personal development

There is beauty in doing nothing. Find it.

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Photo credit:http://shorturl.at/jlAR1

4 mins

What do you do then? When you are used to being or acting busy, but you do not have to anymore? Do you lie that you are indeed busy? Do you pick your phone up and text away your idleness pretending like you just got a new IPhone? I mean, what do you really do under such circumstances. Do you even have to do anything in the first place? How would the “World” perceive you in that state of being still? Come to think of it, when did we start caring so much about public opinion? These questions kept popping up in my mind in the first days of the #StayHome/social-distancing campaign. Staring at my 5-year old computer, which stood tall on my reading table, I thought of the next steps, of my plan to adjust to the changes that life had wrath on us. On the first day, I barely got anything done. The second day, I tried reading a book, but I hardly made it past the first page.

How would the “World” perceive you in that state of being still?

For some strange reason I felt like I was supposed to do something bigger and better, you know. More like writing hundreds of lines of code, building a robot, reviewing some literature about energy systems. Nothing could work at all. I would start each of those activities but lose morale after a minute or two. Is it discipline that I lacked? I wondered; but I still woke up at 6am to the sound of my alarm, like nothing had changed. At this point, I realized it was an inner battle, an attempt to convince my mind to transition from one state to another and accept the new norm. The burden of guilt you feel when previously perceived productivity is turned around can be quite overwhelming. You may even find yourself cleaning the house twice or even thrice.

The burden of guilt you feel when previously perceived productivity is turned around can be quite overwhelming.

Well, I finally decided to do what I do in such times; I pressed pause on the whole movie, took my time to try and resolve my dilemma; why I had this restless feeling. Then it struck me like a lightning bolt; this probably dates back to my early years, the last decade of the 20th Century (don’t overthink it, it’s the years preceding 2000). My mother never let me stay in bed in the morning. This lady essentially woke me up to get ready for…. I honestly do not know what, but she just did it every day, unabated. She could grab that blanket like an eagle snatching a biddy. Unlike eagles, she’d drop off the beddings in the living room. A few years elapsed and I moved to my Uncle’s place; it was just the same; though without the blanket part – in this area of the world visitors are treated better until the 4th day of the visit.

She could grab that blanket like an eagle snatching a biddy.

I later asked him why he was so hellbent on making my sleep-experience a nightmare, to which he responded; with a calm voice as though he had examined my future already, “Tonie, there is no need to stay in bed when everyone[I am] is up. You have got to keep yourself busy as a man; otherwise, you might become a nuisance in the future.” In retrospect, this merely meant that staying in bed was a sign of passivity, unproductivity and could mean failure in life. Later, I started taking on tasks at home, doing unnecessary chores and all. At the end of these, I could go – let’s say sneak, and watch TV. Sneak because watching TV was part of the unproductive activities that had no place in my parents’ house.

Tonie, there is no need to stay in bed when everyone[I am] is up. You have got to keep yourself busy as a man; otherwise, you might become a nuisance…

Just a knock on the door would push me into some semblance to be doing something productive; there is this one time I grabbed a flat iron and went to the sink! My mother wondered why I was washing the flat iron. Fast forward to my first job; I noticed that every time the supervisor came by, everyone would rush to their desks and feign to be getting some work done. It was not dependent on the task they had at hand, or if they had just completed their assignments, they always wanted to stay busy. The dramatic playout reminded me a lot about my childhood and everything wrong with the system – I and you, my dear reader, are part of. How did we all get to this point? That even when there is nothing to do, we feel the urge to pretend to be busy?

How did we all get to this point? That even when there is nothing to do, we feel the urge to pretend to be busy?

Society set a tune, and we all danced! It didn’t matter whether it was good or bad. If you are not doing anything, you are not progressing, and hence you are on the road to nowhere; this is utterly wrong. What we are not told is that being busy does not equate to being productive, you are not told that you could do more in less time if you made room to rest creatively. What do firefighters do when there are no fires? How often do fires happen anyway? Not often. Imagine this, someone trains to be a firefighter for a significant part of their lifetime and then they get to work only once or twice a week! What do they do with the rest of the time? Probably write books, music and movies, lift weights, do sports; you would think. How many prominent writers, musicians or sportsmen do you know that are firefighters? Not many, right?

The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war.

Norman Schwarzkopf

The point is, you do not have to pretend to be busy, you should understand that it’s okay to pause, and you should not feel bad about it. But also understand that in this nothingness, you have an opportunity to prepare for the things you have always wanted to become; you can train your mind to perceive and be those things you want to be. It was Norman Schwarzkopf who said; The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war. You want to be a leader, look for those characteristics leaders have; thoughtfulness, compassion, kindness, etc.; start with your family and practice those aspects. Do not beat yourself up for having too much time on your hands, whatever it is you want to be, just stay ready. Staying still and thinking about it in silence is part of the process.

To the next person on set

tok10 Comments

3 mins

*Indistinct conversations, soundcheck, director signalling to the cameraman, lights up….big hot rim light adjusted, Camera rolling.., *

Director: All set! Aaa…..nd Action!

Actress: *In deep thought, while munching a sandwich*, I need to take a break from this meal…

Director: Cut!! We’ve talked about this; it’s “I need to take a break from this life not meal….” Got it?

Actress: Yes. It’s just that food gets in my way of thinking, but I have got it this time. I have got it. 

Director: Alright. Shot 2. Scene 7. Take one………..Action!!

What if the entire premise of our existence is a storyline. A narration whose building blocks we gather along the way as we meet these different characters, we call friends/strangers. And, unlike Hollywood, Ugawood, Nollywood, Bollywood movies, these our stories are not pre-written. Characters don’t look anything fancy but instead have a thing or two that makes them fit the roles in our real-time movie scenes called life. The unspoken truth is, each one of us is an actor/actress in someone’s movie. Imagine this, you grow up from a place X, and then at age 20 you meet these amazing people at school, taxi, church or bar – It could be anywhere – remember, the script is not pre-written. 

The unspoken truth is, each one of us is an actor/actress in someone’s movie.

At first, you connect with many on a courtesy level – acquaintances. Then the circle reduces to a finger number and finally to one or two on a personal level, isn’t this akin to finding characters for a real movie? Maybe not. You move on with your life, along with the ‘personal level friend’ you connected with a while ago. Years down the road life gets serious; both of you take different directions. Could be work, school or more life, that would eventually lead to the unfortunate parting of ways. Unbeknownst to you, both, this starts as I will always be in touch and, like a silhouette in the dying evening sun, it fades away.

…..like a silhouette in the dying evening sun, it fades away.

You then meet new characters to fill those roles you had no clue needed filing in your life. It all seems like a deja vu. Just like with the old characters, the process resumes, and the cycle continues. We’re humans, and we can’t deny how dynamic we all are. We meet different people, and for each, we share the parts of our lives lived earlier before we met them. Sometimes we tell ourselves; God, I wish I had met this person prior! If this speaks to you, you’re not alone. But I want you always to remember that the timing is just perfect. You only have to make their role in the current section on your storyline count.  Our lives are amazingly interwoven in unknown ways, and until we meet, the dots that need connecting seem nonexistent.

Our lives are amazingly interwoven in unknown ways, and until we meet, the dots that need connecting seem nonexistent.

Who you connect with will inevitably change the stories you tell tomorrow, and ultimately the role you play in writing and telling your story. The parts we live without the new entrants to our stories are the small subplots to this movie called life, and we choose how and when to share these with the new characters. This lays the foundation for our next subplot, and the cameras start to roll the moment we meet. It could be a job interview; it could be a date; it all goes back to how we frame the narrative of the life we lived before. The better we get at telling this, the more connections or lasting impressions we would make.Telling stories is not quite an easy feat, but as the saying goes, practice makes perfect.

Who you connect with will inevitably change the stories you tell tomorrow..

To quote Miles Davis –“It took me years to learn how to play like myself”. Truth is it really takes a whole lot of time and energy to learn to do things our way. Most times, we do it like our favourites, mentors or guides. This explains why people say “I cook like my mum”. You have got to learn to tell your story, it might take time but the more you shoot your shot at it, the better you will get. It isn’t easy, you may sound like Obama at first or even your dad, but with time, you will carve out your mastery. For stories are the invisible bridges that connect the indescribable distant worlds of Humans.