Are we there yet?!

      For the last few days, in preparation of securing a job, I have been creating my resume or what you may call curriculum vitae (yeah, it took me this long to create one). As I made fresh inputs to the document using the Microsoft Word software on my notebook (which I also use to write all my articles…Microsoft must pay me for this publicity!), I have had to reminisce a lot about my life in the last seven to ten years. Normally, by virtue of human development, I should be doing the reflection thingy by the time all the hair on my head go grey but as the situation called for it, I had to engage my mind for memories.
      As I went on, I had a certain good feeling in my tummy, like I just hit the jackpot. I felt like I had seen it all and done it all, you should have seen the look on my face. But midway I had to grab a hold of myself and shake myself back to reality. ‘You aren’t even close by’, was what I kept telling myself.
      You see, success may bring a heady feeling of having done it all. A small amount of success can bring great retrogression if not well managed. After a small accomplishment, feel good, celebrate, and dance all you want but don’t settle down, move on. Settling down in a place of accomplishment is an act of self sabotage and self endangerment. It will only inevitably lead to self extinction. You must endeavour not to fall into the trap of staying in your success but to use it as a climbing stone to greater opportunities for accomplishments.
     As a biblical example is the shepherd boy turned king, David, who used his success with tending sheep in his defeat of Goliath. Soliloquize and reminisce about your accomplishments to boost your confidence to take on greater tasks. That is the purpose of success, to spur you on to greater things ahead.
Have a great week ahead in your journey to a beautiful life.
Sincerely yours, Oluwatobi Gbemisola
@TobiGbemisola

After all has been said and done...

Yes! That lifelong “success” dream has finally been realised…the houses built, the cars acquired, the businesses are running fine, the family’s happy and every other thing seems to be going on well…and yet there is still this dissatisfaction, this hunger that is crying out to be met. After all that has been said and done, what is the way forward?

The answer lies in the words impact, contribution, influence and blessing. There is more to life than amassing wealth and achieving a faulted conception of success. Success in its purest form is not only about setting goals and achieving them but also seeing to the welfare of others and helping to put a J on their faces. In every community, society or nation, there are maladies and problems that need to be dealt with and removed, to make the next person’s life better. In a psychology class recently, the lecturer asked us what we were doing here on earth, that is, our reason for existence. I sat and listened to my fellows’ responses. One said to live and die (lol), another said to be fruitful (lol) and finally someone said to be problem solvers (correct!). We are here to make the world better than we met it. Everywhere I look, I see problems and these problems demand solutions which everyone in one way or the other should be concerned about solving, because each person has a passion to deal with them. Thomas Edison didn’t like what he saw as regards electricity and he did something about it. There is something out there that is meant to be solved by none other than you. AIDS, hunger, lack of drinkable water, unpaid school fees, torn uniforms, addictions, malaria, exam malpractice, poor power supply, corruption in governance, roaming mad people…these and many more are the challenges before us. It is time to impact, to contribute, to positively influence and to be a blessing, after all has been said and done.