Bye 2012, hi 2013...

It's a new year again yey! 2013 is here with new possibilities, new opportunities and new promises. Many have written goals and how they want to accomplish them. Many have also written their resolutions for the New Year which I pray they stick to. 

I sense some guys' resolution is to get married because two guys who wanted more than friendship and one who said outright that he wanted marriage are back again after we had settled for friendship and nothing more. I pray they find their dream women. 

Anyway, looking at 2012 in retrospect, I have a lot to be thankful for:

 

First of all, I give thanks to God almighty for keeping me, my family, my friends, and my loved ones alive to see this New Year. It is impossible for me to list the endless marvellous things God did in my life in 2012, so I would just say "Thank you God for everything".

 

I worked successfully with people whom others were afraid of and I have built cordial relationships with them. 

I have learnt to see the positive side of every situation and the best in people.

I am more in control of my emotions and don't let the unnecessary get to me.

I am more self-aware and more certain about what I want from life. 

I am more decisive, more confident and more me. 

Lastly, I have learnt that too much TV is dangerous. 

It could kill you! Well not literally, but it could kill your dreams; because you would keep postponing and pushing important stuff aside till something important passes you by; and to me, a man without dreams is dead. I was a victim last year especially between October and December (though nothing important that I know of passed me by). I postponed a lot because I wanted to watch TV and my favourite series. 

I would plan my Saturday in way that I would achieve at least two important things at the end of the day but my love for TV wouldn't let me (It crept in like a drug addiction). Once there was power supply, I would get tempted just to check what was going on TV and that was all it took to get me glued to it till I got tired and bored. It could be a DVD, a sitcom, musicals, a Yoruba film, whatever, as long as it was coming from that well-shaped ultra-slim electronic device.

As if in agreement to what I was experiencing, 'children's exposure to television' was part of AIT news yesterday, how it affects the children and when parents should draw the line.

That menace aside, I would say in summary that 2012 helped in molding my personality and I can proudly say I have grown. 

My resolution this year is same as my bestie's-to be more focused, but mine is with respect to my lust for TV...my plans first, TV next. I have started and hope to continue in the same vein. Wish me luck friends.

I know you all have something or many things to be thankful for. Let us begin the new year with a heart of gratitude no matter what we had been through in 2012 and with a positive outlook at 2013. Let us do all we can to get the best out of 2013 with God beside us. It is your life friends, own it and enjoy it!
I wish you all a HAPPY NEW YEAR full of the best things life has to offer!

Countdown to 2012...11 days to go

As the year comes to an end, there is this hunch which is normal that makes us look back on how well we have done this year in comparison with our set targets. Some smile, some regret, some feel fulfilled, some do not.

Businessmen request for their statements of account for reconciliation.

Some individuals try to 'quickly' achieve what they couldn't over the past 11months.

Everyone wants to close with a profit.

The truth is life is not perfect and the fact still remains that not all fingers are equal. We shouldn't measure our success with the successes or failures of others, neither should we measure it by our own outrageous standards. As long as you did your best this year and lived a worthy life, (no matter the results) you should be thankful.

Well as for me, I would just be thankful because I cannot kill myself...2011 will definitely end and 2012 will definitely come... I did my best, though I didn't get all I hoped for. I didn't get all I prayed for and got wonderful things that never crossed my mind.

I wrote this article 'Giving thanks' 2 months ago but still want to share it, enjoy...

We receive blessings when we give thanks. David gave thanks to God and we

all know how God lavished him with blessings. Also when Jesus wanted to

feed the 5000 with 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish, He first gave thanks. However as humans that we are, we tend to submerge our prayers with what we want or don’t want from God forgetting to thank Him for what we have received.

In some cases we do not thank God for things we are so accustomed to experiencing or having. Things such as waking up in the morning, our regular going out and coming

in, our good health, our friends, our beauty, to mention a few. ‘Thanks’ in the sense that, it is not heartfelt. We just utter the words 'thank you Lord for ...’ without actually feeling the gratitude deep in our hearts. Sometimes we complain and cry incessantly over our present situations that it takes over the times we could use to appreciate God’s goodness.

We complain about the traffic instead of thanking him for an accident-free journey; we complain about the weather instead thanking him that we are alive to experience it.

There was a day I was hanging out with two friends and as we were chatting away, one of them kept on chipping in how over-protective her father was. She kept on expressing how fed up she was with her father's excessive control.

The other lady obviously tired of her complaints asked her, ‘do u want to trade places?'

Baffled, she asked, 'how do you mean?'

The lady replied, 'my father is late, do want to trade places?'

All she could say was, 'oh!' and immediately stopped complaining.

We should not let our circumstances, needs or wants overshadow our ability to thank God because it is the window the devil uses to make us feel frustrated and discontented. And a frustrated person cannot truly give thanks thus narrows the door to receiving God's blessing. The road to true happiness is giving heartfelt thanks to God every moment, everyday, for everything. We should make it a habit to give thanks always.

‘Thanks’ that originates from the heart; ‘thanks’ that reminds us of God's never ending goodness which produces a burning desire in us to make us do all we can to please him and in turn, gain His favours.

In effect, let us use the remaining part of this year as an opportunity to show God how grateful we are for everything He has done for us, so more and more blessings will be poured out on us. AMEN!