My Decision Today

Something just occurred today. It was a bombshell! And I must tell you it caught me off guard. I could have been hurt so much with so many burns on my body. I could have lain on the dirty road of Ketu helpless and pitiable. I could have just been hit by headache so much I couldn't bear with migraine in quick succession. I didn't expect this at all. It was a shocker for me. I love life so much, a very good one, and I can't deny it; I love women-beautiful women. They are gifts from God to this world. I can never imagine how this world will be like without the woman. It can never be complete you know. But as indispensable as they are, coupled with so much power they possess, women can also give you a shocker. I won't really say there have been some women in my life really but let me just say, I have had a little share of women. I love hanging out with them and I love just being with them. They could be good being your friend that you could just walk in to her room and having a wonderful meal. Flatter in the classroom. Laugh and joke with in the office. And sometimes, share deep feelings in your sober time of reflections. But there is something I don't really like about her. She's so full of indecision. I believe everybody, or put in a better way, most people want best for themselves and they know the best for themselves. It's the way a woman plays with a man's emotion when the latter intends to cross from that bridge of friendship into being a lover. She can really be a pain in the butt. A confident, suave and debonair guy can be disturbed with so much perspiration over him. It's just a big bomb and it could easily destroy though not instantly physical. Anyway, a psychological one, it appears at the instance but no doubt it materializes in the physical. It's a big pain and who can bear? I've had my share of this and I'm still having it. I actually had it this morning and I almost fell in the convulsive collapse of a paralytic whose seizures had become unbearable anymore. I told you I love women. Sure I do, but I've always found myself at fix in making a decision of who to talk to. So was my experience with Joke, the neighbour next door. We grew up together and it took me quite a long time into puberty to know how endowed she was. What a luscious red-shaded lips so natural and loving.

Yetunde was not all I wanted for a girl but now, she is many things I wanted for a girl. She was all brain and beauty. But it never went the way I thought it would. It all crumbled when I decided to cross the bridge. There is just something about the bridge. It’s so disturbing.

I usually look at my friends with admiration and wonder at myself with trepidation when I hear about one falling in love with the other girl and both of them having a good time. In wonder, I look at them because I found it amusing, interesting and strange. But with trepidation I look at myself and ask me: Is there anything wrong with you? Have I ever really fallen in love? I don’t think so. Joke told me it was only infatuation. Yetunde didn’t really tell me what it was but definitely, it was no love. It’s something else and I still wait with patience to know what it was. To Toyin, it was LIKE.

My life is full of tests and examinations. In my young life, I’ve been able to surmount some but this one seems so intractable and difficult to solve. I look at myself and I still wonder if ever I’m going to move away from this circle. It’s just so disturbing and it’s not getting interesting at all for me. I’m sick and tired of it. It’s not a small circle anymore. It’s a big circle with towers around it like the twin towers that hold that imposing bridge on the river Thames in London. It’s slippery so, I couldn’t climb through and I have no gloves. How I wish I get a tall iron ladder and maybe, I could climb my way through and take a deep sigh of relief with a sweet savour of freedom that looms beyond.

Funmi is no difference this morning but with a tinge of bile. Her test seems a virgin one but it’s been around though with a new coat it seems. And when the equation came, I stood rooted not like a tree but a student with a mathematical problem staring him right in the face in the exam hall with no sight of any formula in his memory. It’s sad.

I woke up this morning with so much love for life and anxiety with what this day will bring. I should have called her in the night with my mtn free night calls but I was fast asleep with my mind far away in God-knows- where land. When I woke up, I was just anxious and I won’t lie to you man, she was and is so much on my mind. She was in the bathroom and I had to call back. When I did, I was standing at the bus stop in Ketu with sound blasting everywhere. I managed to talk on my rather recalcitrant phone as it wouldn’t concede to the disturbing sound around me. What a sweet voice to relish early in the morning. But it wasn’t long when the reality dawn on me. Why do you want to see me? What do you want to talk about? What is about US? I don’t think there is a US. All came like a torrent and I stood there defenseless and helpless as I was crushed with the sharp missiles hitting at me and piercing into my inner being.

‘But I guess you broke up’, I managed to say. I couldn’t believe she and her ex she once told me walked away and left her in the cold had just come back. Will I ever fall in love? Am I going to really live the Prince Charming sweeping my lady off the red carpet story? I don’t know.

I could’ve walked away again and accept the horse has thrown me down and pissed on me. But I will not accept that again. She’s not going to throw me down this time. I’m going to hold on to the reins and hold it tight. I may not go out with her. It doesn’t even seem probable any longer. But I’ll not renege in my growing love for her. I’ll nurture it till it blossoms so well so I can nestle under it’s ever inviting shadow. I’m not going to blow it up like I did with Yetunde. I’m still going to call her and tell her I still adore her for being her. I’m going to tell her how much she still means to me even if she felt her ex is back and better. I’m going to show her and prove to myself I can love unconditionally. I’m not going to worry about it. I’m going to stay focus so I can love straight. That’s my decision today and for a very long time to come.

What Are Friends For?

“What are friends for?” You must have heard this time without number and I guess you must also have said it once or even more. But in actual fact, not so many people have actually taken time to view the magnanimity of that word 'friend'. To many, 'friend' is that person one is willing and is also willing to share things with in all ramifications. I tell you, this word in itself is simply ambiguous. Mariah, 22yr old and a law undergraduate defined a friend as 'that one who takes one as one is, and treats one as such and who doesn't complain but tries to correct without hurting one's feelings.'

Whatever ways we see this concept called 'friend', it is basically a matter of 'intimacy'. Judith Viorst, a columnist in Redbook Magazine, wrote in her piece: 'Friends, Good Friends, And Such Good Friends', that 'friendships are defined by their level of intimacy'. In appraising these levels of friendship, she classified friendships.

Convenience friends, according to her, are those that we would not have been friends, only for our path that do cross. Now, have you considered the guy next door who likes to discuss sports a lot? Do you call him a friend? Or have you considered the lady you usually ride with in the same bus? May be you should think about the guy you share office with or even the girl you sit with while the Evidence class was on. These people are not really friends in the sense of it. At best, we can only say they are convenient friends. These are people we get to relate with out of convenience and normally, we wouldn't have talked to them only for intermittent 'hellos'. In my view, these type of friends are best called 'acquaintances'

Moreover, she identified Special Interest Friend. This type of friend is not intimate. Their values lie in some interest jointly shared. For example, a course mate, or a shopping mate. Here, it is more of doing things together and not being together. It is based on the meeting of interest between both of the parties. A guy had actually walked up to me after a lecture and asked me to be his friend. He would like to have discussions with me from time to time. It's all as result of a special interest he has in me!

Another level of friendship is Historical Friend. This friend knows a part of us which no other person know, Judith wrote. We might have stayed together in the same compound back in the village, probably attended the same primary school. She knew it when you started growing breast or he was right there in front of you while other boys laughed at you in the dorm when you had your very first wet dream. You guys have really gone along way back in time. She was the first and only one you told the morning after you lost your virginity. This level of friendship is a friend which tie is even stronger than that of siblings sometimes. They are indeed special.

Furthermore, there is Crossroad friend. Like historical friend, our crossroad friend is important for what was. For a friendship we shared at a crucial, now past, time of life. Aritha had gone to the bank to pay the reparation fee but she did not know how to fill the bank slip. Abbey had just walked in and happily, helped her and bingo! they became friends. She will never forget Abbey for saving her of possible embarrassment and he still remembers that as well. They wouldn't have become one if only that there path crossed at the bank hall.

A cross generational friend can be seen as a father-son or mother-daughter relationship and vice versa though not biological. A friend who is old enough to be one's father or young enough to be one's daughter. This type of friendship is just so interesting and it's quite funny how both parties get along. It's simple. The older one enjoys hanging out with the younger to have the youthful side of life which he or she once experienced. And for the younger party, he or she drinks from the pool of the older one's experience

The last of these is Man-Woman friend. Many have asked the question: can the opposite sex just be friends without having a relationship? Yes! I had found this in so many relationships around. For Kunle and Ogo, theirs is a friendship blessed by God. Ogo knows Kunle's flaws so well, and she takes him for that. She shares with him her experiences, joy and love in her relationship and Kunle reciprocates same to her. She is fun to be with, Kunle once said in an unofficial interview between the two. He knows of her boyfriend and she knows his too and those other girls! They love each other's company so much and most times, they have been tagged 'the happiest couples around'. They value each other so much!

In all, however we view friendship, it is all about intimacy. There is the 'medium' friend you tell about few things and that frown on your face is just a headache. To some pretty good friends, you said it's about some stress you're going through and you don't say anything more. However to a very good friend, you tell her you're in a fix as you are on a brink of total collapse as you are already going bankrupt as the bank won't allow you a breathing space for the loan you aren't able to pay. To a very good friend, you pour out your heart and seek for succour and possibly a solution that your heart so much wants because you believe in her and for some time now, you both have been in it together.

Unpredictable

Maybe if i have my laptop now, I could have written many articles. Perhaps one article, a day. But here I am still wishing and hoping. I had better use this: confessing! It's something I will really love to have and I'm not going to quit confessing it! I know I will surely get it real soon!
Lately, I've been thinking about many things, you know; people and situations around me. I'm a very interesting person and I don't need to be told at all. I love life and I'm going to live it to the fullest God-willing. But to tell you truth if it must be told, I do find myself in a culdrum of having people showing me they really love me or to put it right, like having people being the same person I used to think they are. Not good people going bad folks, but my inability or my self-conscious denial that people will not always be the same. People change!

Can you imagine that I was almost in a fix at the law firm where i'm presently on intern over my mentor. How could she turn to be like this? I've questioned myself several times. Maybe she never liked me being here anyway and she refused to tell me this. Although everybody is busy here. Even, Yemisi and Barbara, two lovely people I've ever met in my life could sometimes be and it's hard to see their faces again. So also are others here.

One day, I shared my experience with them about my mentor. "hey!" they both chorused. "hope u are not thinking she's bad or mean anyway?" "people are busy here and u know u can always be the same person because people got so much on their mind so they never get bothered about you!" Yemisi said. What a great relief that was for me. At last, it is not what I thought it was.

Back at home which I shared with a friend of mine and his Auntie's family, he's getting too quiet for my liking these days. But I could have gone on worrying myself. Maybe it wasn't good I came in the first instance or I did something very wrong and he doesn't just want to tell me. But now, I know people are not like you and are in fact unpredictable. Just like French could likely change towards fashion or an artiste, I guess it's just a fad! And that doesn't mean people hate you or they won't have anything of you. NAH! It's never like that. It's just that people've got so much on their minds and they just want that solo time with themselves thinking about their lives and most times, nobody wants to be bothered at all!

Looking at it, I can also be a mule at times, and sometimes when I look at myself, I just thought maybe I'm stupid. I've heard friends complained about this and in fact lost some due to this just because I took the whole stuff too far. So look at it, you could also be in the same shoes. Think about those times you just want to be alone and nobody intruding into your serene ambience. In all, I guess people are just the same. They could be normal today, and before you say 'jack!' they've all gone over and you're just there wondering if you've done anything stupid or so.

I guess people are just unpredictable just as you and I are.

Love or Like

He looks her straight in the eyes. He has been standing there with her for just ten minutes but it looks like they’ve been there for two hours. What am I going to do now? He thought.
“Lolade”, he called her. As if she is a mile apart, she jerks her head up, with a startled “yes!”
“B – But you know I love you,” he continues,
“Come on now Lolade, I love you” She turns around, looks down.
“Look at me, Lolade, you know I love you, come off it!” he gently raises her head up. “Face me and tell me what’s on your mind”.

How can she make him understand? He’s cute, dark and intelligent. He’s such a good friend. But she’ll just love to put it at that. She turns around, sighs
“Wale”, silence, “you know what? I don’t love you. I like you so much and that’s all I want. Please just take that from me”, looks him straight in the eye and turns to walk away.
“I think we should start going, let’s get out of here…”

Do you know that many girls out there love to flirt around really? They want to be kissed on the cheek, sometimes on the lips and they actually love it when guys give them dirty talk. Some wouldn’t mind to stay in a guy’s place till dawn. Some could even give you all the green light you need to see that will make you think you are the one, but really, they’d just love to keep it at that.

Unfortunately, the poor guy thinks he is the bloke. Actually, he is but he doesn’t just have the mind. He’s falling in love! He starts planning things but not without Lolade in mind. While hanging out with the guys for drinks, he is caught up with his imagination, cruising with her on a love boat, or having a sun tan on the beach with her lying beside her in her see-through bikini.
“Come on”, he told his friend one day, “No girl would just hug a guy like that! If there isn’t anything, she wouldn’t give me that kiss!”
“Wait”, he calls out to another one, “last night when I proposed to her again, she looks me straight in the eye, you know this sensual look (gesticulates with his hands), and just kissed me sliding her tongue with mine, but I was just very disturbed that I couldn’t just…”
“But she hugs me too”, the friend calmly said.
“No”, he retorted, “She gives me the full hug, so loving, so passionate. Come on, there’s more to that!”

“But in actual fact, the girl really just doesn’t fell the need to make things formal”, Tosin Anuodo, a part 3 law student of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State, said. But the guy wants the girl to at least say “yes!” with a passionate kiss to follow it. Then that’s where it comes in that to face the real fact, ‘love’ is not ‘like’ but they overlap.

To Funbi Akinwale, a student of the same university, “most girls just don’t want commitment. Girls could generally flirt with guys but that doesn’t mean she loves the guy or will want to end up in a relationship with him”. Maybe she’s just enjoying herself. That means she likes the guy but doesn’t love him. It had better be known to the guys out there that you don’t mistake her friendship and attention to be love. Many ladies would rather let it be kept at that.

If that be the case, don’t you think there is sure a better deal? I think there is! Rather than keeping yourself in commitment that could end up breaking your heart, why not just enjoy yourself in that attention and you may be lucky that the peck could turn to kiss and that could actually lead to something else and nobody is hurt? I bet you do!

She doesn’t want commitment but she wants to play around. No string attached but chemistry could always erupt. She said she just broke up with Jide and Kunle isn’t the right guy for him. She agrees that though you’d make her happy if she goes out with you and you both could always have fun, but she just doesn’t see it happen at all. Then, no problem! It’s just a fair deal! Go around and have a good time. You want her love for a new year. Rather than hate her for punishing your emotions, be happy because it’s one less thing to worry about.

Akin told me about how lovely it felt when she gave her the hug and how she loves making his hands wander on her love buns. I think it’s cool too! Let’s enjoy! Rather than guys been locked up in emotional turmoil, they now know better. “Love” is not “Like” and they can enjoy. I think it’s a good new-year resolution guys. Just enjoy!

It's all about PASSION

There had indeed been calls around that people should live beyond their average. Empower yourself! Don’t settle for less! However, we tend to have left out the place of passion. No wonder so many people do get jobs and live to regret it while some in fact did get out of the job, dejected, simply for one reason, ‘I don’t feel it!’ In many things people do these days, most especially here in Nigeria, there is no passion.

Passion is like the ‘feel’ or ‘feeling’ you have for what you do or are involved in. when there is no passion, depression simply and quickly sets in. In fact, it is the fuel that makes us achieve our dreams. Ready examples are pervasive in our environment. You must have taught about it. I once asked Jude, a friend of mine who was finding law so hard, why? “I don’t feel the course. I never felt it” he replied. “Then what would you be studying if not law?” I asked this time, worried. He replied simply; “Theatre Art”.

Kunle was doing quite well in MTN, one of Nigeria’s biggest telecommunications company. He was an administrator there and earning big. Anyone could have prayed for such and I must confess to you, so many people would have loved to get Kunle’s job. Surprisingly, one fateful morning without any job on the line, Kunle quit! “Are you crazy!?”, “Are you out of your mind!?”, “How do you expect to get another job as good as this!?” Friends, family, and colleagues lashed out at him. “But I haven’t gotten much time for myself folks! I simply don’t feel it!”

It is the truth that most times when it seems like we are just stagnant at a project or whatever we are doing just looks so bleak to us, it is because we don’t have passion for it. “Pete Rose, the legendary baseball player of the Cincinnati Reds, has experienced his share of problems”, wrote John C. Maxwell in his book, 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork, “but he was certainly one of the great catalysts of his sport in the twentieth century.” He was once asked which goes first on a baseball player: his eyes, his legs, or his arm. Rose’s response was telling. He said, “None of these things. It’s when enthusiasm goes that he’s through as a player.” He is not only true of a baseball player, I believe so he is of any person. Enthusiasm is passion!

Ask me about an establishment that blossoms, employs thousands, and makes millions in turnover and I’ll show you people who have passion for what they are doing sitting on its board. Show me a musician who sells a million records a year and I’ll show you a passionate person with a passionate manager who believes in her. This also applies to a relationship. A passionate person makes a better partner and brings out the best in the relationship! As this is also true of teams, I consider some team players.

Michael Jordan as everyone knows him to be a great basketballer and a man of statistics is just so passionate about his game. Ronaldinho once said on Pepsi Football Academy Show that, the only way a footballer can become big is to have passion for the ball. John H. Johnson, founder of the No.1 Black/African American magazine in the world, in his book, “Succeeding Against All Odds”, and wherever he goes extols in great depth ‘passion’. He had a passion for the emancipation of African Americans and founded it in the Ebony magazine. Deola Sagoe saw her passion in fashion and runways and she carved a niche for herself in fashion and took it to a landslide when she, in conjunction with United Nations, organized and held a world fashion parade for charity.

Having no passion for what you are doing is just like being dead at it. Think about it. All over the world, all products are as a result of someone’s passion. Going big names may sound somehow abstract. If twenty – eight year old Ngozi Adichie could write “Purple Hibiscus”, [her first novel] a wonderful piece that sold and got an award to its credit, after studying ‘writing’, then it must be her passion. If Davida could design and make shirts of international standards that compete with the likes of TM Lewin et al and make exquisite lawyers’ gowns and robes, and she is only a Nigerian law graduate, then you must know that it’s her passion.

If you don’t feel what you are doing presently or you find yourself deadlock, then you had better thought it through. It might be because you don’t have the passion for it. Passion energizes you. It makes you forge ahead. It creates a rebirth! Then if you really need go places, I charge you to leave it if you don’t feel it. It is simple. If you need to drop it because you don’t feel it, you had better follow it because in there lies your passion!