Charity begins at home

As far back as I can remember,the one prayer point I never fail to say each day is,…“Father Lord, bless me and bless the people around me. Also, bless me so that I can be a blessing to everyone around me”. I say this like an anthem, subconsciously.

I school in the University of Nigeria and every now and then, actually everyday, blind, deaf, dumb, epileptic, critically ill, basically people with different kinds of illnesses walk into our classrooms to solicit for financial aid. It isn’t uncommon to us. We have gotten accustomed to it.

For me, I’ve been on this campus since 2012 and I believe I’ve become familiar with a couple of faces.

Being on campus for this long, I’ve come across some of these people whom I’ve seen before, perhaps in 2015 and they come in and repeat the same stories, atimes with the same photographs (in cases like victims who were set ablaze). This made me wonder if they were making these stories up.

For some time I decided I wouldn’t help the familiar ones and other times I gave reluctantly. I was really skeptical about the whole situation.

Fast forward to a few months ago, I was in deep thought, wondering when God would bless me financially to be able to help others and then a thought was laid in my heart. “Everyday you have more than enough money in your purse to last you the whole day, that extra 500 or 1000naira can put a huge smile on someone’s face”.

It isn’t our duty to decipher if someone is telling us the truth or not. If you are in a position to help, give freely. Give with a cheerful heart.

You want 1 million? Who have you helped with the 1000 you have? Charity, they say, begins at home.

P.S. Home in this context means your immediate surrounding,

Love and light,

Pinkhy

 

Confessions of a Recovering social media addict

I quit instagram on December 31st ,2016.

• Reason: All i did was “like” pictures every other minute and i spent a better half of my day on it. I wasn’t really gaining anything.
• My masterplan: To quit till I was able to control the number of hours I spent on instagram. (Btw…this was probably the worst plan ever…wanna know why? Keep reading)

Why was the plan a bad idea? : Instagram wasn’t eating up my time anymore, so i found something else to obsess over..>Snapchat. The same routine of always checking the application continued. You’d think at this point I’d realise that quitting wasn’t going to solve this addiction. Well, I didn’t realise this. So yet again, I quit Snapchat in August, 2017.

At this point I want you to guess what happened next..

I decided to go back on Facebook. I joined facebook in 2012 and quit in 2014. I’ve never really been into facebook so I thought there’s absolutely no way I’m going to get addicted. Well, I didn’t obsess over it for the first few months. But the addiction slowly crept in.

Photocredit:burningrivercheonicles

Epiphany: I had a random conversation with an acquaintance and I remember him saying that socail media wasn’t the problem rather, it was my inability to control myself.

Photo credit: github

Solution In progress: I’ve realised that being idle pushes me to go online. Hence, over the past few months, I’ve tried to be time-conscious and practice productivity a lot more. It’s safe to say that my recovery is going well.

Quitting is never the solution. We’re all just trying to evolve and be better versions of ourselves. The solution to most of our problems lies in identifying why the problem is there in the first place.

Till next time,

Pinkhy

New year resolutions Versus goals

Its less than 48 hours into 2018 and of course I’m pretty excited. For me, one of the best parts of a new year is making my resolutions just like the rest of the world. Unfortunately, by April I’ve usually forgotten what my resolutions are. I feel resolutions are too safe. Most times wheb you don’t achieve them (assuming you even remember what they were), you’re still chill about it. They aren’t authoritative.

After I noticed how laidback I was about resolutions, I decided to switch things up.  So in 2017, I decided to ditch making resolutions and i set goals. I wrote them out and allocated to frames to each one. I was a precise about each one.

For the outcome; I achieved a major part of my goals within the last few months of the year. I had a lot I pitfalls and setbacks along the way but overall, I made progress.

Without further ado, setting goals wins. Now, setting goals I pretty easy but the key to achieving it is: you gotta be very precise. What is your game plan for 2018? What exactly do you want to achieve? When do you want to achieve it? Is it even possible to achieve this? You have to answer all those questions.

Using two examples;

Normally I would write: Gain weight before the end of 2016. This is a very wrong approach because I wouldn’t achieve it. I might an up gaining too much.

The proper way: Gain 10kg before June. In reality, I don’t really need to gain 10kg before June, but having it at the back of my head makes me get closer to my ideal weight.

Another example;

Normally I would write: I want to write more articles this year. This is so vain. Its empty.

Instead write: I want to write 96 articles this year, 8 each month and twice a week. This I very attainable and realistic depending on your schedule.

Bottomline is: know yourself. Know how far you can stretch yourself. Set realistic goals and be very specific.

I hope you achieve your goals this new year and i wish you an amazing year ahead.

xx,

Pinkhy

 

 

A red-letter Sunday

Growing up, i always looked forward to Sundays so i could put on my favorite clothes and sing with the choir.There was also the 3 pm Sunday school service. It gave me so much joy.

I have to confess…i haven’t been to church for some time now. In my head, i had a little disagreement with God but we’re good now.

A friend of mine recently had a near-death experience and decided to rededicate her love and life. So, its 22nd October and the time is 8 am. Service is by 9 am and i’m just waking up. Bummer! I feel overwhelmed already. I hurriedly shower and put on some make-up(in 5 minutes, can you beat that?) and rush to church. On getting to church around 10, i see my fellow late-comers, and instantly felt slight joy, just for a little moment before the feeling of guilt took over but hey, i showed up, which is all that matters.

As i watched the congregation recite their anthem and other Catholic creeds that i know nothing of, i realize how selfish I’ve been towards God. I see people on wheelchairs happily singing with much enthusiasm. That very moment was the epiphany. Everything became clear to me.

It’s time for us to flit or dance to the altar. I don’t think anyone danced though. It was more of catwalking but we were all smiling. The Priest says a little prayer and sprays the Holy water (i’m guessing, i’m really not sure of what he sprayed). We make the sign of the Cross and march back to our seats while people stare. Why do people stare?

Here’s why this day is of great importance to me:

I realized(for the 100th time) how amazing my life has been and still is. No sickness in a couple of years. Food to eat every single day. Legs to walk. Eyes to take in all the beautiful and ugly scenery and lots more.

Look around. There’s something to be grateful for. What are you grateful for? Share with me in the comment section. Don’t forget to like and follow and stay connected.