As a kid growing up in Nigeria, many of us had roughly the same idea about our future working lives drilled into our heads – “you need to become a professional like an accountant, an engineer, or a medical doctor so that you can make enough money to care for yourself and those around you”. I can’t speak to your own unique circumstances, but I can say for sure that this was my reality growing up. To be clear, I don’t blame any of those people who tried to direct me or the children of my day down the conventional route of earning a living because truth be told, it makes a ton of logical sense. After all, it is probably a lot easier to find a decently high paying job as a medical doctor than it would be to find a job as an independent fashion designer. Continue reading Finding what you love…
Tag: self-improvement
How to curb your appetite
Let’s face it, a lot of us struggle with maintaining the ideal body weight that our skeletal frames require for optimal functionality. To be blunt, many of us in my native Nigeria and my adopted home – The United States of America – are overweight. In a majority of cases, the reason why a fair bit of us are overweight boils down to a love of food, and honestly, it isn’t hard to see why because food is fantastic. In addition to being the primary source from which we humans get necessary nutrition, it is also often pleasurable to eat food provided it was prepared by a halfway decent chef. Taking that into consideration, the love of food is actually a good thing. Can you imagine what it would be like if we hated food but needed it to survive? Life would probably be pretty miserable in my humble opinion. Continue reading How to curb your appetite
48 laws of power, by Robert Greene
Buy the “48 Laws of Power” book
We’ve all been there… You’ve just joined the workforce, and have been given your first assignment on the new job. You excitedly take it on, with the intent of putting in as much effort as possible to ensure that you do as good a job as possible. Against considerable odds, you actually succeed at your new project, and it is looking like you might finish it in record time. You start allowing yourself to think that the success you are having with your work might mean a promotion and a subsequent meteoric rise to the top… that is until reality hits you square in the face. You find that instead of being recognized and lauded for your good work, a group of people a couple of levels ahead of you swoop in at the very end of your project to put their names on it and gain partial credit. You felt wronged by this so you went through what you thought were the proper channels to vent your frustration and lodge a formal complaint. Three weeks after you lodge this official complaint, you’re fired from your job and you cannot for the life of you understand why. Continue reading 48 laws of power, by Robert Greene
In the shoes of another…
No matter how loving or profound a relationship between two people might be, there will inevitably be a difference in opinion and/or values at some point. These differences in opinion can lead to relatively minor things like silly little arguments between you and the other that you eventually joke about, or they can lead to large scale bouts of all out war which culminate in divorce, nasty legal battles, and so on. While there are some select few who seem to have a repeat pattern of damaging their relationships because of a naturally querulous streak, it is often the case that many people with a history of broken relationships are perfectly good natured. You might be thinking… “Damn that makes no sense… what gives?” I know exactly what you mean and for the record, I agree with you. I think the key to this mystery is to understand and accept that there is a difference between being a terrible person and being a perfectly good person who just happens to be terrible at relating to others. Continue reading In the shoes of another…