Ideas-for-Life

Today is UNICEF’s Day of the African Child. Spare a thought for so-called child-witches, preventable deaths, poor quality education and child trafficking.

We might learn a thing or two from Majora Carter’s approach to tackling environmental degradation issues in the South Bronx. Video’s HERE

I identified a few key things that I need to work on in my life to improve on myself majorly. The prioritized list I will be working off is below: Develop a reading schedule: financial, self motivation, self esteem, writing and career related books. Schedule times for laptop gaming, internet and other non essential activites. Build a plan for improving my life in the categories of Al Mohler’s excellent piece - The Marks of Real Manhood. Develop a plan for regular bible study and prayer, determine a time and stick to it Document my peculiar sin vulnerabilities: identify the triggers and fight for the life of me! Identify two mentors - one in the workplace and one for my personal life. Set up weekly teleconferences or meetings as appropriate. De-clutter my life. Reassess all my people connections and downsize to a manageable number. Complete my MSc, identify critical modules I will require in the work place and read up on them before I get to resume work. Get a complete physical exam done. Identify any potential health vulnerabilities and ensure they are in line for focused attention. Maintain my weight - can’t afford to increase health risk levels by bulking up. Develop mechanisms for tracking and assessing need before expenditure. Consider adding a need assessment module to my excel tracking sheet. Read up on investment opportunities in Nigeria. Develop mechanisms for assessing investments and prioritizing them for action. Identify worthy causes and get plugged into a couple. Hopefully, I will be able to state categorically at the end of the year that I have worked through the list.. I then shall measure effectiveness and decide which new directions I need to chase!

Apparently an awe inspiring 90% of Nigerians are religious. Statistics like these make the likes of Richard Dawkins claim that religion is the root of all evil. Dinesh D’Souza, Ravi Zacharias the UCCF, and a whole lot of other resources exist specifically to discuss the pros and cons of the subtle nuances of the arguments around Drawinism vs Intelligent Design and Theism vs Atheism vs Agnosticism. It is instructive to also note that atheism has not done much better either - the Soviet era is a case in point. ...

I’ve always had a not too complementary view of the intellectual capabilities of most musicians.. But John Legend made a lot of sense in his commencement address at his Alma Mater (The University Of Pennsylvania). I don’t agree explicitly with everything he says especially about blurring the lines between absolutes, but he made sense overall. Enjoy…

Crap happens. God Judges ultimately. But miscreants need to be taught that crime and punishment are different sides of the SAME coin.

Quite an interesting discussion the last post generated. I for one believe that virtual communities have their place, but they should not be allowed to upstage our real life relationships. I’ve made real friends from blogging that I would include in my Top Ten all time friends, but that has come about because at some stage I, or they reached out and made contact beyond what the very open forum of blogging can provide. I’ve tried to summarize the positions you all held and tried to comment.. Enjoy… Farida talked about the opportunity to raise issues and fight injustices via the vehicle of blogging: I agree explicitly with you on that one. The global accessibility that the internet provides makes it a great tool to raise awareness on topical issues – if people get to read it that is. With the level of internet penetration in Nigeria though, I’d be very surprised if blogs do not merely cater to the already intellectually aware. ...

I jumped at the chance to participate in BlogTourSpot’s review of Shane Hipps new book: Flickering Pixels – How Technology Shapes Your Faith for two reasons. I was at a stage where I thought the clutter of technology was squeezing sense out of my normal life, plus I’d get a copy of the book for free. The author’s background is in advertising, which has given him a unique insight into the working of media and how it is changing how we think, which ultimately affects how we share and live out our faith. The book sets out in broad strokes the insidious dangers that the changes media brings to our lives can generate, and by sounding out a clarion call, we can be on the lookout for them and avoid them as they arise. Several key points stand out 1. All Faith is based on communication – either from God to us or between us as adherents, and the way we primarily communicate affects our interpretation of our faith. 2. Each more ‘efficient’ means of communication we pick up has a dark side – it increases the propensity to clutter rather than clarify. 3. Media is not neutral – the message we actually get from communicating is both dependent on the message and the medium. 4. Pictures & Images (such as television) hijack our imagination. Words and printed matter however encourage us to generate our own images of the concepts being discussed, as opposed to being fed an image which in reality is one man’s interpretation of the words behind the image. 5. We have slowly become a tribe of individuals – sharing experiences on an unprecedented scale (shared experiences build community, a ‘tribal’ ethos) but yet utilizing the self same tools to build an illusion of closeness whilst in reality, it is only yet another layer of interaction, another screen between the real us and the next person. 6. For Christians, we are both the medium and the message and all other forms of communication should only be to facilitate that primary, face to face communication model, not replace it. ...

1. That a mad man decides to dance naked does not mean that sane men should beat the drums ~ West African proverb. 2.Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. ~ Viktor Frankl 3. Never give in. Never, never, never, never — in nothing, great or small, large or petty — never give in, except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy. ~ Winston Churchill ...

Over the past few days, the transience of life has been brought very forcibly to the forefront of my mind. Maybe it’s the new streak of grey in my beard, or the news of yet another young acquaintance who is no more, or it’s the startling realization that the kids who were born the year I completed undergrad study are all knocking on the door of their teenage years…. The various random thoughts coursing daily through my head have agglomerated around three key concepts - Cogitation, Connection and Contribution. ...