitive "yes" or "no" answer; "maybe" is not an option. You cannot say with absolute certainty if you've fully completed the outcome of "making more money," but you can give me a definitive binary answer as to whether or not you are currently standing on top of the Eiffel Tower. An example of a clear business goal would be that your gross income for the month of April this year is $5000 or more. That is something you can calculate precisely, and at the end of the month, you can give a definitive answer as to whether or not your goal has been achieved. That is the level of clarity you need in order to form a goal that your mind can lock onto and move towards rapidly.

Be Detailed
Be as detailed as possible when setting goals. Give specific numbers, dates, and times. Make sure that each of your goals is measurable. Either you achieved it, or you didn't. Define your goals as if you already know what's going to happen. It's been said that the best way to predict the future is to create it.

 Commit Goals to Writing

Goals must be in writing in the form of positive, present-tense, personal affirmations. A goal that is not committed to writing is just a fantasy. Set goals for what you want, not for what you don't want. Your subconscious mind can lock onto a clearly defined goal only if the goal is defined in positive terms. If you put your focus on what you don't want instead of what you do, you're likely to attract exactly what it is you're trying to avoid. Phrase your goals as if they are already achieved. Instead of saying, "I will earn $30,000 this year," phrase it in the present tense: "I earn $30,000 this year." If you phrase your goals in future terms, you are sending a message to your subconscious mind to forever keep that outcome in the future, just beyond your grasp. Avoid wishy-washy words like "probably," "should," "could," "would," "might," or "may" when forming your goals. Such words foster doubt as to whether you can really achieve what you are after. And finally, make your goals personal. You cannot set goals for other people, such as, "A publisher will publish my software by the end of the year." Phrase it like this instead: "I sign a North American retail publishing contract this year that earns me at least $50,000 by the end of the year."

Objectify Subjective Goals
What if you need to set subjective goals, such as improving your own level of self-discipline? How do you phrase such goals in binary terms? To solve this problem, I use a rating scale of 1 to 10. For instance, if you want to improve your self-discipline, ask yourself on a scale of 1 to 10, how do you rate your current level of self-discipline? Then set a goal to achieve a certain specific rating by a certain date. This allows you to measure your progress and know with a high degree of certainty whether or not you've actually achieved your goal.

Goal Setting Is an Activity

Setting clear goals is not a passive act. It doesn't happen automatically. You must take direct conscious action in order to make it so. Everything counts, and nothing is neutral. You are either moving towards your goals, or you're moving away from them. If you do nothing or if you act without clarity, then you are almost certainly a victim of "being outgoaled." In other words you are spending your time working on other people's goals without even knowing it. You are happily working to enrich your landlord, other businesses, advertisers, stockholders, etc. Each day you spend working without a sense of clarity about where you're headed is a step backwards for you. If you don't actively tend your garden, then weeds will grow automatically. Weeds don't need to be watered or fertilized. They just grow by themselves in the absence of an attentive gardener. Similarly, in the absence of conscious and directed action on your part, your work and your life will automatically become full of weeds. You don't need to do anything at all to make this happen. And when you finally get around to taking a serious look at where you are and where you want to go, the first thing you'll have to do is pull out all those weeds.

Reading this article will do absolutely nothing for you unless you turn it into some form of physical action. The best thinking unfortunately gives you zero results. In reality, you won't even be paid a penny for your thoughts. You can have the most creative idea in the world, but ideas themselves are utterly worthless. You only get results from the physical actions you take, never for the ideas you have. In order to get any kind of tangible results at all, you must act on an idea. You must communicate it, build it, implement it, and make it real.

Clarity Is a Choice
If you've been running your career in an unfocused manner, just waking up each morning and seeing what happens, then it is absolutely crucial that you take the time to decide and write down exactly where it is you want to go. How much longer will you continue to climb the ladder of success, only to realize too late that it was leaning against the wrong building? Just pick a point in the future, whether it's six months from now or five years from now, and spend a few hours writing out a clear description of where you want to be at that time. I know many people who aren't sure where they want to go, so they avoid committing anything to writing in order to "keep their options open." What would happen if you pursued that attitude to its logical conclusion? If you always kept your options open and never made any firm commitments, then you'd never get promoted, start your own business, get married, have a family, move to that new home, etc. except to the degree that someone else made that decision for you.

I used to have a friend like this, who still hasn't decided what he wants to do with his life. He yields control of his life to others without even realizing it, simply because he's unwilling to take the time to define a vision for his own life out of fear of making the wrong choice. His life is ruled by others who push their goals onto him, which he accepts by default. Ask yourself if you're in the same boat. If a friend of yours became totally committed to getting you to change something in your life at random -- your career, your living situation, your relationship, etc. -- could s/he do it just by being absolutely certain and committed that it's the right thing for you? Could a business associate come along and radically alter your plans for the week without you ever deciding consciously that such a change is consistent with your goals? We all suffer from problems like these to the degree that we fail to set clear goals for ourselves. There is a big difference between recognizing and acting on a true opportunity and being knocked off course without making a conscious decision to shift gears.

Waiting for something to inspire you and hoping that the perfect outcome will just fall into your lap is nothing but a fantasy. Clear decision making doesn't happen passively; you actually have to physically put in the time to make it happen. If you don't have clear goals simply because you don't know what you want, then sit down and actively decide what you want. That sense of knowing what you want isn't going to just come to you in a form of divine inspiration. Clarity is a choice, not an accident or a gift. Clarity doesn't come to you -- you have to go to it. Not setting goals is the same thing as deciding to be a slave to the goals of others.

Clear Goals Sharpen Present-Moment Decisions
Your reality will not match your vision exactly. That's not the point. The point is for your vision to allow you to make clear daily decisions that keep you moving in the direction of your goals. When a commercial airliner flies from one city to another, it is off course over 90% of the time, but it keeps measuring its progress and adjusting its heading again and again. Goal setting works the same way. Maintain a clear list of goals not because that's actually where you'll end up but because it will give with tremendous certainty in deciding what you need to do today. When someone contacts you with an "opportunity" out of the blue, you'll know whether it's a real opportunity or a waste of time. The long view sharpens the short view.

As you begin moving towards your goals, you'll gain new knowledge along the way, and you'll have to adapt your plans as you go. You may also change your vision if you get partway there and decide it's not quite what you really want. Ill-formed goals are still far superior to no goals at all.

I was once told by someone that I should end each day by crossing it off my calendar and saying out loud, "There goes another day of my life, never to return again." Try this for yourself, and notice how much it sharpens your focus. When you end a day with the feeling that you would have lived it the same if you had the chance to repeat it, you gain a sense of gratitude that helps you focus on what's really important to you. When you end the day with a feeling of regret or loss, you gain the awareness to try a different approach the next day.

You'll see a measurable difference in your life the very first day you establish clear, committed goals, even if your first few attempts aren't perfect. You'll be able to make decisions much more rapidly because you'll see how they'll either move you towards or away from your goals. On the eve of his death, Walt Disney had a reporter crawl into bed with him so he could share his vision for Disney World, six years before its completion. When Disney World finally opened, another reporter commented to Walt's brother, Roy, "It's too bad Walt did not live to see this." Roy replied, "Walt saw it first. That’s why we are seeing it now." Clear goals allow you to achieve the first half of H.L. Hunt's success formula. By deciding exactly what you want to accomplish, committing it to writing, and reviewing it on a daily basis, you bring your goals into reality with the power of your focus.

Check out www.stevepavlini.com for more articles

TyF

The Quest for Freedom!

Bahrain: Shouting in the dark - Programmes - Al Jazeera English

This is one of the most powerful documentaries I have watched. The story of the Bahrain uprising and the fight for freedom was almost lost in the Arab spring. However Aljazeera stayed there and covered it all producing this master piece.
This docu shows the extent to which man would fight for his freedom, while those in power would kill to prevent it. The protests began, and regardless of the fierce opposition by the government, the people of Bahrain continued their protests. No one came to their aid, Like Aljazeera puts it, "this is the Arab revolution that was abandoned by the Arabs, forsaken by the West and forgotten by the world". 


This documentary is an exposition on what really happened in Bahrain, as it began on February 14, 2012. A year later the people celebrated the 1st year anniversary of the protest, but as usual ended in tear gas and gun shot responses by their government. 


As I watched I kept having goose bumps. I could not believe I was watching a real footage, it seemed like something I would see in a war film.
This 50 minute clip is mind blowing and I recommend a must watch for Journalists, Documentary Filmmakers, Freedom Fighters... infact everyone.

To watch simply click on this link http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/2011/08/201184144547798162.html or visit Aljazeera.com.

TyF

UNTANGLE THE KNOTS...ONE DAY AT A TIME

I came across this article in Joyce Meyers website and i just had to share it. Especially because i can identify with what shes saying. Been going through some "knotty" issues and it seemed i was getting "knotted" by the knots in my life. Reading this gave me a peace within and the assurance that its all going to be fine as long as i take it...one day at a time. So i refuse to be overwhelmed by the Knots in my life, I refuse to get tired of untangling them, i refuse to allow them tangle me and I choose Peace, Love and Joy in the Holy Spirit.

READ AND BE LIFTED
By Joyce Meyer

Picture your life as a jumble of shoestrings all tied up in knots, each shoestring a different color. The different shoestrings represent the different elements of your life, such as your family, your job, etc. This jumble of knots could represent many of our lives—with everything all knotted up. Each knot represents a problem, and the process of untangling those knots and straightening out those problems is going to take a bit of time and effort. It took a long time to tie all those knots, and it will take some time to straighten them all out. 

I realize from my own experience that it often seems no progress is being made. You may feel you have so many problems that you are getting absolutely nowhere. However, you must keep in mind that even though you have a long way to go, you have also come a long way. The solution is to thank God for the progress you have made thus far, and trust Him to lead you to eventual healing—one day at a time. 

One of our problems is that in our modern, instantaneous society we tend to jump from one thing to another. We have come to expect everything to be quick and easy. It's difficult for us to have the patience to stick with a problem until we see a breakthrough, and that's why we need God's help. You see, God never gets in a hurry. He never quits or runs out of patience. He will deal with us about one particular thing, and then He will let us rest for a while—but not too long. Soon He will come back and begin to work on something else. He will continue until, one by one, our knots are all untied. 

If it sometimes seems that you're not making any progress, it's because the Lord is untying your knots one at a time. It may be hard, and it may take time, but if you will commit yourself to the process of getting well, sooner or later you will see victory in your life and experience the freedom you have wanted for so long. In some things I experienced freedom in a few months or a year, but there was one area in my life that took fourteen long years to overcome. The important thing to remember is, no matter how long it takes, never give up, and never quit—keep at it. 

Maybe you're standing in the way of your own healing. Have you ever asked yourself, "Do I really want to get well?" Did you know there are people who really don't want to get well? It takes some people years to overcome their problems…and some never do. They don't really want to move past their problems. It seems they've become accustomed to having those problems around, and they're just content to live with them. 

Sometimes people actually get addicted to having problems. It becomes their identity—their life. It defines everything they think, say and do. Their life seems to revolve around their problems. If you have a deep-seated and lingering disorder, you may be tempted to make that the focal point of your life. But I encourage you not to give in to that temptation. If you do, it will try to control your thinking and dominate every conversation you have. Don't let your life be taken over by your problems. 

If you really want to get well, you'll have to stop using your problem as a means of getting attention, sympathy or pity. When I used to complain to my husband, he would tell me, "Joyce, I'm not going to feel sorry for you." 

"I'm not trying to get you to feel sorry for me," I would protest. 

"Yes, you are," he would say. "And I'm not going to do it, because if I do, you will never get over your problems." 

That used to make me so mad I could have beaten him to a pulp. We get angry with those who tell us the truth. And the truth is that before we can get well, we must really want to be well—body, soul and spirit. We must want to get well badly enough that we are willing to hear and accept the truth about our situation. 

Make a vow right now that from this moment on you are not going to waste any more of your valuable time feeling sorry for yourself and wallowing in self-pity over things you cannot change. Promise yourself that you'll stop using your problem as a crutch in your life. Instead, pledge that you will untangle the knots a little at a time, while living each day to the fullest, looking forward to what God has in store for you as you follow Him…one day at a time.

For more helpful articles visit www.joycemeyer.org