Changes

As we go on

We remember

All the times we

Had together

And as our lives change

Come whatever

We will still be

Friends Forever

Graduation (Friends Forever) – Vitamin C

Hey! Remember all the stupid things we did in college? Remember how it felt to just be there with your friends and how it felt to have fun with them. Life is never quite the same after college, people grow apart. Everyone follows a different track. Some travel to other countries. Some land big jobs. Some start businesses. Some land small jobs. Others remain unemployed. Some get children and settle down while others just never seem to be able to have stable relationships.

College friendship doesn’t wither overnight though. It takes time. The first few weeks after campus you tend to keep in touch. You keep tabs on each other. Who has gotten a job and who works in the same town as yourself. Who still dates his college sweetheart and who broke up. Whose father/relative has secured them a job and who is just lucky. All these things seem petty now but they are things that people consider soon after college. A large group of friends will typically meet up in the city in the first weeks of their employment. As time goes by the group grows smaller and smaller until the group is finally so small that it can grow no less.

In a few months most are happily/unhappily employed and are too busy to meet each other except on special occasions. Those who are unemployed are too ashamed to admit it and tend to avoid all but their closest and most trusted friends and family. These are not the only people that avoid others. Forgive me but I have noted with concern that single women with children out of wedlock who for some reason were abandoned by the fathers of their children, tend to avoid people. This is indeed sad as friends provide a support system in this unforgiving world.

In time, we make new friends. These are mainly friends from the workplace or friends that you meet through your profession. Many even find their spouses this way. It’s an interesting and profound experience. One meets people from all walks of life. Suddenly you are cast into a whole new world with beautiful women and successful men all of whom want to hear what you have to say. You join ‘elite’ circles in which you contribute. 

It is therefore no wonder that when you meet your fellow colleagues a few years removed from college you look so different that they hardly recognize you.

Now life has a twisted sense of humour because just when you thought that you were doing so well, that your star could only rise higher, tragedy strikes. You lose a loved one, your business takes a hit or you lose your job. In the blink of an eye, the empire you thought you were building is lost. Life is never quite the same when life changing events such as the ones I have described above befall you. 

In the words of “The Script”, your world literally falls to pieces and you are just falling into an abyss. You stay strong at first; you raise your chin and square your shoulders. You promise yourself that this too shall pass. When the going gets tough, the tough get going – this is how you console yourself. One by one, the days go by. The more that they do, the more you realize that life will never be the same. You realize slowly that just when you thought you understood the rules of the game, the whole game changed and you were left with nothing.

In the case of a business, it becomes harder to secure loans. Banks feel that your assets are not worth the loan that you are applying for and when you do finally get a loan it is at an exorbitant interest rate. You sigh and hope for the best. Life is all about trying right? Life has a funny way of testing you. You get the loan and your customers fail to turn up. The import duty goes up, the local currency depreciates meaning it becomes more expensive to get your stock from abroad and as a result you end up under-stocked, in debt and in desperate need of sales. The worst thing is, when the local currency is weak, everybody feels it not just you. This means that your customers either find alternative goods or cheaper goods. Of course you already bought the stock, if you lower the price then no matter how much you sell you really won’t be able to repay the loan. You leave the prices as they are and you don’t sell anyway. Do you see what I’m saying? 

In the case of unemployment, you go out and look for vacancies and find them. You do your research and carefully craft your cover letter and your resume to match the job requirements. Five months and 60 job applications later you are still unemployed. Life has a funny sense of humour. Some employers feel that you are over qualified even though you are willing to settle for their offer. Other employers argue that you are under-experienced even though your certificates and work experience prove otherwise. Other employers, well who knows what they think. The point is life never turns out how you imagined it. You run out of your savings and now what? Do you move back in with your parents? What if they live in the suburbs or in the village? Are you prepared to give up the city life? Do you even have a choice? 

When you lose a loved one in an accident or through a malady or by some other occurrence, life loses all meaning. All goes dark and no amount of soul searching can fill the void within. It’s like shouting questions into an empty barrel, all you will hear is the sound of your own voice. No one will really understand unless they have been there themselves and even if they have, they can’t share the pain with you. Life becomes like a void. You miss them to the point of madness. You wonder everyday what they would have said about something that you did or didn’t do. You wish that they were there so that you could see their smile or that they would just hug you and say that it would all be ok. They are gone though and all you have is the memory of them.

My life has recently taken such precipitous turns. It has taken time to absorb each blow and to ponder what is still left to do. In my time of need and in my time of humility, I have found that when life changes so abruptly, everyone needs something strong, something changeless in them to wither out the storm. When life goes so deeply out of balance, a counterbalance is needed. For me, that counterbalance is friendship. When all else was lost, those who love me showed their love and dedication without fail. 

In the end, it was what I always treasured that saved me. God, Love & Friendship, these three never fail. If you are reading this and your life recently took a turn for the worse and you wonder if anyone cares, or if God exists or if you will ever be able to have a life and be happy. I pray that you find your center. That changeless core that you can stand on, rely on, hold on to; that amazing foundation that will keep you strong against all odds. 

Viva la Vida!

Hope when the moment comes, you'll say

I, I did it all

I, I did it all

I owned every second that this world could give

I saw so many places the things that I did

With every broken bone, I swear I lived

One Republic - I Lived

In this world, I have often found that people will desist from doing something if they fear that they might fail. However, fear should never rule our lives. If there is anything that I have learnt in living this life, it is that we regret more the things that we didn't do than the things we did. Life is short. 

Steve Jobs once said, You can't connect the dots going forward... Nothing could be more true yet so puzzling. Nobody ever looks back at their lives and remembers the nights with plenty of sleep. Get up, get out! Go live your dreams. Do you want to get to the end of your life with regrets or do you want to come to the end of your life full of tremendous stories of the adventures you made? You will realize in your life that you will look back more fondly on the times that you overcame a difficult situation. 

So take the risk, learn how to swim, how to surf, how to ski, even how to play a musical instrument. Challenge yourself everyday. Find ways to make your ordinary days into extraordinary times. Don't let the world tell you who you are. Both Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein were considered stupid when they were growing up. Let history be the judge. Getting knocked down is a given, getting back up is a choice. Winners are not defined by the number of times that they fall, but the number of times they get back up. You my friend are a winner, not a quitter. Be the kind of person who when he dies, the world will say, 'He lived!' 'He was full of life!' Understand this comrade, Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore - André Gide

Life is either a great adventure or nothing! Said the great author Hellen Keller. We must dare to be true to our inner selves and dare to make our dreams come true, or else our lives are pointless. Death must come to us all, whether rich or poor, sad or happy, young or old, beautiful or ugly. Don't take life so seriously my friend, you won't make it out alive anyway. Ellen Degeneres once said, When you take a risk you learn that there will be times when you succeed and there will be times when you fail, both are equally important. Life is like a coin, there are so many ways that you can spend it, but you can only spend it once.

You must give everything to make your life as beautiful as the dreams that dance in your imagination

- Roman Payne

When Life Seems Meaningless

Lord you feel so far away, a million miles or more it feels today...

I Will Sing – Don Moen

Nothing quite compares to the grief of losing a loved one. It is always unfair and unkind. Death never asks us if it can take one from us. Instead you wake up one morning and your whole world is turned upside-down. What is the point of life if all our loved ones die before us?

I hate that no matter how beautiful, sweet and understanding you are death will still whisk you away from our arms. I hate that no one ever comes back to us once they are gone. I also hate that Good People Die Young!

Why? Why them? Why couldn't they just live to their sunset years? My heart is sad beyond words. As I write this I have lost two close friends in separate incidents. I keep wondering if heaven couldn't wait. I wish that they had some more time with us. To grow old, to have fun, to have kids. We should have met at dinner parties to see how many kids each of us got. To see how far along in life each of us had advanced!

It hurts that we will never have those moments now. They are gone and that is that. So what do we live for?

I wish R.I.P. meant Return If Possible…

Women Working

True wisdom is less presuming than folly. The wise man doubteth often, and changeth his mind; the fool is obstinate, and doubteth not; he knoweth all things but his own ignorance

- Akhenaton

(~1362BC) King of Egypt

There was a time when it was common to see men who built turbines and cars and boats. There was a time that one could only find men fixing a power transformer. It was a time when women were hardly seen in engineering positions or positions that required technical knowledge. It was more common to see them as secretaries, nurses, teachers and house wives. I've got news for you! Things have changed!

I have seen women penetrate and excel in hitherto male-dominated roles. There are more and more women CEOs, more and more women who will fix your car sometimes better than a man will. You doubt me? Google Sheryl Sandberg. Traditionally, there were no women drivers (of PSVs) or women touts - take a walk around town and see. Painting jobs were traditionally reserved for men - perhaps because women never thought to do them? I have seen a group of women re-painting a huge institution. I have seen women becoming brand ambassadors for huge multinational companies. I have seen women, start their own companies and claw their way to success. I thought I had seen it all, when I saw women repairing and constructing a road - professionally.

In recent times, the call for equality at the work place has becoming increasingly louder. It is impossible to ignore it forever. To a man, it might seem that women are dissatisfied and ungrateful for their place in society. A man would be wrong in assuming the latter and right is thinking the former. The reason for this is that some men are ignorant of how women really suffer at the work place. Let me enlighten you.

It is not uncommon to see women earning less than men while performing the same job in the same company. In some countries where labour laws are ignored, it is not uncommon to find a woman retrenched for being pregnant. Of course some companies are crafty about this and often retrench the woman personnel before the pregnancy is too noticeable. With regards to leadership, women are often skipped over for leadership positions. Some companies are progressive while others are not. It is my experience however, that progressive companies that promote gender equality tend to perform better than those that don't.

This is not a threat to men. On the contrary, women are creating a niche for themselves in new industries like the up & coming Social Media industry. Men similarly are distinguishing themselves in jobs traditionally relegated to women. You may have seen men who own, operate and work in Salons. Do women not love them for the job more than their fellow women folk. Traditionally, cooking was considered the province of a woman. Today, more men appear to know how to cook than women. 

In fact, it is strange how men do not seem to mind when they work side by side with women. The issue often comes when men work under women. In some cases men do not mind, especially in the cases that the woman is tom-boyish; however, in the case when a woman is a woman, it is often that men will find it hard to work under her. We are living in a world that is still struggling to change the firmly cast roles of men and women in society. Some changes like gender equality at work are healthy.

Nevertheless, where there are good things to be admired, rotten things are not lacking. I have both male and female role models. My life is filled with positive minded, optimistic and enterprising women and men. It is my personal experience that women who excel in life are women of action rather than whiners. I know ladies that are bank managers, social marketers, account managers for corporate clients, business ladies, public relations experts, administrators at multinational companies. Quite a number of these are single mothers, others are beautiful and ambitious young ladies. I respect these women and will not hear any chatter about them obtaining such positions using dubious means. 

However, there is a crop of women that I heavily dislike. These are the whiners, the complainers - the women who believe that they are special by virtue of being a woman and who believe that men should set them on a pedestal stand. I have met women from all walks of life, and I have found that the most high achieving women do not expect to be handed life on a silver platter - they work for their fortunes. I praise these women. How they spend their wealth is a matter for themselves, I do not care. What I cannot stomach is a woman who blames men for all the problems that women face, who will only work as hard as she needs to keep the job. The younger ones are especially obsessed with social image and a prince charming.  

There is nothing wrong with wanting a prince charming, it is actually quite nice. However, complaining that today's men are not quite up to scratch and that all the good men you meet are married while you yourself are not queen Jasmine is ridiculous! A king needs a queen and you are not a queen by virtue of being born a woman. I raise my cup to all the women in my life who correct me when I stereotype, who through tireless effort have excelled and continue to excel in their careers and in their lives. 

Last Loves are Better than First Loves

The course of true love never did run smooth 

- Shakespeare 

There was a time when love meant being there for someone and taking all the little steps with them. When love meant that you got to go on long walks and spend hours talking, touching and holding hands. A time when if it felt right, you fought for it. Nowadays am not so sure. Many of you may not know this but I did have a blog before this one where I would leave love notes to my lover. I went through a lot and it taught me things that I needed to know. I thought to myself that no one should ever have to suffer so much for love, so I started this blog to help nice guys out there like me. 

The reason that my profile picture is a picture of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie from the movie Mr & Mrs Smith is because though in the movie they were bad for each other - love brought them together. In real life, it was this movie that instigated Brad Pitt's divorce with Jennifer Aniston. If you have not watched the movie then it goes a little like this. Both Angelina and Brad are assassins for rival groups and both are at the top of their game. They are married to each other but they do not know about each others' true employment. They are ordered to kill each other and they do try but instead they end up re-uniting and fighting the good fight together.

I once heard a saying that it is better to be someone's last love than their first love. Now that I am older I know how much this is true. Juliet was NOT Romeo's first love. Nelson Mandela remarried more than once. Richard Branson found fulfillment in his second wife Joan. Joyce Meyer is happier in her second marriage than in her first. The list goes on and on for people - fictitious and real, who find better love after what they thought was going to be forever & always ended. 

It is true that the first cut is the deepest. We love with all our heart, body and soul the first person whom we truly fall in love with but time proves all things. Time is the true test of a relationship. Now I know that some people stick to the ones they love for longer than they should because they hope that things will change. For a time, this is healthy for we all fight in our relationships. Sometimes it is not healthy for us. In matters of the heart, no one can tell you who to love. I can only tell you that happiness is real.

I found happiness when I let go of what I thought was God given, a relationship filled with love and mutual understanding. The kind of relationship that your friends and her friends root for. I am no guru on when it's time to break up but there is something I learnt along the way. If your best is not good enough for someone you love, give it time and if nothing changes then it's time to think of other options.

One Step At A Time

...the waves are calling out my name and laughing at me...

Reminding me of all the times I've tried before and failed,

And the waves keep on telling me time and time again boy you never will, you never will...

But the voice of truth tells me a different story,

the voice of truth says do not be afraid...

I want to tell you a story about a young man who made a difference in life. He was 21 years old, not the brightest student in class but he had a very entrepreneurial spirit. His name was Ricky. Having not qualified for college or higher education, he decided to go into business. His first business never quite took off but it did provide him with valuable input for his second business. His business was primarily selling music records. Originally he would mail music records to a few people then the business began to grow. He began mailing the records to people across the country side and to others even in the city. In time he expanded his operations to other European countries. At the age of 21, he was well on his way to becoming a millionaire. Journalists everywhere wrote about him. He was as happy as could be.

One day he was on his way to deliver music records to another country. At the time Britain tried to promote exports and so after your goods were checked and stamped, you received a certificate and were exempted from some taxes. However, due to lack of a specific document, Ricky was turned back at the border and was not able to enter Belgium. This was a big blow, he had spent a lot of his money to develop these music records, he stood to make monumental losses. Thinking quickly, he discovered that he had a lot of stock which he could sell within Britain and make a bigger profit. He did after all have the paperwork to prove that the stock was destined for a foreign country. He turned back and sold the records. He continued to do this time and again and in the process he made a lot of money. However, he was eventually caught and was arraigned in court. By good fortune he was able to settle the matter out of court and through his aunt's help he was able to put the matter behind him completely. Today that man is Richard Branson, a multibillionaire who owns two islands and over four hundred companies all over the world.

Why did I give you this story? Well it's a new year and I am guessing that you did a few things last year that you really wish you hadn't done. If you did not then good for you. I have been there, where you've made a mistake and you feel like it might define the rest of your life. I know what it is to make a mistake that sets you years back. I know how much it hurts to kiss your plans goodbye and wish to God that things were different. Take heart my brother, you will get through.

Richard Branson was a relatively happy-go-lucky person who believed in bending the rules to get things done, but this event taught him that there is a price to pay for carrying that attitude. It taught him an important lesson that aided him in making bigger decisions in future. He overcame what was perhaps the biggest mistake in his life to go on and become greater than ever. This new year, I know that though the festivities might have been great you still have the same job, live in the same neighbourhood and probably have more responsibilities. 

So you made a mistake or maybe you didn't reach a specific target and it is weighing down on your spirit. Rise up! Rise up I say! Never let your troubles get you down.You are stronger than that, heck you are better than that. Remember that person you never thought you could live without, well look at you all living and stuff. You've got what it takes even if it doesn't seem like it. You've got what it takes even if the whole world discounts you. You've got what it takes because your life is more than just about one mistake or a dozen for that matter. The fact is that no great success was ever achieved without failure. 

Our attitude when we fail should not be that it is over and done. Failure is a necessary stepping stone to achieving our dreams. Till next time I will leave you with the following quote on success;

"Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly"

- Robert F. Kennedy