Posted in Life, Truth

Lesson For Healing

Posted on by Joel
 Let me create a scenario:
Imagine this.
Imagine your life is a house–with doors and windows, obviously. For the purpose of this illustration, it is YOUR life, which means it is YOUR house; you have the keys to the door into the house.
Now imagine other people are also house owners with keys to their houses.
Following? Good.
Now someone comes to your house and starts throwing stones and whathaveyou at your house so much that it breaks something, say a window, and leaves it damaged.
You are angry! Of course, you should be; it’s your house and that glass on the window is so damn expensive and now it’s broken for no good reason. You don’t deserve that! So you open your door and go out to meet the perpetrator. You challenge them but they don’t see the wrong in what they just did and don’t see the need to apologize or try to fix it. In fact, they storm off, leaving you outside your house, angry.

Continue reading “Lesson For Healing” →

Posted in Life, Salient Thoughts

A Renewed Sense of Purpose

Posted on by Joel

There are just about a few things that are as frustrating as having so much to do but little time. You see, this is not an issue even proper time management can solve because the issue didn’t come up because you didn’t manage your time properly, but because there is so much to do that time, no matter how properly managed, is just not enough. And this kind of problem, I have observed, usually arise when you find purpose- a purpose for your existence and your relationship with both your environment and the people in it.

I had the privilege of spending time discussing with one of my oldest friends, Joel Akingunola, recently, and in the course of the discussion, he shared Mark Zuckerberg’s Harvard commencement speech with me; actually I started reading it on his phone but due to lack of sufficient time at the moment, I asked him to mail it to me so I could read it up. But because of one thing or the other, I couldn’t get back to reading it until I was with another friend and we were talking about ideas that could be profitable. The discussion then led to the area of goals and “where do you see yourself in…?” Continue reading “A Renewed Sense of Purpose” →

Posted in Fiction, Stories

Therapy

Posted on by Joel

 

It is not about my issues. It is not even about my good deeds. It’s always been about me – my very self. I am my worst enemy. I know this. She knows this. Everyone knows this. But still, they let me be. Whether to see if I can find a way to save myself or if I will self-destruct, I can’t say.

It is past noon and she is seated adjacent to me, her voice calm. “You still have to try. For me” She says.

I normally would stare back silently till she gave up but today I sit up straight, my eyes out of focus. I want to answer her. I’m dying to tell her the truth. I want her to see that I’m trying for her but I just can’t focus.

“Are you high right now?” She asks.

She comes into focus briefly, but then whirls out. I shrug. “Numb.”

“Sorry?”

I clear my throat. “Numb.” Continue reading “Therapy” →

Posted in Life, Truth

When Life Happens…

Posted on by Joel

I was on my way back to Lagos when I saw these words on a billboard:
“When Life Happens, Still Be Happy.”
I thought it to be strange at first because of the word “Still.” Why would someone want you to still be happy when life happens? But then I realized that there are two right questions and that wasn’t one of them.
The first is: What does it mean for life to happen? It was obvious whatever this “life” is, it had to be negative because of the use of “still”. So I thought about my life.
I recently just got back from the South-Eastern part of the country where I had been for the larger part of a year. It was a rural area and there were various challenges I experienced, the major part being that there was little to no electricity where I stayed for practically a whole year which made it quite a challenge for me, an internet person, to stay in touch with everything outside of that little town.
But that was not all. Continue reading “When Life Happens…” →

Posted in Life, Salient Thoughts

Memories Never Fade…

Posted on by Joel

We never really move away from an old life, we just suppress it to entertain and make space for the new one. Sometimes, the new becomes so comfortable that we begin to forget what the old life looks and feels like; we suppress it into oblivion.

But the truly interesting part is that, we never truly forget because we never really moved on in the first place.

Why? Continue reading “Memories Never Fade…” →

Posted in Fiction, Stories

Invictus (Unconquerable or Undefeated)

Posted on by Joel

I am the master of my fate, the captain of my soul, I repeat to myself over and over while standing on the window ledge of our home, eyes closed. We live on the third floor and I have a full view of the street and market below from the comfort of my room.
I would sit by the window in the boring afternoons and look out into the street, at children playing or at women that were friends a minute ago now trading abuses. Bored still, I would move my gaze to a shop few buildings down the road where a television set was placed outside and various musical videos or movies were being showed and I would allow myself to be distracted by that for a moment, until I grew bored again and finally decided to look into the market, at the various people who had come to shop. I would classify them based on gender, the type of clothes they wore – English or native – their height and size.
On fuller market days, animals often got into the mix, until I finally grew weary of that, too and got up from the window, to lie on the bed and close my eyes and dream.
Dreams.

Continue reading “Invictus (Unconquerable or Undefeated)” →