TOO DISCIPLINED TO BE RICH

Discipline is simply the practice of teaching people to obey commands and rules, and personally; my childhood could be described as a synonym. Having a much disciplined father is typical of Nigerians; here they think that it would help in shaping the future of their kids, and one essential part of that training, is teaching them the value of money. And in so doing, they indirectly tell them that money is very hard to get, and could only be got with hard work and nothing else.

I have nothing against hard work; in fact I believe it is necessary for good success. But we should not underestimate working smart too, because it seems to get the job done even better than hard work. 

     Just like a coin, the other side of hard work is the idea imbibed in the kids that: money can only be obtained when you are a workaholic, and most importantly your hard earned money is only used to purchase items you are in need of, but never for enjoying yourself. Well, with all these unwritten laws in place you wonder why a person under favorable conditions of finance would still chose to have a life of penury.

     In conclusion, ill like to say that teaching children about money, especially at their tender age is good work and should be commended. But let them know the line between being discipline and being a miser. So they do not end up getting under paid, and they’ll think that’s how money should be made, just because of a messed up mentality given by their parents, and in the long term they end up too disciplined to rich.     

SUNDAY READ: SEE GOOD IN OTHERS

“…..fix your thoughts on what is true and good and right. Think about things that are pure and lovely, and dwell on the fine and good things in others. Think about all you can praise god for and be glad about.”

Philippians 4:8 (TLB)

There are people who almost never see the good in others. They are known to always dwell on the shortcomings they perceive in others. Even when others make good remarks about someone they would most likely have something negative to add to it. For instance if someone is complimented on her dressing, a negative person will be like, “yea the dress is pretty but that girl is fat”. Frustrated people can’t see the good in others especially because they can’t see the good in themselves; and so, they often criticize and pick on others.

People who act like this must come to the realization that such negative attitude exhibited can only entrench them deeper in the mud of misery. However our theme verse counsels us to “see the good in others”. This is actually important because appreciating others is not about making them happy, rather it’s about building a strong positive character.

Seeing the good in other people is a challenging pursuit, but well worth the effort.Basic social skills like smiling and maintaining eye contact will help.But to truly succeed here you should start noticing the positive intentions underlying peoples’ actions and forgive them for these actions.The fastest way to do this is to take advantage of your reticular activating system and look for evidence that other people possess good qualities.When you start putting these ideas into practice, you will have a much more positive view of the people around you, and you will notice more of these positive attributes in yourself.

Undoubtedly, you will be far happier because of your efforts.

ARGUEMENT

According to Friedrich Nietzsche, “he who cannot put his thought on ice should not enter into the heat of dispute”. Before I start I just want to state that some people are just not cut out for arguments.

While we are social beings and want close relationships, we are also hard wired for survival. Biologically speaking, when we feel threatened we often resort to one of three reflex-like actions in order to protect ourselves from further hurt; fight flight and freeze. Depending on the situation our brains try to determine the most likely outcome of a crisis and assesses if there is enough time to escape, sufficient strength to fight/win or if playing dead is the best strategy to survive.

These actions are not rationally chosen since the brain is forced to almost as a result of external stimuli to fire instantly. No wonder sometimes you throw a reply and almost immediately you realize how stupid you just sounded, so instead of backing down you just go on trying to cover your tracks, some people are honest or should I say humble enough to just accept and shut the hell up.

So now we know the psychological reasons for arguments, lets comedown to the level we relate best on. There is this one guy I know, boy o boy(smh) this guy is just an anti-xavier, like errm an agent from the deepest parts of hell, I mean if I should even say “hey look a green grass” he’ll be like “dude that grass is not green !”. Some people just relish arguments and worse still most of them still loose. And then there are those that always want to turn every argument into a fist fight, don’t blame them though its only human to resort to where your strength lies, so if you have less brains and more muscle, I completely understand.

Arguments especially among young people is good when done within the bounds of sanity and purpose.it is helpful to both the right and wrong person, it’s the simple reason schools organize debates. To help build confidence in both speech and character. But we all know that the real arguments do not happen in debates, it’s among friends but this needs proper approach and execution.

In relationships, arguments come up but when not handled properly can cause frictions and by “properly handled” it can also mean times you just weakly back out without fighting. So here is a list of simple rules that I follow when arguing;

1. Laugh at all the facts they present .

2. Look for one wrong grammar in their sentence and keep attacking them with it.

3. Attack their physical looks and appearance and call the person names.

4. Claim all their source of data is unreliable and fake my own.

 lol, don’t, what I do try this .

Here is the set of rules I would recommend

1.       Play fair, no name calling.

2.       Don’t change topics or digress.

3.       Don’t get emotional, control your anger and don’t get all “puppy faced” It makes me feel blah blah blah.

4.       Know when to stop.

SARCASM

One of my favorite yet is by Sheldon from the big bang theory soap; “oh no no I’m listening, it just takes me a while to process so much stupid all at once.”  I remember once asking my dad where to keep a live chicken he just bought, I was little then. He looked at me calmly and said “oh, you can put it on my head”  I was confused as hell. According to the urban dictionary, sarcasm is a tongue of which the user speaks of something completely the opposite of what the user means. It often has the best comedic value. Whether it is correct to label it evil or okay is totally your choice, all I’ll do is show the pros and cons.

If you don’t want to be seen as a pessimist, always negative, then you best ditch the sarcastic attitude. People who often use sarcasm are mostly perceived to be funny by people who are not the subject of the statement at that moment but generally thought to be cynics. But on the other hand it is very efficient in drawing attention to stupidity and officiousness, thereby making stupid and officious people and potential to be stupid or officious in the future to be more self-aware. More like making stupid people aware of their stupidity so as not to repeat it again and as a warning to those who may also fall victims to think again.,

Sarcasm is basically mean. The element of humor takes the edge off, but sarcasm is often used to veil truly hurtful criticism. But, you have to admit, it takes some real brain power to put together some sarcastic lines. And the more you do it the better you get at it. In essence, it makes you smarter with speech in a way, errm better still it makes you creative(with words), because sarcasm itself is only as strong as the person who uses it.

Sarcasm most times is a defense mechanism. Indicating a weakness of some sort. It’s also a means to judging others, but is it really necessary to belittle others just to make you feel better? Although you have to agree with me that some of the actions and statements people make do deserve a sarcastic answer. He saw me waiting to board the elevator and asks, “are you going up to your office?” “oh no, I’m waiting for my office to come down and get me.”

Apart from being one of the most hilarious forms of humor, sarcasm can also be used to let of pent up steam, with less barking and hurting, that’s when it is done less often. Sarcastic comments can hide criticisms far too aggressive to be spoken, but if you can’t bring yourself to say it plainly, it only makes you a coward.

If you have any thoughts concerning the issue, feel free to share in the comment box.

ZOELOGY

SERIES: THY KINGDOM COME SERIES

EPISODE: WHY DID HE COME

OK, first of…let me say most of the things you’ll be reading in this series will break and contradict many religious beliefs, viewers discretion is discouraged though..

Now Why did Jesus come to the earth? The popular answer is, He came so that we can go to Heaven, is this answer correct, hmmm….capital letter NO.

You’re like c’mon dude what are you saying, hey before you conclude, read on.

JOHN 10:10

The thief cometh not but to steal and to kill and to destroy. I AM COME THAT THEY MAY HAVE LIFE AND THEY MIGHT HAVE IT ABUNDANTLY.

From this popularly quoted verse why did he come? Need more proofs?

JOHN 3:16, let’s read it together I know you know it well

1, 2, 3, go…

For God so loved the World that He gave His only begotten Son, that WHOSOEVER BELIEVETH on him should not perish but HAVE EVERLASTING LIFE.

From this passage, why was He sent to earth?

To give life, in John 10:10, he said l came not to take from you, not to take you to but to give to you, John 3:16 said he was sent to give a kind of life…hope you know after the rapture and tribulation we are still coming back to the earth for a millennia reign…ops…you never knew that were John said those that overcome will be given a star each and made rulers here on earth, Man was created to have dominion on earth not Heaven, gosh…this will be for another day, let’s get back to what l was saying.

The life that He came to give is known as everlasting life or eternal life (ZOE). There are 4 types of life, 2 are common BIOS and ZOE, bios is physical but He came to give ZOE.

NOW READ THIS, IT TOOK ME A VERY LONG TIME TO COMPREHEND AND I’M YET TO FULLY COMPREHEND.

Eternal life IS NOT the life you will have when you get to Heaven, it is the life you get at the new birth experience…(got born again)…how do you know this?

1 John 5:11

And this is the record, that God HATH GIVEN US ETERNAL LIFE AND THIS LIFE IS IN HIS SON.

Note he hath given us no he will give us…jump to verse 13

13

These things have I written unto you that believeth on the name of the son of God; that ye may know that YE HAVE ETERNAL LIFE.

If you jump to verse 20, it shows us how an understanding of this activates that life, this were the kinds of things that people like late Idahosa and E. W. Kenyon, etc knew that made their physical bodies bullet resistant, an understanding that he died to activate eternal life in me.

So for those that think he died to make us escape to Heaven if it were so, the day you got born again you would have died… so we have a lot of folks playing with sin and despise him saying when l’m near death l will just repent, oww…you think He is a puppet.

I won’t go into how to walk in the reality of eternal life in this series, l only want to establish basic bible truths in this series.

So today we treated why did he come?

Next time, we’ll consider why did He die?

You might find these things difficult to swallow, these are hidden truths been revealed by the Spirit of God from the Word of God, at least believe the Word quoted.

So after why did he die, we’ll do a real series on THE ETERNAL STRATEGY OF GOD.

PLEASE SHARE THESE POSTS AS THEY COME, THEY WILL BE RELIGION KILLLING BUT LIFE GIVING IN JESUS NAME…God bless  

RELIGION

Religion teaches us how bad we are & tells us to fix our flesh, instead of who we truly are in Christ!

Religion tells us this is the way to follow to get to God only for you to walk that path and end in the ditch, but Jesus says I'm the way.

We have tried so hard to please God but He says all I require is faith, that is why I hate religion and love Christ.
so next time when you talk to peeps or get on that pulpit, do not waste time speaking on your own experience but rather speak on His finished work on the Cross, cos it's not about you, it's about HIM.
People are tired of hearing what they are doing wrong! They know that already! They want to know "HOW DO I CHANGE?" 

You cannot change yourself! Only knowing your TRUE IDENTITY in Christ can change you!!!

DEALING WITH SNORING

Just because she’s pretty doesn't mean she doesn't snore and just because he’s big and has a pot belly doesn't mean he does either. Now according to science just about everyone snores occasionally, at varying magnitudes (FYI; i do not snore, like at all, the magnitude for me is completely zero!). But this article is not just for those that snore.Even if you don’t, you may know someone who does. So what causes it? Does it have serious or any effect at all? Can it be cured? How do you manage a roommate or partner that snores?

The first step to solving any problem is to accept it exists, some people just will never admit that they do snore. They’ll argue and give plenty excuses rationalizing the sounds they make while asleep. So how exactly does snoring occur? It happens when you can’t move air freely through your nose and mouth during sleep. Often caused by the narrowing of your airway, poor sleep posture or people that have too much throat and nasal tissue or “floppy” tissue that is more prone to vibrate. Age is also a contributing factor because as you grow older, your throat becomes narrower. Gender is also a contributing factor, since men have a narrower air passage they are more likely to snore, obese people (more likely to have floppy tissues), position of the tongue,alcoholism (increases muscle relaxation and thus encourages snoring), nasal problems like catarrh that tend to block air passage and finally to some extent it can be hereditary(trust me,I've seen this before, a whole family that snores; at night it’s like a group of frog choristers singing in harmony).

It goes without saying that snoring does have serious effects. Snoring can lead to poor sleep and daytime fatigue, irritability and increased health problems. But the biggest problem of all is the effect it has on people around, especially when it is in a relationship. So he/she snores, what do you do? My advice; kill the person in his sleep, lol just kidding just kidding. First, do not use any harsh words and don’t “stick it to him/her”. The best way to talk about it is with humor and firmness, say it playfully but be sure to send a message and don’t tease too much, you don’t want your good intentions to be misinterpreted. And what do you do or how do you handle complaints about your snoring. First, don’t take it too personally; do not see it as an attack. Don’t be unserious about it either and show a genuine interest in finding a solution.

There are plenty proven techniques to eliminate snoring but first, you have to know what causes your snoring because not all techniques work for everyone and every case. Also note how you snore as they also indicate different problems.

*closed mouth snoring may indicate a problem with your tongue.

*open moth snoring may be due to throat tissues.

*snoring while sleeping in a particular position may indicate that your sleeping position is the cause.

*snoring in all positions may indicate that your case is more severe and requires comprehensive treatment.

Some physical changes can help simple cases of snoring; Lose weight, exercise, quit smoking and alcohol, establish regular sleeping pattern, clear nasal passage, keep bedroom air moist. There are also medical cures and treatments too; an ENT(ear nose and throat), surgery such as thermal ablation platoplasty(TAP), there are also new developments such as laser assisted uvuloplatoplasty(LAUP). But seeking medical help especially surgery is only necessary when the above listed lifestyle changes prove abortive or if the diagnosed cause cannot be fixed by simple physiotherapy or lifestyle changes.  

VIRTUAL LIVING

Hello there, how you doing today? I’m Damien, Damienchucks. I’m on Facebook, instagram, whatsapp, palm chat, bbm, and you can follow me on twitter @daymeyan. I know you probably think I’m too much into texting and social media but you won’t believe the ton of good things I get from these social networking. I get to keep in touch with friends at low cost and very conveniently at that, I know every single thing that’s trending right now. I’m up to date about everything. I get news from everywhere while they’re still hot. Don’t need to wait for the evening news to know, cause I have friends everywhere and I also “liked” news pages on Facebook. I’ve also met a lot of people from almost every part of this country, hehe talk about national integration. The wide reach also gives me avenue to put out some of my issues and get a lot of ideas on how to handle it, in fact I want to say God bless mark zuckerberg and all other social media and texting entrepreneurs out there.

Dr Philip, a lecturer in my school goes on about how texting is causing students to lose focus on school work and making us dumber; what does he know? If he only knew how many times I made it to his class because someone texted me about it or the one time the class rep notified us about the change of lecture venue via the class Facebook group. He even wants us to believe it affects our spelling and sentence. Does that man know I’ve been spelling since I was 7yrs old? Although I noticed I spell some words wrongly these days, but common no one is above mistakes, although there was that time I used “2” in place of “to” in a test, another mistake.

 I only have two real friends and even when we meet, we talk for 5mins and text the rest of the time. It’s not because of social Medias; I’m just an introvert that’s all. Mom thinks it’s not healthy, she thinks I’m out of touch with the real world. She doesn’t understand, I’ve met these people one on one on Skype; saw their faces and talked to them and they’re mostly nice people. Although on Facebook I have 750 friends and I have about 400 people following me on twitter right now and that number can go up if you follow me too. Hahaha, so what? I’m an extrovert online and an introvert in reality, ClarkKent was loved for his double personality wasn’t he?

Daniel is my friend and he really likes Kate. I really don’t understand those two though cause their conversation online goes something like; Daniel: hello dear, Kate:hi handsome. And then they go on to chat for at least 2hours. But when they meet in class he’s too shy to let out a “good afternoon” and even when he does say it, the conversation is over even before it starts.

Guess what? I’m also born again now. Gave my life to Christ online when I read a broadcast sent to me by a friend. It was really touching and convincing, felt the touch of God if I should say so myself. The broadcast also made it clear that if I didn’t share the message as well, I’d die by a thunder strike but I will get a good grade this semester if I did. Funny though this semester I failed two courses but hey what do I know? Better to fail a course than to be fried by natural electrocution.

I could keep going but there’s too many people pinging me already, we can continue this conversation though all you need do is just add me up on palm chat and I can retype everything I just did in one sentence…..##big grin##

APPETITE

“Fasting is an act of homage to the majesty of appetite”     -Laurie lee

She was not referring to fasting in the religious sense of the word, she meant fasting literally. This implies that we can or should sometimes give up some pleasures; food, friends, lovers, and the likes in other to preserve their intensity. Sometimes we value less the most priceless things we have. We tend to value food when we’re starved, a guy once said if you want to know how sweet water is, try not drinking it for a whole day. We tend to value family more when we are far from them or get to see them only once in a while. I have some cousins I haven’t seen in a while now, I miss them but when I was with them for some years I never knew to value their worth. Being starved of their presence have preserved as stated earlier, “the intensity”.

Too much of anything; music, entertainment, happy snacks or time spent with friends, creates a kind of impotence of living, by which one can no longer hear or taste or see or even remember. Life is short and precious, and appetite is one of its guardians. Loss of appetite is a sort of death. So if we are to enjoy this life then we should respect the divinity of appetite and keep it eager.

So in essence you do not wait for fasting to just show up, u make it happen, you consciously make it happen.

NECESSARY EVIL

You know, some times when I think of it I’m led to think that the powers of good are inferior to that of evil. Stay with me now, let’s reason together. You would agree with me if I should label hate as evil and love as good. Love; We are trained to think of it as though there was nothing worth having without it or that there is nothing worth having which it could not bring with it. Now hate which no man is meant to teach comes on its own. Now it is true that when we say “I love you” it may be received with doubt, there are times that it’s just hard to believe but try the opposite, say I hate you and its received and believed instantly, once and for all. Say I love you after that a thousand times and mean it every time; it will still not wipe out the smug left by the previous proclamation of hate.

Love needs to be learned and perfected over time but hate; it needs no learning period, just waiting to be provoked. So then I ask how is it that a drop of wrong can poison a river of good and yet a hundred buckets of good can do little or nothing to a river of wrong. Lately I’ve been doing some reading in the field of psychology and I go to know that for every emotional feeling, there has to be a counter, a balance. There is no one feeling that does not have a counter and in any case where a person is incapable of having a counter, it becomes an issue. So there is that necessary evil; hate, anger, sadness, defeat, sorrow, and lots more. Even nature knows the rule; earthquakes, tsunamis, flood and the likes of them.

As humans we are superior. Superior intellectually, and with this comes the ability to manage and contain these necessary evils.

IF YOU THINK YOU ARE HAPPY, THINK AGAIN.

I’m perfectly aware of the human nature, that is, the part of it that always wants more but that is not what I am talking about here. Knowing a problem is one huge step to solving it. Depression; especially in most parts of Africa (I’m pretty sure about Nigeria) most people have little or no knowledge about depression and I dare say that even the few that know, are sometimes misguided.

When we hear the word depression we get this image of someone with a gloomy and moody face, anti-social and so on. Fact is that all of us at one point in our lives have been depressed and hid it, some people are just better at hiding it. Hiding behind a smile, a pretty face, humour, the list is endless. And after doing it long enough and well enough, you start convincing even yourself that you are happy when the fact still remains that you are just wearing a façade. Still empty on the inside.

Of all the various forms in which this cancer manifests itself one particular one stands out. Generally we call it a “smiling depression”, countless cases of depressed comedians, models, actors, who end up taking their own life. Running down the numbers, every day an approximate 20 Nigerians take their own life and 50percent of these people do so out of depression, that is 10 people dying of depression every day here in my own country. A more reliable data puts that throughout the world approximately 2000 people die every day by suicide, 1200 of them do so as a result of depression. Check yourself; check your loved ones, because it always seems impossible to happen until it actually does.

 And finally, get close to the man that has paid the price for all life troubles; Jesus.

HIGH ON MARY JANE

Okay you obviously know it as pot, joint, crack, weed, marijuana, cannabis, ganja, hemp, but here I’d like to go with maryjane. You know, even in the US there was a time when weed was completely legal. That is until 1937.  There are good things about weed you know, I mean let that depressed guy take one hit and he’ll be the happiest man on earth, at least for the next few minutes and then he is back to the same deplorable state he was in before he got “high”. But common how many people have died of smoking weed? I hear it even makes you think fast and smart and relieves stress. Ask some very intelligent students, ask some blue collar workers, ask some rappers; just get enough taste of it and you will have endless mad flows from your fingers as you write and your mouth as you spit rhymes like you were in another world entirely.

 Like seriously, didn’t God create weed? I mean he made all things, right? So if you smoke weed you are simply making use of what God created, it’s no big deal. So I guess we should apply this concept to everything God created; child molesters should be allowed to roam free, I mean they are simply making use of children for forced intercourse right? It’s no big deal.

 There are two faces to every high, it is either extremely evil or wonderfully good, and what is good can seem evil and what is evil is excellent at looking good. Which side you want to believe is for you to choose. maryjane lovers may not die of lung disease but they all suffocate on deception.

NOT “HOLY” ENOUGH?

Our doubts about God may take several forms. Firstly we may feel unsure about our relationship with him. We feel unworthy to be called his own, we feel our sins are too much, that although we have asked to be his own he has refused to accept us fully, that our Christianity is just a show off or a rebound after a bad event, and that we are not “holy” enough.

Do you feel like that? If you have suffered some sadness, it is quite possible that you may experience a sense of abandonment, a feeling that he is too far away. Although this may be a rational thought or feeling, you should know today that it is not true.

Secondly we may also doubt that what we believe is true. Suddenly we start to try to logically rationalize our belief in God, doubting the validity of the gospel and its relevance in our world. These thoughts and feelings often clash with long standing belief and understanding about God, his goodness and promises.

We bravely try to keep up our devotional habits as Christians but the secrete doubts and hurts eats us away. These things can happen to any Christian, I know it has happened to me before and here is my recommendation ; first, treat your foundation, clear all religious routines and replace with spiritual devotions and worship that come from your heart, in essence what I mean is, get a personal relationship with God. And finally get enough dose of his word cos that is the bedrock of our faith. Talking about the word of God, here’s one that pulled me out of a bad place once. “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the past nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our lord.” Romans 8:38-39

Happy Sunday y’all.

A BETTER YOU

We live in a fast paced world where new technology, inventions and innovations spring up virtually every week. It has therefore become increasingly important not only to improve on existing skills, but also to learn new ones. People who don’t consciously add value to themselves will soon be unable to contribute meaningfully and compete in today’s world.

There are two sides to adding value to your self. The first is to learn new skills in addition to what you already have. Don’t be comfortable being an expert at just one thing; read, study, research and pay the price of learning new things. The second side is improving on what you already know and are skilful at.

You must constantly improve your mind to think thoughts that produce excellence and stands you out from the crowd. Proverbs 10:14 “lazy hands make a man poor but diligent hands bring wealth.” Finally a little word of my own

Life is never stagnant; you’re either going up or coming down. If you notice that you are not improving then you should know you’re degrading as well.

THE PROMISES OF GOD

In the bible there are 3573 promises to every true Christian. In numbers 23;9 it says that God is not a man that he should lie. He’s always true to his promises. Now remember that these promises are for “true Christians” and I may just add here that standing in a garage doesn’t make you a car and neither does going to church make you a Christian. Being the child of a general in the army doesn’t make you a soldier and neither does being born into a Christian family make you a Christian.

His promises are true we just need to walk right to get them.