Are these quotes about frienship the reality

“Show me your friend and I will tell you who you are”
“Birds of the same feather flock together”
I have heard these quotes many times. I don’t know their author and have not bothered to find out. But I had always questioned their authenticity until around 4am on 25th April, 2010. I had been awaken by multiple mosquitoes bites, there is this invasion of mosquitoes in my area. A battle I have been fighting with different kind of insecticides and there is no hope of victory. This particular morning the mosquitoes won again they successfully woke me up. No thanks to the various adverts on TV by various insecticides making companies about how effective their products are. I have strategies with which I intend to deal with them.

Back to my topic, until this particular morning I had never bothered to question the real meaning of friendship. But some events happened in succession in about a space of two weeks. Cumulatively they all forced me to actually asked a personal question whether I do really have friends. On checking through my friend list I discovered that I do not have any if I had to look at my friends in comparison to the quotes above.

Most of my present friends are people I either met in primary school, secondary school, or in the university. Some of them because we were course mates, some we were room mates, some were my parents friends children, some we met in church, some in beer parlours and some others in clubs. There are even some I met in work environments, some others through another friend.

My concerns is that is there any of these people that are called my friends that I became close to because we share the same values, or share the same belief or because they possess characters that I greatly cherish, no. Please, I am not saying my friends do not have good characters. Some of them will be reading this; you don’t have to be offended. I am only posing a question, which I think will help anyone that share my worries. My question is, did I choose to be close to them because of their good characters. My contention is that friendship is what we should seek out for based on value, beliefs, and dreams. If not, nobody will be able to know us by our friends. Most of our friendly engagements are what I call marriage of convenience.

I think friendship is like trying to woo a lady. You must have seen something of the good value she possesses that you like before making proposals. I think that is how we can truly have friends that we can flock with.

Though overtime there is a life sieve that helps us sort out the different relationships in our lives. Most of these great guys I met in primary school, some we have not seen in years. Some we still talk to each other regularly. Some of them I will really love to meet them again but don't know how to connect with them. The question I want us to genuinely ask ourselves is this. Is the relationship symbiotic or parasitic?
Some of this great folks you will not realize how good or bad they are until you had to do business together. Some until you lose your source of income, or until something affect your health in the adverse. Check your friends list, don’t wait for the natural sieve. If you need a friend go out and make one, sometimes they are more than a brother.  You can not choose a brother, but you can choose your friend..       
 
 

FIGHTING FOR GOD

I have read the words of the bible “that there is nothing new under the sun” a few times; likewise heard it from people of diverse backgrounds. The perennial events in my country and the world seem to confirm these words. Analyzing, Jos crisis added to the lines Al Qeada use in justifying their selfish acts.

Studying, my bible a few days a go as I habitually do. I am not trying to throw up my religiousity. I do study my bible because I want to be prosperous and have good success. And my bible teaches that if I study its word day and night that I would achieve my aim. For this reason I daily spend between thirty minutes to an hour to engage in this study.

The essence of this write up is not to preach the bible, I would be doing that when I become as wealthy as I want, thereby share my discoveries. The reason for this article is that I came across a story that I think can shed light on the crisis that has engulfed Jos and the entire northern part of Nigeria. Oh I wish Osama Bin ladden would read this, so share this on your face book. Peradventure he may have a facebook account. How I wish the people that started the killings in Jos would learn from this, this might bring out the real motives behind the killings.

Judges 6:30-32 “Then the men of the city commanded Joash, bring out your son that he may die, for he has pulled down the altar of Baal and cut down the Asherah besides it. But Joash said to all who stood against him. Will you contend for Baal, let him be put to death while it is still morning. If Baal is a god, let him contend for himself because one has pulled his altar.”

The story that ended with these scenes, I think is similar to what is happening in our world today. Started when a young Israelite was spoken to by Jehovah. According to history the founder of Israel, Abraham entered into a covenant with El shaddai that as long as he served Him, he would protect him. So He became their God and they became His people. He did mighty things in their midst, but generations after forgot about this God and followed other gods. But a young man, Gideon had a revelation of El shaddai like Moses did. Then he destroyed the altar of Baal another god worshiped by Israel. This he did in the secret of the night because he was afraid of the people’s reaction. He did not just destroy this altar, the issue was that Israel was under oppression of another nation and Baal would not stop the onslaught from their enemy. So Gideon was disturbed, then the insight that their trouble was a result of a broken covenant with El shaddai.

Lesson, I thought Gideon should be more fearful of a Baal, a god rather than her worshippers. So, when the people discovered that the altar of Baal had been destroyed they wanted to fight for Baal and kill Gideon. Gideon father confronted them with these all times valid truth he told them to allow Baal to defend itself. Let the gods fight for themselves, why the reverse I thought gods should be able to destroy or create humans?

My message to all the people fighting on god’s behalf, killing another human for the sake of a god. Which kind of god are you serving, is she an image or he is the object, the real thing and you are his image. If your God is truly alive, let him defend himself and stop killing on his behalf.


An altar is place of worship examples are churches, mosques.
If actually our altars are owned by gods and someone got it burnt down, I think we should allow that god to defend his altar. And if a owner of the place of worship will not stop another from burning down his building, he is probably not the owner. Most of these altars belong to men, men profit from them that is why they are willing to kill another for them.

Tell others your real intention you are not fighting for any god but your pockets, your self esteem, you are protecting your territory. Let the truth be known Bin Laden is not fighting for any god he is just hiding behind god to perpetrate evil. Israelites are not fighting for god they are just using god’s name as cover to kill another. All the Muslims, Christians in Jos are not fighting for God they are protecting their territories, the gods should be able defend themselves. I would rather worship a god that can defend itself, if not why pay respect and honour to what depend on me for existence. It should be other way round. I thought he that pay the piper dictates the tune.

WORK

I think strongly that the reason a lot of people have not become financially empowered as they will want to be is lack of the true or deep understanding of the word “work”. In as much as I believe that some of our acts as human are wrongly named. For example I wonder why trade is called business, looking at the etymology (study of history of words) of business it is traced to the state of being busy. From that account it implies that activity is celebrated over profit. I think this is totally incorrect; profit should rank higher than being ‘busy’, because without profit any and all businesses die. That is why I want to promote a change of name.
We can decide to rename this single most important act of man either as profitness, gainess,or wealthiness etc. I will subscribe to any name that promotes productivity, profit rather than the activity.

So I will be using this article to correct one of these many wrong interpretations or poorly organized naming ceremonies, like allowing Lord Lugard mistress the honour to give Nigeria her name, and no protest from our founding fathers.

I will like to approach this definition from science point of view. In science work is the product of force and distance, it is the amount of energy transferred by a force acting through a distance. The force must be applied in a specific direction.
In science there is something like zero work; this is when the force applied does not move a body or its position is not altered, no work is done. For example a book on a table, though a gravitational force is acting on it, in as much the position remain unchanged no work is done.

We must realise...
Work is not activity, which is where a lot of folks are confused. It is not the amount of energy dissipated, nor is it about the amount of effort invested. It is rather Returning on Investment (RoI). So before we start expending energy, we must be able define the distance we want to cover. We must know what we want to accomplish before embarking on the activity. That is what goal setting is all about
Work must be done with the outcome in view. We must clearly define what we intend to achieve. You must be able to answer the question. What am I trying to achieve by taking up this job? When such objectives are not clearly spelt out frustration is inevitable. This singular knowledge turns you into an entrepreneur even while an employee in another person’s office. It teaches you flexibility. Once you realize you are not about achieving your goal, you quickly change jobs, it teaches you professionalism. This lesson is simple, no work is done until you achieve your goal. Understand I am not trying to say that achieving goals is just about taking one giant stride, what I am teaching is that each of your baby steps must be taken with the goal post in view. Don't try to entertain, no drama. It is all about scoring goals, it makes the difference. You don’t get good grades by just writing some things down, you get it by answering the question correctly.

We must realise that air planes, vehicles, sky scrappers, jets, paper were created from the same brains that all of us carry around with our bodies. They are product of Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Steve Jobs well used brains. Do you want a car, a house, a beautiful family. Sit down, think, meditate, study, read, pray, be flexible, be dogged. Don’t take no for an answer, anything is possible to him that believes.

Power of Perception

Which is bigger an airplane or a star? From appearance the airplane is bigger; the truth is that most stars are far bigger than the earth. You will notice that at the closest contact an airplane actual size is bigger than what we perceive when it is flying.

The picture I am painting is that our senses does not give us the original picture or size or accurate information about situations, things or objects. We must accept this information as true; therefore realize that we don’t always have accurate data upon which to make judgments.

Do you realize that sun is also a star; it is the nearest star to the earth that is why it appears bigger than other stars. Other stars are visible in the night sky, when they are not shone by the sun.

Due to their great distance from the earth, all stars except the sun appear to the human eye as shining points in the night sky that twinkle because of the effect of the earth’s atmosphere. Stars range in size from Newton stars, which vary anywhere from 20 to 40km in diameter, to super giants like Betelgeuse in the Orion constellation, which has a diameter 650 times larger than the sun- about 0.9 billion kilometers. Source Wikipedia.

The fact that we cannot see a thing does not rule out its existence. We should maintain an open mind, we don’t know everything. There are still lots of things to be discovered in all aspects of life. We don’t have the fastest cars yet, we have not built the finest house yet. There will soon be cure for AIDS, for cancer etc. More revelations will soon spring up from the bible. We will soon see faster airplanes. Open up your mind.

Once upon a time, it was observed that the earth was flat so nobody dared travel long distance; Christopher Columbus dreamed, dared, thought and superimposed that assertion, it gave birth to USA. Now it is known that the earth is spherical.

Our problems stare us in the face so they appear so big and insurmountable. When a man is hungry the need for food is urgent so it may affect his reasoning. When we understand perception we will begin to approach life in a different way. Some of us will divorce our marriage with impossibility we will realize that there is nothing that is impossible.

We must also realize that we see with our mind not our eyes. Truth does not rule the world imagination does. It is not necessarily the truth that dictates our action. But rather what we imagine to be true. The Lord Jesus said “you shall know the truth and the truth will make you free”. Anything that you know that does not usher in freedom is not the truth. It is what you perceive to be true. We consider ourselves expert in perception which is not true. To demonstrate this fact, read the information that follows, one time.

FINISHED FLIES ARE THE RESULT

OF YEARS OF SCIENTIFIC STUDY

COMBINED WITH THE

EXPERIENCE OF MANY YEARS.

How many F’s is there in the above statement? Read once, you’re probably going to count 3F’s. But there are 6F’s in the statement you must have omitted the F’s of “OF”.

This is caused by Scotoma which is defined as a sensory locking out of our environment based on prior conditioning and/ or expectation. Most of our beliefs that we base our decisions upon are assumptions and hear says most we never really verified yet we claim ownership. 

The L.O.L.O. concept which is lock on lock out is when we develop a sentimental emotional attachment to those things we are exposed to first.

We can only consciously see one thing at a time.

Once you are lock on to a particular thing it is very difficult to see anything else. What we tend to do is that we consciously gather data to prove our decision are right; it is called cognitive dissonance theory.


Brain               


Our brain has 3 parts they are the conscious, subconscious and creative subconscious.

Conscious part of the brain helps us to perceive our environment through our senses. This is coordinated by the reticular activating systems which determine how far we can see or what we can hear. And there is limit to what we can smell or hear. We are not fully aware of what is going around us, if we are, we will run mad. Dogs can see better than us, this informed the reason why human sight is aided by microscope and telescopes. Thus we are aware of other organism such as bacteria, fungi etc. We have knowledge of other planets, the size of the sun, the moon or the stars. The conscious part of our brain makes decision based upon perception, association, and evaluation.


The subconscious on the other hand stores data that the conscious part perceives as true. It handles automatic activities and over-learned skills such as driving, walking, sleeping etc.

The creative subconscious maintains sanity, it solves and resolves conflict and reduces stress. It selects the most currently dominant image of reality about me and makes me act like that image of reality. My creative subconscious is not bothered whether this is my best or not. It rather acts out whatever I have accepted as truth about my job, my wife or whatever, my creative subconscious works to make it so. If I told myself that I have a good job, my brain work to make it so. One of the ways we can put creative subconscious to maximum use is to learn not to turn away from life problems. When we face problems and refuse to run away from them we are engaging/tasking our brains and putting it to work. We are telling our brains that this is not the end of the world, there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Our natural state is harmony. Therefore if we are faced with a problem that creates a disharmony, we work toward harmony.




Awareness
Awareness is defined as how clearly I perceive and understand everything that affects my life. We cannot become anything that our awareness does not permit us to become. Our awareness is the key to our success. Our sense places limitation on our awareness. This is one of the reasons the bible teaches faith. Faith is seeing through God’s word which is our God given microscope and telescope. It helps us accommodate greater possibilities. Life is beyond what we can use. There are spiritual forces, there are spiritual beings we can’t just see them.


Principles That Can Help Us Increase Our Awareness
(1)I must know what I want before I can become aware of how to get it.
What this teaches is that we have a choice, we are not victims. The only two "haves" we have in life are :- we have to die and we have to make choices.
So what do you want? You are not concerned about how to get it or where to get it at this stage? The issue is what do you really want?
(2)I determine what has pay value?
Pay value is seeing the end from the beginning. What is in it for me? What do I stand to gain?

The consistently luck person is the who knows what he or she is looking for, knows the pay value and opens the filter thereby receiving the information that assists in achieving that goal.

We are a product of our thoughts we cannot do better than our level of awareness. So our concern is to dream, allow our imagination to wonder. Even if we cannot figure out the how of our dream, we know that the problem is not our dream.
But it is that we lack the necessary information or know-how. So we work on the know-how, open ourselves up to new ideas. We allow our creative subconscious to go to work.

The word of God is the truth, the bible is the truth.

There are two types of success the good and the bad success. Any of them manifest based on your source of information and what information you dwell on day and night. If you make the word of God your source of knowledge you will have good success

Joshua 1:8

Sources: Inspiration, Bible, Making Success a Habit by Steve Musseau