TIME AND YOU

Time really matters. Matters of time are matters of lives.

Sound understanding and proper alignment is highly required to make the most of time.

Every time has its meaning and purpose.

You cannot do just anything at anytime.

Specific things are meant for specific moments.

What is not done in its time could become impossible thereafter.

Among other factors, when we meet people determines what we can do and achieve together.

Time comprises of the past, present and future.

The past is gone forever and should not be allowed to negate the best of the moment. All you needed to do is to learn from it to always do better and be better.

The present is the most powerful tool needed to shape the future.

The future should be expected, prayed about, prepared for, thankful for, rightly planned, joyfully received and well lived.

Time should be invested and not wasted because it can be lost. Once time is lost, it can never be retrieved. Loss of time is loss of life. Your time is your life.

Time is beyond every creation. It preceded and will exceed existence of all created things and beings. No man/woman created time and no man/woman can control time. The best every man/woman can do is to manage time.

Effective time management is a life skill everyone must cultivate to achieve a life well lived. There is  no great achiever with unquestionable traceable track record that is not an astute time manager. Poorly managed time is poorly managed life.

Whatever you continually give yourself to becomes evident at the long run. Every stage of our lives is very important but our prime is in a class of its own which we should pay keen attention to. How we handle our prime dictates what becomes of our old age. If you want (your life) to count, make your time (and your prime) count. Remember, 'your time is you'.

©️ 03/02/2023
Stephen Olamilekan Jimoh
Advance Everyday
...living life at best

ARISE AND SHINE FOR YOUR NATION TO RISE AND SHINE

Many citizens of backward ridden nations around the world keep looking for well organized and developed countries to migrate/relocate to without understanding that no country has ever advanced beyond contributions of her citizens. 

All the countries that caught your fancy and eagerness to go for vacation or medical tourism or greener pastures or security are made prosperous, peaceful, pleasant, protected and praiseworthy by their patriotic populace. Take a cue from that and give yourself fully to the advancement of your country which begins with having a renewed mind and attitudinal change towards national affairs.

In nation building, mental/attitudinal transformation is very vital because it determines the kind of citizen/leader you becomes and those you allowed to become leaders. The people you supported, nominated, sponsored, campaigned for, voted for and enthroned as leaders is a revelation of the kind of person you are and an exposition of your level of patriotism. Mind you, corrupt, biased, clueless and incompetent citizens ensure their fellow corrupt, biased, clueless and incompetent citizens become their leaders.

Whenever your nation is preparing for the next election, ask yourself the following questions and be sincere to yourself.

1. Who are your preferred candidates at all levels?

2. What do you know about each of them?

3. Why will you vote for them? Are you voting for them because of your love for your country or merely for the love of your candidates (or their political parties, religions, regions, statuses) or because you don't want to waste your vote?

While I leave you to search your heart on those questions, I leave you with this simple but loaded admonishion.

Place your love for your country above your love for your preferred candidates and/or the connection/relationship you shared together. If the only or major reason you are voting for any contestant is just because you love him/her or his/her politcal party or religion or race/tribe/ethnicity or gender or status; you are a major enemy of your fatherland. 

Likewise, do not be caught up in the web of voting for anyone in order not to waste your vote. Virtues like capacity, capability, creativity, commitment, competence and correctness are different from connections, popularity and general acceptance. 

Leadership requires only capable hands. Refusal to vote for a capable and right candidate because he/she is likely to lose (due to the fact that majority of the citizens won't vote for the right candidate) and decision to vote for a wrong candidate because of his/her likelihood to win considering his/her large followers/lovers is the greatest wickedness against any nation by every citizen in question. Why will you have, see and know the very right person for the job yet, opt for the wrong person to get the job? You cannot handover your country to wrong people and expect everything to be alright. Think deeply about it.

For the sake of our children and their children's children till the earth is no more, let us always vote rightly.

©️01/02/2023

Stephen Olamilekan Jimoh

Advance Everyday

...living life at best

"KO TI I LO" (IT'S NOT GONE)

 "KO TI I LO" (IT'S NOT GONE)

Focus on what you should achieve and who you should be in its time. Never ever envision or fantasize with and/or pursue what/who you can/will never be. 

For instance, dreaming/planning to become a professional football star on global stage at age 30 without active participation in the sport from childhood is an impossible pursuit. 

Wake up and do the needful. Yours should not be (like a saying in my mother tongue - Yoruba Language that goes thus): "igba yi ni aro ti arugbo nko igba". That's a statement generally used as a remark when someone embarked on a task/pursuit he/she ought to have done way back and probably it is now too late and/or totally impossible. 

Always live at your best from now forward. Be wise to pour your passion, zeal, energy, resources, faith, prayer, commitment and skill on only what you can still make happen that you should still make happen at every phase/stage of your life.

To everything and everyone you have missed and you can/will never get back because it is too late to do so, "so pe o ti lo" (i.e. "it's gone") and move on at your best. But concerning what you can and you should still achieve, "so pe ko ti i lo" (i.e. "it's not gone") and step on it with everything in you for it not to slip out of your grasp.

©21/01/2023

_Stephen Olamilekan Jimoh

Advance Everyday

...living life at best

#sopeotilo

#sopekotiilo

#focus

#dream

#pursuit

#best

NEVER LOSE YOURSELF

A man was planning to make his side chick his second wife. Knowing that his wife would resist to the last drop of her blood, he decided to bring her in as their new domestics staff. When his wife discovered and couldn't bear it; she took her own life.

Another couple had been married for 6years and had 2children together. It seemed they enjoyed bliss all through until something tragic happened. One day, the husband discovered he was not the biological father of the 2 children. The wife had the children for 2different men right under his roof. When he couldn't handle it anymore, he killed the wife and the children and himself.

Ganiyu was an upcoming fish farmer. With the encouragement he got from the profit of his previous year's harvest sales, he decided to do it bigger the next year so he took bank loan to expand his fish farming business. Having invested so much in the business with bountiful harvest in sight in less than a month to come, there came a heavy downpour that flooded his fish farms resulting to total loss of all his investments. The occurence was unbearable for Ganiyu and he decided to end it all by taking poison.

Susan was unable to secure university admissions for 5 consecutive years. She braced herself up to give it another shot but unfortunately, she was denied admission the 6th time. As a result, she became hostile to everyone including herself and lived a reckless life without getting back on track until she lost her life to drug overdose.

Folake, (just as her name implies); used all of her heart, resources and life to love and care for her fiance. Even when he lost his job and couldn't secure another job for a year, she went to borrow money from friends, family and foes in addition to her personal savings to enable him relocate to another country in search of greener pastures. Both agreed she will join him after one or two years. On getting abroad, the guy gradually reduced his communication with her until he became unreachable for her. Folake felt used, defrauded, jilted and concluded in her heart that all men are scum. That was how she went on a revenge/vengeance spree on innocent men that came her way for a relationship over what only one man did to her and she lost countless angels in men. 

In a bid to become king, Uche lost it by offering bribes, employing violence and killing his major opponent. Though he went uninvestigated and unarrested for his crime because no traces was left and became king but, he lived as a lost soul within himself. 

This issues of losing one's sanity, doing the needless to achieve good things, going haywire and/or committing suicide over relationships or any problem isn't pure 'rara'. 

Every thought and temptation to consider losing your mind, hurting or killing yourself (or someone else) in response to negative realities is a demonic manipulation of the mind to see oneself as worthless and unneeded anymore alive.

Nobody's unfaithfulness and unfairness is worth losing your peace and life over. Loss of anything/anyone isn't strong enough for you to be robbed of soundmind. Without soundmind, there is no soundman.

To lose oneself is not only by death. Once you let negative realities get into you and make common sense evaporated from your brain; you begin to do shit. Though you are alive yet, you have lost yourself within yourself. Just like Folake in the  narration above who didn't kill herself or anyone but developed wrong mindset towards all men and began to exhibit wrong attitudes. 

Avoid anything that can rob you of your confidence, self-esteem and faith that you will finally succeed unlike Susan who gave up and became a shadow of herself due to her inability to secure university admission after series of attempt.

Be visionary and never let go of your valid visions. To lose sight of your essence/purpose, uniqueness and possible best is a collosal loss. 

There is more to life than relationships and marriage.

There is more to life than properties and possessions.

There is more to life than money and opportunities.

There is more to life than positions and power.

There is more to life than status and class.

There is more to life than popularity and fame.

The loss of admissions, jobs, money, contracts, opportunities, properties, possessions, businesses, promotions, positions, power, connections, relationships, people and time shouldn't lure you into losing yourself.

No matter what is lost, if you are not lost, everything is not lost. You lose everything by losing yourself. To lose oneself over any loss (or lack or disappointment) is an unaffordable and unrecoverable loss. 

Always be the one doing things not the one things are doing. Let nothing shock you and bounce you off guard. Irrespective of the struggles on your path and what people did or didn't do to/with/for you; you can always win and still live a super amazing life through it all if you don't lose grip of your right mind. 

Be wise! Never punish or kill yourself for the wrong you suffered in the hand of another person or the things you failed to achieve. Whoever offended you did bad; hurting yourself (or another person) afterwards makes you your greatest offender. Heal from your loss, don't kill nor continue to bleed for your loss.

(Disclaimers: The stories in this piece are imaginery scenereos explaining some real life events).

©16/11/2022

_Stephen Olamilekan Jimoh

Advance Everyday

...living life at best

#love #disappointment #yourself #marriage #admission #opportunities

MAY BE NIGERIAN LEADERS ARE NOT NIGERIANS

Yes! You read that title correctly. Many negative realities in Nigeria often makes me wonder if all Nigerian leaders are truly Nigerians considering their handling of national affairs. They are crafty at protecting their own interest and welfares. Once the happenings don't affect them negatively, they don't give a damn. 

Isn't prolonged ASSU strike, (incessant terrorism, prevalent kidnapping, poor healthcare, outrageous unemployment rate, inadequate and unevenly distributed infrastructures, poor manpower development, theft/burglary/robbery, incessant borrowing, misappropriation/mismanagement of public funds and alarming rate at which Nigerians are running out of Nigeria for their sanity, safety, security and prosperity in recent times just to mention a few) enough to conclude that handlers of this country don't mean well?

Aren't Nigerian leaders and stakeholders perturbed at the rate of 'outflock' of highly productive Nigerians to other nations considered better than Nigeria in terms of quality education, standard healthcare, peace, safety, security, infrastructural amenities, advanced technology/science, career success, economic/financial prosperity, political stability and leadership excellence? Nigerians are running away from their fatherland and the rulers/leaders of Nigeria are still cool, calm and comfortable as though everything is fine.

Can you imagine what some stakeholders/leaders turned Nigeria to! A place where the sons and daughters of the land don't want to stay anymore because of artificial hardship, insecurity, leadership failure and uncertainties. Even as a parent, you won't want your children to derive pleasure in going to other people's houses while they hate being in your own houses. Only a vagabond parent will do nothing to change the narrative and make his/her home precious to his/her children so much they will always feel at home.

How can young, strong, promising, professional and most enterprising/productive Nigerians detest living in Nigeria and be trooping out in millions to foreign nations in search of greener pastures under your watch as a leader at all levels and you don't see the need to change the narrative to do all it takes to ensure Nigerians are comfortable and satisfied in Nigeria than elsewhere around the world?

Population growth has a positive way of affecting economic growth of a society. The more people exit the shores of Nigeria, the more our national economy nosedive. There is no way we will have enough professionals in every field at the rate numerous experts in their fields are relocating from Nigeria to other countries because of in-house self inflicted woes in Nigeria by Nigerians especially, the leaders.

There is a saying in my Yoruba language that: "agba kii wa loja ki ori omo tuntun wo". Meaning: in as much there are elders in the market square, a new born baby's head cannot bend on his/her neck. Some things aren't supposed to happen wherever there are elders. Come to think of it, it seemed this is not applicable to vast majority of Nigerian leaders/elders/stakeholders. Series of events have proved that most leaders of our country are worse than the worst of colonial masters in the history of human existence.

The dream, pursuit and commitment of every well meaning leader anywhere is to ensure that everyone under his/her watch is safe, secured, productive, successful and prosperous but I doubt if all our leaders shared that noble mindset. It won't be wrong to say most of them are "arije nidi ibaje" (i.e. they feed fat on malpractices). Infact, how those in question sleep and wake up comfortably is incomprehensible.

Nigerian nurses, doctors, pharmacists, artists/entertainers, accountants, engineers, IT professionals, teachers/lecturals, technicians, articians, clergies, celebrities, students and the rest relocated to other nations in throngs and we still think this country is very fine. 

Have we ever imagined why Americans, Arabians, Europeans and others aren't trooping to Nigeria on daily basis? It is impossible for that to happen now because the best life possible and achievable in their places aren't in Nigeria. 

We cannot attract foreigners to relocate to Nigeria like the way Nigerians are attracted to their countries because we aren't doing what we are supposed to do to make Nigeria exactly like or better than their countries. Since Nigerians aren't comfortable living in Nigeria, foreigners cannot be inspired and motivated to relocate to Nigeria. 

In a saner clime, relocation to other nations in search of greener pastures is never an option for consideration because nothing is chasing them out of their own countries. For citizens of those prosperous nations, to travel out is never a prayer point or a call for celebration eventually they have to travel out since their countries have no match in the company of nations. What a shame that the contrary is the case in Nigeria as traveling out has become a luxury and breakthrough. The only prayer point of some Nigerians living in Nigeria is to get their visa approved for them to "japa".

Wisdom demands that: "ibi ti eyan ti n ri nkan je, eyan gbodo ma tun ibe se ni" (i.e. you should ensure the prosperity of wherever you are benefiting from). Since Nigerians leaders are feeding fat on Nigeria and Nigerians, they should ensure their contributions to Nigeria is commensurate to what they are getting from Nigeria and Nigerians. Sugbon ti won ba ko ti won o se atunde, oju won to ma ja nigbati gbogbo ilu ba tun mo won lori tan (i.e. their eyes will soon be clear when there is no one left for them to govern anymore if they refused to timely make amends). 

These people have travelled round the world, seen how well things are done and enjoyed the best of advanced nations yet, they didn't replicate the same in Nigeria. They preferred to always go for vacation, medical care, acquisition of properties, businesses, investments and send their wards to school in those nations at the expense of Nigeria and Nigerians. Their attitude is: "igi da, eye fo lo". They don't care whatever happens to Nigeria and should the worst befall Nigeria, they've already mapped out their escape for them not to be consumed. 

©07/10/2022

_Stephen Olamilekan Jimoh

Advance Everyday

...living life at best

TO TAKE IT, DO WHAT IT TAKES

Could it be that you are yet to have enough of good things you needed simply because you don't do enough of what you should do to have them? To have more than enough, do more than enough of what you should do. You don't achieve so much by doing so little. How can you be a full time success by being a part-time pursuant of success? Your strive to succeed should be on and on not on and off. 

Truly, we have grace, favour and mercy but those alone aren't enough without you actively doing the needful. Diverse testimonies of divine breakthroughs are everywhere but there is no consistently successful and highly prosperous person whose track record is traceable and unquestionable that is not up and doing in his/her crafts, jobs, businesses, professions or careers. The provision for divine assistance/intervention and miracles is not a provision for slothfulness, irresponsibility and mediocrity.

It is very possible to suddenly have a big hit or major breakthrough on a silver platter or platter of gold (with little or no significant input of yours) which is grace at work but; it is impossible to sustain, maintain, multiply and reproduce it without your active participation and expertise. Success that happened without competence, disappears afterwards. That is how notable opportunities and possibilities slipped out of some people's grip. Some folks met angels in human forms without doing anything spectacular to be attracted to them but their bad attitudes chased those good people away over time. 

Preparedness/readiness is a very powerful activation force for possibilities to take place and be retained. Refusal to build capacity ahead of expected opportunities and future responsibilities makes failure inevitable. Lack of capacity brings calamity (emptiness, poverty).

Before you cry foul and blame everyone else for being unemployed/jobless; are you employable? Are you highly skillful? Do you have solutions to people's problems? Are you a team player? How innovative, creative, resourceful, useful and productive are you? Your usefulness to people/organizations/nations determines your engagements by them. "If you don't want to be replaceable, you have to be extraordinary" _ @Kevinolearytv. Step up your game and improve your selling point. Be indispensable! 

©05/10/2022

_Stephen Olamilekan Jimoh

Advance Everyday

...living life at best

MA SE GBE OMO OBA FUN OSUN

(GIVE NO MAN'S CHILD TO ANOTHER MAN)

In the wake of a case featured on "The Jeremy Kyle Show" involving 2 Nigerians by the name Oscar and Valentine. For 32 years, Oscar had thought Valentine is his biological son until when Valentine's mother dropped the bombshell during a phone conversation with Valentine that Oscar is not his father as related by Valentine. He (Valentine) also added that his mother was crying profusely while making the confession.

In a bid to ascertain the truth, both of them (Oscar and Valentine who had enjoyed a father and son relationship ever since Valentine was born and taken to USA by Oscar) decided to appear on the show for a DNA test which proved that they are not biologically father and son. 

While watching the video, I could not imagine the despair of Oscar at knowing that Valentine is not his son though the 2 assured the audience that the DNA result would not affect their father and son relationship but, one cannot deny the fact that such case could be so damaging. 

As a result, below are some of many questions that came to my mind after watching the video.

1. Why would the woman in question conceived for another man under another man's roof? 

2. Why would she concealed the matter for that long?

3. What prompted her confession?

4. Is she aware of the possible negative impact of her confession on Oscar? Or she is not aware that Oscar could be rendered heartbroken for life?

5. How was she able to suppress her conscience for that long? 'Chai, she get liver o'!

6. What is in it for her in the first place? 

7. Why can't she keep the secret forever considering it's possible damaging impact on Oscar?

8. Or she intended to punish Oscar by saying the truth?

9. Or may be she was tired of her insincerity and wanted to set herself free by saying the truth? 

10. Or she too didn't know that it wasn't Oscar that impregnated her? If yes, when did she discovered? 

However, I suppose truth is meant to set both the speaker and the recipient free. It is not to set the speaker free and put the recipient in bondage.

Thank God Oscar, though heartbroken but it seemed he was able to handle it at that moment of discovery with an impression that he would soon get over it as shown by his response and expressions after the whole thing. 

On the other hand, there was another case of a man who couldn't bear it at all when he discovered he was not the father of a 4 year old boy his wife had in his house as a result, he slaughtered both his wife and the boy and eloped.

This is just few of numerous similar cases involving a woman giving her pregnancy to another unsuspecting man as the rightful owner of the pregnancy for whatever reason best known to her. 

In all of this issues and sharp practices, the major questions are: 

a. why do women commit such crime by giving another man's child(ren) to someone else who is not responsible for the pregnancy?

b. how can we bring an end to such bad deeds? 

c. how can the victim(s) in all of these cases be assisted to maintain their sanity and not result to violence/crimes against their offenders?

d. how can a man prevent such from happening to him?

Your relevant contributions to this article are welcome!

©17/07/2022.

_Stephen Olamilekan Jimoh

Advance Everyday

...living life at best