A reflection on delaying instant gratification

The many gigs I overlooked

As I was walking around Manchester last night, I realised that Take That was playing at the AO Arena for 4 nights, having been moved from the unfortunate poor launching of the Coop Live venue in Manchester.

When they launched in 1990, I thought the 5 boys were some of the sexiest boys on the scene, I appreciated them more for their ability to dance and bringing such great energy to their performances. In those early years, they played the gay clubs in London and elsewhere. Indeed, Madonna, Kylie Minogue, and Anastacia among others have played at these venues too. Gays were probably their first big fans.

I guess I was not too keen on attending overly crowded venues. The music in Heaven and Bang was also too loud, you could hear and feel your eardrums beating, and it became unbearable after a while.

Fixing the issues happily

However, what came to mind was the memory of how I refused monetary reward for helping fix computer problems which even led to greater appreciation and gifts. In Nigeria, as I worked for IT Systems on the ground floor, there were occasions when Deji Sasegbon Publishers upstairs who were in the race to publish the Nigerian Supreme Court Cases would have an issue and ask for an engineer to visit and resolve it.

I would go up, fix the problem in 5 minutes and be on my way when Deji or D-Shash, as he was known to all, would dip in his pocket to give me 50 Naira, which was a quarter of my salary, I refused the offer, waving it aside that the issue was hardly worth anything. This happened a few times and I think he took my gesture to heart.

I left IT Systems to go into self-employment that everyone around me thought was crazy, yet, I was comfortably earning 10 times my salary from IT Systems, just teaching people about computers and even so, desktop publishing.

The result of delaying gratification

Before long, word got around about this desktop publishing whiz kid and Deji invited me for a conversation about being a desktop publishing consultant for his firm. His offer was broad and generous, not offering employment, flexible hours, attending a few days in the week, guiding, and teaching his team, whilst taking on some projects. The remuneration was a stipend and my ticket to the UK was paid for, whenever I was ready to travel.

The stint got me a few other jobs along with a directorial partnership with a legal firm that veered into desktop publishing from traditional printing, we called the outfit NextStep Limited, and I had 30% of the firm. I made my first visit to the UK in a while under the auspices of our firm to acquire equipment and software for our fledgling firm. Sadly, our venture did not last because my partner was not accustomed to the personality and confidence of a self-assured young man. I got on better with Deji, in all respects.

After returning from my business trip to the UK, I began to plan for my return as I saw opportunities to thrive and succeed, despite the odds and the impressions others had for my lowly academic qualifications despite my rather advanced computing skills.

Free tickets as great reward

In any case, I found myself fixing what in my view were minor computing problems for friends and acquaintances, never taking money from them because I felt those issues were insignificant. This laid up store for other rewards. Two tickets for Micheal Jackson, Earth Wind & Fire, and Bryan Adams, amongst many along with tickets for innumerable West End shows, none of which I could normally afford, but I would receive as gratitude for my help.

Then there were gifts and presents, even offers to spend as long as I wanted at villas by the sea that I never took up because I did not appreciate the value of such gestures. I know better now. It made me reflect on how delaying instant gratification does lay in a store a greater reward from the appreciative and many never forgot to extend that generosity at any opportunity they found to so do.

Life matters more than work

Invariably, while money does matter, it is not everything. It informs why I have preferred working in Europe where we have workers’ rights baked into any contractual agreement including the right to holiday and much more. I appreciate that Americans might earn a lot more for the kind of work I do, but none of them can take up to 10 weeks off a year and still have enough for the enjoyment of a work-life balance that emphasises life helping work be more productive.

Building goodwill helps networking and references that make for the essential connections in work and life. I am thankful that what I have gained from many of these relationships has been worth more than money can buy. Cultivate relationships over remuneration, and the rewards will always follow.

Bowling toffee

Standups at dawn

In the mornings, nature compels a situation over which many would not have any control but to endure as a part of life experience that might be shared with another if the occasion presents. What it represents and it portends can be expressed in various ways not demanding much detail except where one is aiming for some kind of competitive prize.

Be it one where pleasure or excitement replaces the awakening moments of the rising of the sun, there is a lot of warmth and love to live in and embrace. Companionship accords a mystery that can defeat the best of those who can string together words in ways that astound.

To dip and usurp

Yet, at the rising of that star in the east is the rising from slumber and rising to perform as bowls to different deployments can be touched in the course of the day, from what nature frequently demands, to that which nature requires for sustenance and the many sports where bowls and bowling give us a spectacle of nature to revel in.

To the few that are given the gift to know that bowls can be touched like being called to a priesthood of the anointed and endowed, the bats you have been given for the game of life and the way you wield them in winning your games can only be cause for envy even as you can be proud of who you are. You wonder if there are repeating daily rituals that have been missed by the less observant.

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Coronavirus streets in Cape Town - LI

Rich as could be seen

A Bentley coupe was about to turn into the road in front of me and at the steering wheel was a man with the gentility of rich sophistication, he could have used an eau de Cologne of crisp new currency notes, that he might be described as stinking rich.

It was the highly understated art of making a statement, nothing showy, yet to the eye unmistakably posh. To all appearances on his way from one place to another, not in a rush or hurry to get anywhere.

Poor as could be warmed

A man in a wheelchair, just out of the way on a wide pavement minding his own business and a stranger wraps a jacket around him, a gift, from an angel, a present it was, and sounds of gratitude rent the morning air as one good deed brings warmth and a new lesson of our common humanity.

For on these streets, destitution resides like it has been here a long time with title deeds and not leaving anytime soon. For one man crossed the main road to pick up a discarded used face mask which he then puts on, I cannot tell if he had to, to access premises demanding that precautionary measure. I make a mental note to always have spare face masks on my person.

Needs as could be met

A lady gestures to me, mumbling something incomprehensible even as the message of need cannot be misunderstood. I dip in my pocket and produce a high-value note that I hand to her. She bursts into tears. I do not wait to comfort her, but I pray a silent prayer that we all find places to shed the tears of thankfulness.

We live to give blessings, we belong to one another, for the lack in one is a slack that affects all, even the advice that we contribute to charities does not seem to affect or touch the people me meet on our streets seeking a basic handout for food and sustenance. The pretence of a safety net being available to help assuage our sense of guilt and duty is all that, a pretence because if it did go far, we probably would rarely have such encounters.

Bet Lehem in Tuican hom

From the ancient to the authentic

I was in Tuican hom in modern-day Twickenham, the place between two rivers, the Thames and the Crane, or so it was written of a place first recorded in 704 AD and that was a long time ago, just as I was with a friend I had known from way back when my innocence was losing its virtue.

From the many things we did and the memories we shared and then brunch at an authentic Italian restaurant, for many of the patrons, Italian did speak, we made for the station of carriages drawn not by horses and my last bit of hand tissues was left in the hands of a man who by trying to avoid the crowds, slipped and fell into the road, drawing blood from his nose bridge. We worried, but he was fine.

Loafing towards a seat

Passing through the ticket gates and down to the platform where my electric-powered carriage was to arrive in just under 10 minutes, I could almost gambol towards a vacant seat, but there was none as strewn across three seats were what I thought were bags of shopping, but the lady on seeing me made to remove the bags for me to take a seat.

Strangely, the bags were full of loaves of bread, different kinds and shapes, but before I landed a quip to feed my curiosity, she said she had all this bread leftover from tending a Celtic Bakers store at the Twickenham Farmers' Market, all variants of sourdough bread that she could not throw away and she offered us some, for free.

Breaking the bread of blessing

For a moment, we were in a moment of spiritual transfiguration to Bet Leḥem (“House of Bread”) in Hebrew, or Bethlehem as we now know it, the lady a priest with knowledge, wisdom, and revelation of breads like a sommelier, showing us the scriptures of bread afresh and winning us over to a new experience of bread so different and unique.

Even I was caught in the spirit of bread so divine, I was given a loaf and offered more, but there may be others just in need of this sustenance. Another party, a lady too got involved in the conversation between the three of us, she also took a loaf before she asked about a Jewish sweet loaf, and there was one on offer, too big for one to take and so we broke the bread and shared the blessing of life.

Her carriage arrived to take her swiftly off to Windsor where she might even find herself the welcome audience in the court of Elizabeth II, before our own carriage arrived, wherein I bid the priestess farewell not to be taken to taken to my Waterloo, but to emerge at the pleasure gardens of vokzal (Russian) or Vauxhall railway station, today. [BBC: Waterloo and Vauxhall]

We shared bread and broke bread.

The Gift

I have a gift

It dawns on me daily as I write that I have a gift, a great gift like talent put to my care, to tend, to nurture, to grow, to use, to do many things to the glory of my creator.

They call it cognitive dissonance, the idea that we believe what we cannot logically explain, inexplicable but wondrous. Yet all around us nature breathes miracles of order and disorder, my perspective not dimmed that as order prevails over disorder, each day is a blessing to be thankful for.

Unforced expression

I know the power of originality, the spontaneity of inspiration, the presence of flow that comes with each moment I set my fingers to my keyboard with a thought seeded in my mind and growing on my screen as if possessed of something beyond conscious arrangement.

For many a time, I have started with something and ended with something else, the direction like a boat on the water, resting on the rocking of the waves even though a rudder ensures we reach the place, the place called a destination.

The gift comes in the first draft, a rough diamond of a gem, if that draft is lost to the ravages, imperfections or careless use of technology, I am left with signs that a gift has been used but I can never reproduce that original stream of inspiration. My memory only recollects what it believes it has seen rather than what my brain has first processed, it remains a wonder when I read back to myself what I have done.

The talent

Yes, the gift shows up in many of the things I have written, that is because of use, it is not because it has been perfected but because there is a realisation that ability exists. God-given ability.

Then I confessed to a niece as I have confessed to a friend and maybe too many others in one way or the other about this gift. For it is not one that comes for the reason of money, of fame or of glory, for it brings something greater, it brings honour. I have learnt to be grateful for the absence of popular recognition but the abundance of honour from those who know and know it well.

“I am coming to the realisation that somehow I have been blessed with a gift, yet, like the one talent given to that servant, it has been buried for the fear that I might not use as well as I am supposed to.”

Such great honour

Each time I recognise the blessing of the gift I have, I feel like the servant who was given just one talent according to his ability.

I know I am no accomplished author, no distinguished writer, no recognised commentator, I would win no prizes, I would make no lists, but the gift has enduring quality. Buried as it seems to be, the talent has not increased like it increases for many whose talent feeds them, but its value is undiminished.

One talent, used for over 10 years, giving words to deep things of experienced life from the ordinary to the deep, from the joy to the pain, and now, I come into 2014 full of gratitude as I unearth this one talent and pledge not to be fearful and ungrateful, but to find ways to use it better and increase it.

To give voice to the voiceless, to give hope to the hopeless, to encourage those facing defeat, disease, despair, disgrace, debt, denigration, denudement and much else, for I know by experience and observation many of these things have tried to take cornerstones in my life, but have been smashed to smithereens.

As I began writing this, I was listening Steven Furtick of Elevation Church on the New Year’s Eve party and he said, “Count your battles* and consider them blessings.” @stevenfurtick

*The battles that didn't beat you

*The beatings that didn't break you.

This is God

This is beyond counting our blessings, and yes I have had battles, prominent amongst them is my battle with cancer in 2009. I have had many other battles and beyond measure I am blessed above anything I have ever deserved to wake up each morning to new life, to new hope, to new things and new inspiration.

That is grace, that is favour, that is mercy, that is kindness, that is love, and that is God.

Take it or leave it, believe it or not, because Albert Einstein is considered one of the greatest minds that ever lived, soon after he died, his brain was removed by Thomas Stoltz Harvey for analysis. Then, he did not think there was much special about the brain until recent science suggested differently. [NPR]

In the knowledge of 1955 pathology, that gray matter was no different from that which we all have except for what the man who lived in the body that had the brain did with it.

Know your gift

And so, as we realise the gifts bestowed on us, let us know to use them better for application, for usefulness, for increase, for good, for honour, for goodness, for humanity and for the glory of God, whether you believe or not.

The talent you have is useless when there is no life in the body that needs to utilise and express the wonder of the unique and amazing gift you have. Each of us is unique, as you can read from the stories shared on my #YourBlogOnMyBlog Series, 24 to date with 11 stories to go to commemorate my Decade of Blogging.

Blog - To Celebrate My Decade of Blogging

Use your gift

This gift opens doors, as I was made to realise after discussing how I got 35 people out of 44 confirmed interactions to submit blogs from the 9^th of December to Christmas Day inclusive.

This without as much as a strict deadline but through sheer persuasion with the greatest latitude given them to write anything that takes their fancy. I am blessed, and I am thankful, full of gratitude the gift has not given me enough words to express yet.

You have a story, you have a gift, you are talented, let it shine. That is my resolution for 2014, to be as expressive as I can ever be of this amazing gift and bring increase to the talent placed in my care. My responsibility can no more be left to others to wonder why it is being wasted or being left unused. Think on this.

Happy New Year, Happy 2014.

Thought Picnic: The things I cherish of friends now departed

Things sorted

As I gathered the things I could take away in the weekend past, two things became stuff I could not part with.

In my move, I cannot afford to recollect the things I have parted with, memories of work I have done decades ago, some documents that chart my history to times that have long gone into the recesses, too many.

The oldest document I found was my hospital card from as far back as in the 1960s, I kept that, then pictures, and I fear that some despite those I kept might have been lost forever and much else.

That was Dick

Beyond those, was a card with a name and a telephone number, I was in Paris in 1996 and we met, became friends and he was more than a helper when I first moved to the Netherlands, as he helped me settle in then offered much help over the years as I settled in the Netherlands.

The last time I saw him, he came to visit me just 5 days after I left hospital, we were to go for dinner, but I had no strength for that activity, we had tea at my home and talked. If I had the strength, I would have been there to attend the day he defended his PhD.

Friends said, they could see and hear his strength fade as he gave a spirited performance; he had phoned me a few weeks before that he was about to undergo treatment for a type of lymphoma that I did not ascertain in our conversation. We apparently shared the same oncologist and consultant.

Twelve days after that defence, he died just 8 days short of his 58^th birthday, the card on which he wrote his details on the first day of our meeting will remain with me.

When I was a midwife

My uncle visiting me years ago just could not understand why I had so many towels, it is not like I determined to have that many but I did. After much talk about it, I found what would take that off his mind completely, I told him I was a closet midwife, the effect was immediate, funny and terminal – not another word was mentioned about the towels again.

However, there was one nicely embroidered towel that was given to me as a Christmas present and it could well have been a birthday present to.

We met attending the same church over 10 years ago; by amazing coincidence, she shared the same birthday with her wonderful husband and that was my birthday which we shared with another also wonderful lady.

A gift from Marie

I have an affinity for the colour blue and this particularly shade of blue formed the embroidery of a windmill and my name on a white towel; it was such a beautifully personalised gift to cherish.

Sadly, a few years ago, I heard after it had happened that she was ill with cancer and had died two weeks before. The towel, I kept in fond memory of a lady whose kindness, patience, love and concern was a great example to me even when I drifted away.

They remembered the birthday we shared fondly and kept contact but more still, the good they brought into my life cannot be quantified.

Death can only take people away; it does not have the power to take away the memories of how they touched our lives.

Thought Picnic: We cry in the eyes of goodness

A friend in the way

For probably 5 or 6 years he has stood at the entrance of the supermarket on the ground floor of my apartment block, sometimes dishevelled but with an easy disposition, friendly and amiably from the first time I saw him my heart just melted.

He sells magazines apparently priced to help the homeless, I have never really seen anyone buy a magazine off him, but he stands, greets and never begs or forces his wares on passers-by – on occasion someone has struck up a conversation with him.

Pass the Dutchie

The magazines are in Dutch and my grasp of Dutch is elevated to the level of Double-Dutch such that I could well read most of what I see but never get the context right – Dutch has a way of reusing the same words and ending up with completely different meanings, I am always stumped.

The other day, I wanted a steak, the Dutch menu happily announced kogelbiefstuk – the biefstuk part I got as beef steak but the kogel I know is bullet, as my brain went into overdrive as to how on earth bullets will end up in a beef steak and get presented as food, I dared to give voice to my confusion – how bullets and rump correlate is beyond me – I stopped wasting brain power on it and found that rump and round are used interchangeably for the same kind of steak – so I ordered my rounds of bullet-steak medium-rare and carried on with my life.

Plenty and little

In any case, my friend, yes, I will call him friend because I have chatted to him a few times, learnt of his birthday, found out how his circumstances were changing for him to get his place, his hopes, not necessarily desires but he was a man I knew had many needs that selling the magazines will not meet.

In the years of plenty, I easily parted with a €50 note each time I went shopping and saw him, though it did occur to me that for whatever immediate needs he might have, it would have been better to break it down into smaller denominations.

Then years of famine came where even I had very little, there were times when I only had a meal a day and for a person surviving cancer and on medication, it was dire, difficult and hard, but my friend in my heart seemed to still have greater needs than I, he must have noticed that what I parted with was a lot smaller, I sometimes prayed he would not be at the entrance to the supermarket because I had so little and literally nothing to spare, I could not face him with my situation but I believe he understood that if I did have to give, I would definitely share.

An opportunity to share

Today, I visited the supermarket again and he was there, I had not seen him for a while, I warmly greeted him and went about my shopping, I also consciously wanted to give him something even though I do not have that much.

I cannot say how many hours he had spent standing there but I have even in my own life learnt so well that there is someone out there concerned, involved, engaged and empathetic about me, none of which I can explain than to be grateful and thankful that the most desperate situations just seem to have amazing solutions wending their way towards me.

So, I palmed some money to him, we seem to have developed to concealed exchange which was good enough for me and then I told him I am leaving Amsterdam for good - again, maybe he put two and two together, I cannot say but there was a quick expression of two emotions I did not miss, one of sadness as to why I had to leave and one of thankfulness for what we have shared – his voice trembled as he just about stopped himself from crying.

Floods of kindness

He grabbed my hand and shook it very warmly, wishing me well with whatever I go on to do. At the same time, I saw myself in him, in great need, almost desperate, almost destitute but always blessed for the people who cross my path with gifts, grace, favour and much more – I have many a time been lost for words as I have been overwhelmed with amazing goodness from other people.

It is like when I am at my wit’s end I begin to experience a flood of kindness that I am fully aware that nothing I could have done could have created what makes me smile, laugh, cry and give thanks – there is love in this world beyond compare and people who just give, give and give to give hope, to give happiness, to give joy, to give peace and to meet somewhat insurmountable needs.

Today, I learnt anew, the joy of giving and the joy of receiving all at the same time and because of the way some things work I believe that someone somewhere will fill in the gap created by my absence because my friend has an angel just as I do.