Go Win or Go Home

There's a way we play to win and there is a way we play for a loss, in both cases we are hardly disappointed.

One may ask "how do we play for a win or for a loss?", valid question.

Every game has their rules and unless we play by the specific rules of a particular game we are not likely to win.

As a man thinks:

If you think like a loser, you are not likely going to play like a winner. If you don't play like a winner how are you going to win? You might win once with that kind of thinking but you can never sustain winning with a loser's thinking. Don't think like a loser if you know you are not. Who is anyway? Winning starts from home, from the heart.

Play by the rules:

It is not enough to participate in a game, there is need to participate correctly. A game will not be correct without a set of rules guiding its play, who knows of any game whose only rule is that there are no rules? Feel free to leave a comment below. 

That a game has rules and that every player played by the rules do not make everyone a winner, so the obvious is that it takes more than playing by the rules of a game to win the game. While you need to play by the rule of the game you need more than that to win the game and to win every time.

Play by the rules of THE game.

Each game has its rules. To win at a game, you must know its rules. This is understanding of the game. This is one of the basic requirement to win a particular game. This understanding does not guarantee winning but it helps build confidence that is a form of winning at home. This is like saying you are at home in a game.

Play by the rules of YOUR game.

You should have a game that is your game. If you will be a winner at the game, you must own the game. Make the game yours and make its rules yours. Play the game like you set the rules. If you do, there are times breaking the rules will still not count against you. "The left hand of god" comes to mind. This will not be the case for you, if you have not possessed the game. Let THE game be YOUR game and its rules will be your rules.

It is not every game That you can own. Every game will not be your game, but THE game you will consistently win will be the game that has become YOUR game.

Play by the rules of YOUR LIFE.

Formal education has a way of putting everyone into common molds, but sadly the reality of life is that we are not common. We are similar but not the same. Your life is not mine, I play like a loser when I try to live your life and you play like a loser when you try to live mine. Every child was born a winner, we grow up to be otherwise. 

Growing up may be one of the greatest paradox in life: We are meant to grow into more winning but we somehow find ways to outgrow winning that we start losing.

Because we are similar, there are some rules that are common to us all, but there are rules that are specific for YOUR LIFE. Do you ask for examples? I am sorry, I won't give you any. How do you expect I give you billions of 'YOUR LIFE'-specific examples? We discover our lives and we learn the rules, in that order. 

If my life is meant for flying, I must not engage the rules of driving if I must keep flying. If I must be driving, I cannot assume flying routes as the course for my life.

Winning at Home

I like professional soccer, many people can relate and understand its dynamics. There are home and away matches and there is what is known as the "home advantages". At home, you have your fans in more numbers than the visitors, you are familiar with the weather and the crowd, you are not jet-lagged and you are also familiar with the turf and some other fine details that go into the winning psychology mix.

The sad reality is that not every match played at home is won. When this happens, it makes the away match more difficult to win and the odds are raised against winning.

Before home matches are played, there is need to win at home. This is what I mean: there is a home match before the home match and the primary home match must be won before the home or away match can be won. The primary home match is therefore the match within the mind.

The reasons we lose is because we play like losers and the reason we play like losers is because we think we are losers.

The truth actually is that we are winners and we have always been winners until we started thinking otherwise. We have been second guessed and have been second guessing ourselves to the point that we no longer believe in the winning us.

The winning us is not us actually, we lost that a long time ago. The winning us is God in us. God must be at home in us and we at home with God to keep winning.

Every time you go out and you lose, assume you left God at home. Because if God be for us who can be against us? Take note that the home is the home of your heart and not the flat your body lives in.

You must be winning at home to win both the home and away matches of your life. 

Winning is no longer optional, so go win or go home, but never play for a loss. If you have lost any home or away match, you probably left God at home, so go home. That's not you? You have been on a winning streak home and away, well there is room at home, go home too.

NOTE: This article was originally written for a now defunct website: www dot sundaygist dot com.

Respect

Respect they say is reciprocal, but respect is better and deeper than being reciprocal, it is the acknowledgement of the humanity in others.

It is the same respect that often differentiate a gentleman from a rascal.

Respect is seen in attack of issues rather than attack of
personalities.

Respect is the acceptance of the perfect work of the almighty in others, both human and non human, living and non living.

Respect for life is seen in healthy lifestyle and habits.

Respect for others and their beliefs is tolerance.

Respect for the environment is seen in cleanliness.

Respect for good things and habits is seen in imitation.

Respect for authority is in compliance with regulations and commands.

A singer asked "Who runs the world?" Today I am asking,
"What runs the world and what is ruining it?"
Respect runs the world while disrespect, disrespect for people, for nature and for self is what
is ruining the world.

If we will embrace mutual respect, self respect, and respect for every work of creation, there is hope for this nation and hope of a beautiful and a peaceful world.

Beware of First Impressions

Beware of First Impressions

Things are not as bad as they first appear to be.
Men are not as bad as they think they are and are not as good as they think they are.
There is always a factor that was never considered in the first assessment.

Although first impression lasts, it most likely is the wrong one.
I may not be able to describe as much as I feel about any situation, but my attempt at description may mean another fact and not the feeling, hence, I believe in the duality that exists in men.
There is always a “flesh lusting against the spirit” and always a good fighting the evil. There is always the light appearing in darkness to work against it, and as the night always running to get the day and always could not, there is always a good vying for the space of the bad in every man.
Everyone is at every moment the expression of who (or what) is having the current mastery of them; either good or bad.

That they are currently bad does not rule out the fact they have an intrinsic value of goodness in them.
That they are at present good-natured should not bring shock when they behave otherwise. Always try to remember that “Things are not as bad as they first appear to be”.
This is not a treatise on how men are weak and fallible. It is an attempt at making us see that we are the recipient of all our actions, good or bad; and that we may have the correct and a healthy disposition towards all men. It is not a call to witch-hunt or to look for the bad in men but to look at them as a mirror of who we are inside.
To always look for the bad in men is to have a bad eyes, and since the eyes are the windows to the soul, having a bad eyes is a major determinant of having an evil soul.

Things are not as bad as they first appear to be.
The healthy approach to life is to live with the knowledge that we are constantly evolving and converting the dynamic power in such knowledge to wisdom of application. The application: taking control of that becoming, because that is what evolution is; becoming better or worse. Wisdom is therefore controlling the becoming in such a way that we are becoming better and not worse.

As I mentioned earlier, the first impression may be the wrong one.
While you are making sure of a good and correct first impressions, make allowance for people who probably are trying harder than yourself in making their own good first impressions but are unable to pull it off successfully. Such allowances become the good souls.
Beware of first impressions!
You may be well impressed at first by a person or thing, but whether that first impression suggests good or bad beware, it may be the wrong impression.
That it feels good does not mean it is right. Of course you know that it feels good does not also mean it is wrong, it is just that you have to be careful of the first impressions.

Get a Life, Then Money. Not Vice Versa

"Anyone who doesn't care about money is a mad man. In fact, a mad man will also cling with his cash". That was the argument of a customer at an ATM.

Why the statement, and is he right? I do not know what you will say but this is a paraphrase of what I said, and the reason for the response: "Money is not the most important thing in life, and why should we because of money neglect self- and mutual-respect? Why should we put our hope in money that takes up wing and fly away?"

Money really restricts value. Let me limit that statement to human value. Money restricts human value.

Who knows the price of a man? Money may qualify a man, but it cannot represent his true value. Neither its presence nor absence can.

Someone said "Learning first, earning later.", I cannot agree more. I will not be surprised if on further discussion that the customer earlier paraphrased will prove to be desperate and will rather have the money and leave out the lessons.

It is saddening how people place more value on things rather than on people who control things. People want money and may sacrifice relationship and trust to get it, never thinking that the money will not just flow by itself it will flow through the hands of men. Yes, they do not care, they will only get the money and proverbially "bite the hand that feeds them".

Nobody can get a lasting wealth like that.

Subterfuge may serve you well in politics for selfish ends, but no one is yet to thrive by it.

You may think life is unimportant without money, but if you neglect life and pursue money, you will discover that money is nothing without a life; and should you have money without life, you will find out that the porosity of your living will be magnified until you find death more appealing than life.

Money is not everything; life is all.

Mother Theresa found that a pursuit of life is worth her all and the satisfaction she found could never have been rivaled by the pleasure if she were to be the richest.

If the statement of our customer is to be taken seriously, and if it is true that "anyone who doesn't care about money is a mad man." then, there are probably no mad man; because we all care about money.

It is not about caring about money, but it is about misplaced priority. If you would rather have a quick money than influence your world positively, even at the prospect of making money doing so, you need to get a life.

I can tell you assuredly, if you don't have a purpose for living or why your company exists other than for your selfish ends, and you have that money, the world will be the worse for it.

There is a lesson to be learnt all the way from zero to being a hero, from empty pocket to a fat account and for every intermittent losses and being broke; but a person with a mindset like our customer's will neglect them.

If you neglect and pass over the hard lessons money teach, after your money is gone, or when you are done with what the money can get you, you are coming back to class!

If you get a life now, and money comes, you both will be friends; otherwise, it will find its way out, that is if it does not enslave you.

Care about money: how you get it and how you use it. Care about your life too: what makes it thrive and what stifles it.

Money can make your life thrive or stifle it. But if you do not have a life, you have no business seeking money.

Get a life. Find the kingdom. Live the life, then 'invest' the money on life.

How Do you Feel When Things Don't Go Your Way?

I hope this draft,for that is what it is, helps you to think and meditate about certain things. 
I would not have written this way, but I think I did because it is about time to rest. (not until you share in some of the thoughts running amok in my head)

Why is common sense not common? Why is wisdom found in the least expected places - a good news in itself; but why is foolishness also found in the least expected places?

There are many 'whys' but few outlets for their solution.

How do you feel when things don't go your way? 

Have you been in a position that when you are almost feeling you are the best at what you do or you are smart, you suddenly discover that you look more like you are the fool?

How do you feel?

Most times when we ask questions like this, we are not expecting the answer to it, we are actually expecting an answer for "How should we feel?".

So, how should one feel when things don't go their way?

And I ask, how do you normally feel? I know somehow your mind reacted to this new question and asked you "how should you feel normally?".

I am not writing to give you the answer this time around  I am only asking a question hoping you will give me your answer. Although this time, it seems, there will not be a wrong or right answer.

Now I will give you my own answer: "Feel like it is The Way it Should Be". 

Now back to where we started: How should it be, how should things be?

I hope you share your thoughts with me too. Do have a good night rest. And amazingly, I need to pray that some have a great day! 

What a realization when we are talking of  'how should things be?'. 

This implies that what you think should be may not be seen as should be by others and how you feel may not be how you should feel. Reality therefore is not only about how we feel and sometimes not even about how we should feel. 
This means that reality is about what is. 

Now, What IS?