THE EXPRESSION

  As rightly said by C.S. Lewis in The Case for Christianity : “We all want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turn, then going forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road…” This quote resonated with me. Because progress isn’t just about moving forward; it’s about moving in the right direction. And sometimes, that means stopping. Turning around. Alighting from the wrong path to retrace your steps toward healing, wholeness, and truth. So today, I choose to alight . I alight from wrong decisions. I alight from abusive relationships. I alight from messy thoughts. I alight from people-pleasing. I alight from timidity. I alight from shyness. I alight from anything that belittles me. I alight from regrets, from my past. I alight from unforgiveness. I alight from hatred. I alight from guilt. I alight from low self-estee...

  The best thing you can do for yourself as the week unravels is to add value to your life, as much as you can. Because truthfully, it doesn’t take much for people to move on. They will forget you like you never existed; not because you died, but simply because you’re no longer in their sight. And once you're out of sight, you gradually become absent from their minds. But your value? Your good works? They linger. It’s no surprise when days, weeks, even months go by and no one checks in to ask, ‘How are you?’ People just move on as if you were never there, as if your presence never made a difference, as though your impact didn’t matter. But here’s the thing: every now and then, someone will remember. They’ll say, ‘Oh, there was someone who once did this or that…’ And that will be it. People may not remember your name or how long you were in their lives. But they will remember the value you brought, the energy you carried, the lives you touched, the good you did, the love you gave. T...

  Before I go straight to what I have to talk about today, I’d like to share a story with you. I had this buddy in secondary school. He was my senior in every sense of the word: age-wise, class-wise, and knowledge-wise, so I respected him like I would any senior. One day, while we were studying together, he asked me to stop calling his name with any title, just plain ‘Paul’. It didn’t sit well with me, so I asked again to be sure I heard him right, and he confirmed it. The African child in me, specifically the Nigerian child, couldn’t come to terms with that because we treat respect for elders as a big deal, even if it’s just a one-year gap. And here I was, before a senior, asking me not to call him ‘Senior’ or ‘Uncle’. It sounded weird. I tried calling the name without any title, and it felt so awkward. I felt this heaviness in my mouth whenever I tried to pronounce just the name. Mind you, that’s also my dad’s name, so you get the awkward feeling, right? As if I were calling my d...

  I want to talk about another common statement: ‘Do unto others what you want them to do unto you.’ As much as this is believed to be a Biblical principle, it often ends up being used as a tool for emotional blackmail, especially when the person it's being used on is not outspoken or expressive. You'll just hear: ‘Do unto others what you want them to do unto you.’ But let’s flip the page for a moment. Do you do unto others what you want them to do to you? Can you take what you give? I’m asking because the way some people treat others, they wouldn’t tolerate half of it if the roles were reversed. That’s when you start hearing things like: ‘I don’t take nonsense.’ ‘I have zero tolerance for disrespect.’ Yada yada... Calm down! You’re reacting this way because now, it's happening to you. But given the same conditions, at that exact moment, Time T, what would the outcome have been if the tables were turned? Would you have done better, or worse? Here’s the thing: You want peopl...

A photo illustration of a caregiver and a special needs warrior. Source:  https://unsplash.com/photos/a-woman-standing-next-to-a-man-in-a-wheel-chair-rXqfl7MKEJ4?utm_content=creditShareLink&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=unsplash 🧡 The Silent Strength of Care For two weeks, I was cooking different meals, not because I was a chef or preparing for a food competition, but because one of my siblings was ill and didn’t have a ‘normal’ appetite. Or should I say, he didn’t have an appetite at all. If the general meal was rice and sauce, he’d ask you to take it outside, claiming that it smelled. Ah! That meant making his meals different from everyone else’s, even though he didn’t feel like eating. Fresh fish pepper soup, one of his favourites, suddenly became nauseating to him. Now, let’s not even talk about the stress of cooking two different meals when everyone could have just eaten the same thing at once. The stress of preparing the meals… the mental fatigue from thinkin...