The atrocity of bloviation in futility

They lower your horizon

I learnt to be wary of people limiting your horizon by their vision of you or your circumstances. They speak with a sense of concern, but it is more for their own benefit than it is for yours. If your fortunes are elsewhere, pursue it with vigour. The apparent patriotism of one even more successful than you at home that does not facilitate the achievement of yours is detrimental to you whichever way you look at it.

My experience with this was on an encounter over 30 years ago with an old schoolmate who had done quite well academically just when I was nursing ambitions of going abroad. He, without hesitation challenged the premise then posited that there was much more in Nigeria for me to exploit and achieve than to apparently escape to The United Kingdom to waste my time.

Let the wind blow through

I did not challenge any of his assertions because it was not necessary, this was someone I had not seen in years who suddenly arrogated to himself a knowledge of my situation and circumstances with the view from his apparently more settled and successful status he could dictate and design my trajectory for life and purpose.

Fleeting moments at times should be fleeting rather than life-changing, the power to make it so remains primarily yours and you should refuse to cede it without a bruising fight where you should emerge to the victor. You are in the market of persuasion, but also, the kind of persuasion that should come with commensurate and effective action.

It is comment without commitment

My friend was not offering to take on any responsibility for facilitation in any direction he was projecting, rather, the inadvertent dampening of my vision which effectively was at play if I allowed it was a vain effort to maintain hierarchies where good advice and mentoring would have given me wings to fly and the wind beneath those wings to soar. You come to realise that just because a path has served someone well, it is not the universal roadmap to success.

Invariably, there will always be people who will thrive and prosper in Nigeria just as there are others who need to exit the country to other lands to find their own path and opportunities that seemed to elude them in Nigeria. Ultimately, neither the stayer nor the leaver is more patriotic, we all have an affinity for Nigeria regardless of how long we have been away and our passion for its peace and prosperity is rarely diminished because whether at home or abroad, we are affected.

Chart your own course and except if the alternate view is ready to invest fully in time and resources to alter that course, it is at best the atrocity of bloviation in futility, do not give it or the person any heed and move on. 

Thought Picnic: It's a life thing

Adjusting horizons

Many people wake up to a day that goes slow, even so, that it is boring. They go to work feeling already exhausted and unexcited about things. This goes through a rinse and repeat with such regularity that the routine becomes the constant refrain.

To another, the day is but a day, one of many of which the least exciting is just one out of otherwise better days and that is how to set our perspective. So, when it was opined that workplace lethargy had not yet set in, the obvious response had to be, “It’s a life thing, not a place thing.”

Today of all days

We would not enjoy everything we do, where we are or how things are done, but we can decide that it does not begin to define our outlook and cloud our prospects. It is not a case of having an unnecessarily sunny disposition predicated on vacuous optimism, drudgery should not make life look like a forgery.

Experience suggests the mindset accounts for most of how we tackle issues, challenges, setbacks, or triumphs. A sense of gratitude regardless of circumstances remains a way to count one’s blessings whilst preventing or avoiding despair. I do not say it is simple, but where you keep your peace when you have nothing good to say or contribute and decline the access to murmuring, grumbling, and complaining.

Look up and look ahead

The battle is in the mind, if things are not going right, do not slip into letting things go wrong. I walk through to a better situation, I have hope even when it seems hopeless, I set expectations to comprehend and complement beyond the extant. Today is the day we have, but life has a bigger timeframe, we make the best of the day and in the scheme of things, one bad day is not the totality of a good life.

Keep living, It’s a life thing, not a place thing.

Thought Picnic: Meditations at my altar to alter me

Addressing my doubts

I sometimes wonder what else I could be doing apart from what I already know to do to get beyond myself and begin to impact others. I can honestly say there is much more I can do than I have ever dared to do.

This is a constant refrain at the back of my mind, the times I feel the wealth of experience can be brought to bear in word, in deed or some other impactful way. I have waited for an opportunity where I should have seized it, my reticence getting the better of me for the fear of being too forward, too eager or too grasping.

What to do now

Yet, I am somewhat dissatisfied with many things and probably filled with angst about some things too. I feel like I need to break through some barriers of expression and engagement to do better than I have tried before.

There is a part of me that rues a time, a time when I think if I knew way back then what I know now, I could have been prepared better for the situation and the circumstances I am in now. I cannot, however, live in some parallel universe of wishing and hoping, I have a reality and a present that I have to breathe, experience the pains and the comforts whilst seeking a resolutory path to still make that difference I have always wanted to make.

A limitless horizon

Invariably, what I did not get to do then does not obviate the usefulness of starting now and going forward with it. It is a turbulence of thoughts, an unease of the mind, the turmoil of the soul and some foreboding that one must arrest before it develops into the incapacitation of fearfulness.

As the clouds hover to darken the day, I must know that the sun still shines beyond them and as the night brings on the dark, the same clouds out of the way reveals the vast beauty of the immeasurably distant universe of twinkling stars and galaxies that boggle the mind. I can daydream with the best; my imagination can wander past the impossible better than a hot knife cuts through butter.

It shall pass for the good to come

Hope keeps me alive with the possible, I comfort myself with the assurance of things always changing for the better, for that has been the journey and the milestones too numerous to count.

The circle is round and the cycle does turn, in penury, in providence and in provision, the inexhaustible blessing of sight beyond the seen, hearing beyond the heard, reaching beyond the grasp, imagining beyond the imaginable and excelling beyond the targets sets me up for new experiences.

The storm will exhaust itself; the calm will come and the peace that passes all understanding will settle upon my path to that which I never thought I could either attain or do.