How Not to Lose Your Enemy

Many people start their new jobs with the intention of going to make new friends.  There are some who believe that once they reach their new posts, everybody will automatically fall in love with them.

Do you know that if life is created in such a way that you and I and loved by everybody else, then I bet there won’t be so much crime.  The great thing about creation is that we all are not created with the same characters though we may look alike physically.

We all have our differences, in many ways that when you clearly observe people the way I do, you will discovered these varieties you have never seen before. Often you may meet someone and wonder why this person is such a jerk but what you failed to understand is that that person is just acting the way he is.

During my travels, I met lots of people that usually get me thinking a lot and of course I’d marvelled at the differences among us. We may have certain similarities that bond us together at some points but our individualism always surface, thus causing conflicts.

So when you have a job, or you are about to start a new one, please do not just jump into the conclusion that everybody at your working place will like you. In fact, you may discover later on that one or two people don’t just like you for no reason.

This is normal and you must not panic about this. What you must do is, try as much as possible to mind your business. Focus on your job, do not engage in discussing with another colleague why this person or that person does not like you.

You are not in that job to search for friends or to force people to like you. You are there to work.  And if you are not careful, you may end up losing your job or being fired while you are struggling to make someone to like you.

Remember, whether your colleague(s) likes you or not, it’s absolutely none of your business. Please, focus extensively on how you will progress in your job and career.

Cheers!

Princess Ayelotan

©2009 All Rights Reserved

www.princessayelotan.com

DON’T BE A BASTARD!

Dear Friend,

I remember those days when my uncles used to come home from overseas. They were like gods. We look at them with deep awe as if they are not part of us. Then, we the younger ones, took the pain of broadcasting their arrivals to our friends and neighbours as if our uncles are bigger than the heavens.

It was fun then, with those tiny gifts, the dollar notes that they tuck in our palm. Every child those days pray to be like them. Nothing else mattered except our dreams of going to ‘Ame’ as they used to call America in our community.

Gradually, our fairy dreams of ‘Ame’ faded and melt off like vapour, not just because we are grownups but because soon we noticed three mothers of these our angelic-uncles now engaged in weeping as well as sending enormous curses to their sons who seemed it fit to neglect their mothers, never bother to contact Nigeria anymore.

 I thought this was happening in my own world until I discovered here that many African prefer to do away with the idea of contacting their parents back home. Most of them give excuses that if you are not careful, you also will believe them and before you know it, you are applying the same method to your own family.

The question is; has Europe, UK, America, or wherever you are brainwashed you that now all you think of is neglecting your own parents or family members in Africa?

I have friends like me who don’t mind emptying their bank account and give all to our parents and siblings back home without any remorse. And as the same time, I knew some Africans here who don’t give a damn if their parents or siblings survive or not.

Is this fair?

Majority of people who engage in this are usually ready with excuses that they their white spouses will not permit them to withdraw money from their joint account and send to Africa! Imagine that!

Most of them complain their parents and siblings disturb them by asking for too much. Tell me, who else will they disturb if not you?

My husband has never prevented me from taking care of my family back home in Africa. In fact, he encourages me. That he is white does not mean he should make me neglect my parents. Most of my friends too are married to whites and they have never neglected their parents.

When these African men and women were still in Africa, they were catered for by their parents, their siblings and family members. Those times, they had no idea of ever dreaming of meeting their white spouses.

Today, my uncles are prodigal sons, forgotten and abandoned as they have chosen their white spouses and America above their own African family members.

You may be in such position or you are about to, I implore you, DO NOT NEGLECTS your parents. Never refuse to help your siblings. They all need you.  By being wicked to them just means you are self-handled reducing your destiny. 

Of course, I agree with you if you try to avoid some distant relatives who were never there when you are nothing but just show up now. You have the right to avoid those ones if you like. Trust me, most of them deserve that.

But when it comes to your close relatives, especially your parents, and your siblings, please do all it takes to make them happy. They are with you from day one as family, they are with you while you were a child, and they are with you through thick and thin, until chances and destiny take you higher than them. It is not now that you should decide to abandon them.

Do not let your white spouse determine for you how you should cater for your family back home. A time will come; I repeat that a time will come that you will have no one to fall back to except these lovely people back in Africa.

You have the privileges to be overseas, to be successful, and to be where you are today not because of your own will but because God wants you to be tremendous blessings for your parents, and your siblings.

Please, never, never, and never neglect them.

Cheers!

Princess Ayelotan

©2009 All Rights Reserved

www.princessayelotan.com

 

FILTER, FIX & FIT

Dear Friend,

There is this ISSUE about creating some kinds of friendship that you need to know.

It is sounds great developing friendship with just about any one. Most of us knew what friendship is all about. You can start off wonderful one just like that with a stranger thus both of you becoming the best of friends. It may be someone you met at school, your place of work, your churches, in the commercial buses, taxis, grocery store or even on the street.

It does not matter where you tend to develop your friendship. BUT sometimes, you need to understand that there are some kinds of friendship that you must be careful with.

One of them, which I am going to focus on today, is developing friendship with your neighbour(s).

There is no what if in this. A long-lasting lesson of respect you will earned when you learn how to deal with your neighbour(s).  That you reside in the same building or the same neighbourhood does not mean you should go on to pitch your 24 hours tent in your neighbour’s house.

I have seen women and men who without them realising daily vacated their own houses and went to stay in their neighbours’ houses. It is not as if they move in permanently but unconsciously they got into the bad habit of either going to watch football match on their neighbours’ TV or giving such excuses as going to ‘say hello.’

As for the women, they just want to gossip and they found the best way were to always come together in group.

This way, many of them lost the dignity they should have earned if they have mastered the art of staying in their own houses.

Are you one who cherishes spending long hours at your neighbours? You know what? Your neighbours may not speak against this directly to you but he or she is not comfortable with your hanging around.

With your 24 hours visibility at your neighbour’s, you don’t give the other person the chance to live a life of privacy. Also, you won’t have the creative time to develop your own live.

If you want the best for your life, then you must adjust the way you deal with neighbours. There are moments you will need them but they are best to be seen afar.

You might just try applying the French way of dealing with neighbours, which is just minding your own businesses, tending to your own affairs, caring for your own family and avoiding the neighbours BUT never forget to greet when you meet them on the staircase or along the street.

Be reasonable to apply this. Avoid frequenting your neighbours’ houses. Stay in your own house and cater for your needs and those of your family members. Let your entire neighbourhood sees you as someone respectable, a person of honour and NOT a meddler.

I hope you will listen.

Cheers!

Princess Ayelotan

©2009 All Rights Reserved

www.princessayelotan.com

 

Author

TASTE OF HUNGER

www.tasteofhunger.com

SHADOW OF THE SUN

www.shadow-of-the-sun.com

THE PRICELESS EARNING

A girlfriend does not understand why several people find it so hard to heed to her words. To her, she concluded that none of these people, whose majority are from her family do respect her.

She got me thinking. I did not bother to talk to her over this because to me, I knew she is old enough to know where her problem lies.

I wonder if many people understand what respect means and the ways to earning it. Respect does not come to anyone by chance.

To earn respect, you have to walk for it. If you are the type who derives pleasure from interfering into another person’s affair, how is it possible for you to be respected?

You don’t need to force people to respect you. There is absolutely no need to hold people in serious discussion in order to announce to them that they must respect you. In fact, if you do that, you are diving further into making them dry up all the reserve of respect they may intend for you.

The most important way to earn respect and maintain it is by your attitude. How you conduct yourself is very vital. You may not believe this but people watch you daily especially in your place of work, in your neighbourhood, in your churches, on the street, among your friends, and public events.

• Avoid getting drunk to such extent that you turn yourself to a nonentity on the streets.
• Watch how you talk to people.
• Are you rude often?
• Do you care about what comes out of your mouth or your just speak anyhow?
• Are you conscious of the way you walk, your dressing or you are this dirty type who cares for one shirt per week?
•  Do you enjoy mixing up as group with the women on your street to tarnish the image of another family or woman?
•  Do you mind your business or prefer to meddle anywhere as you want?
• How you do you address your spouse or children publicly?
• Do you care about the welfare of other people or you just shun them as you like?
• Do you love cursing and openly?
• How is your level of smoking? Do you smoke just about anywhere even not caring about spurring on people’s face while at the bus-stop?
• How organise is your matrimonial home?
• How well-arranged is your personal life?
• Are helping yourself to improve academically, financially, and more or you are the type who prefer to go borrow money, clothes, foodstuff from your next-door neighbour?

If you check your life and find that none of the above questions are for you, then you are heading toward or are the one who deserve respect.

On the other side, if you match one of the above questions, then you must adjust your life. Nothing is ever too late and that means that it is not yet too late for you to change.

Respect will flow to you when your life is organised and people around you can testify genuinely.

Cheers!

Princess Ayelotan

©2009 All Rights Reserved

www.princessayelotan.com

 

Author

TASTE OF HUNGER

www.tasteofhunger.com

SHADOW OF THE SUN

www.shadow-of-the-sun.com

BEING THAT SUPER-PERFECT IS NOT ENOUGH

Dear Friend,

Being good to people is not just mere requisite for living. You may think it is normal in life to be good to people, to show kindness wherever we meet other people, to help others if they need our assistance, or even to greet others.

It does not end there.         

In fact, life is much deeper than you think. The little thing of life that you tend to take for granted or the small incident that occurred in your way and you overlook is that important part of life though you may not fully understand that from the onset.

What you give to life is often what life gives back to you. It may be so sudden that you will reap that but it will surely come.

This is why no matter the level you are in life, no matter the greatness of your personality; do not, I mean, do not toy with people who were there for you.

People are there for you at those particular moments when you need help. They just don’t come to you by accident. They are part of the blessings for your life.

Now that you have succeeded and excel in life, does it pay you to forget these precious people who helped you when you are nothing?

No!

Learn to appreciate and pay back. A word of thanks is not a waste neither is it a burden. Do not look down on people because you think you are no longer in their level.

Maintain your relationship with people irrespective of whom and where you are because you will need these people one day.

Do not be too arrogant to believe that you are higher than people. No one is higher than another person. What makes you different may be your attainment of wealth, education or whatever but it is only God who is above all.

You need to remain good to people and be in constant contact with them. People are precious. God created us all to be there for one another. To help, to admonish, to support, to laugh together, to care for, to cry together, to create, and even to destroy when the need be.

Think twice when thinking of doing away with people. You never can tell, you will surely need them when that time comes.

So stay being good to people! They are invaluable!

Cheers!

Princess Ayelotan

© All Rights Reserved

www.princessayelotan.com

 

Author

TASTE OF HUNGER

www.tasteofhunger.com

SHADOW OF THE SUN

www.shadow-of-the-sun.com

WHAT WILL BECOME OF ME?

Dear friend,

A twelve-year old boy walked to his teacher and said ‘Mr John, I want to be like you”

His teacher looked at him, a bit puzzled and asked “how, Richard?”

Richard was by now timid when he replied; “I will be a teacher like you when I grow up”

John was touched. He smiled and rubbed his hand over Richard’s head as he said “Ok Richard but make sure you become a teacher and with extreme responsibility plus greater differences”

What John actually meant by his response is not for Little Richard to be a teacher BUT to be a teacher will sort-out difference(s). John knew there are thousands of people who are in his profession and he was impressed that his pupils liked him. It was the result of his impact.  His distinguish character and expertise moved Little Richard to that point of desiring to be like his teacher.

Each time I remember this side of John’s story, it helps me to reflect so much on entire human race. Do you know that there is no profession on earth that has never been done by someone else?

Are you passionate about your career as a Journalist? Do you desire to be part of the US military special envoy to Afghanistan? Are you dying about securing that hot seat as President of United States of American as Obama?  Is it in your future agenda to becoming the next Queen of England? Or are you training to become a Medical doctor, Pastor, acupuncturist, IT Consultant, Writer, Barrister, University professor, pharmacist, Librarian, modelling stylist, pilot, et cetera.

You may even be contending for the post of a senator.

The truth is, there is ABSOLUTELY nothing you will be, or want to be, on this planet earth that another person had not been.  Every profession is a circle that goes round and round.

What set you OUT and makes you different is your ability to be NUMBER ONE in whatever you are doing. It is not enough that you are just in your profession or whatever career you are training for without creating a SET OUT goals for yourself.

Take for instance, Edward Moore (Teddy, Ted) Kennedy (February 22, 1932 – August 25, 2009). He was an icon. Ted is gone today but he would forever be remembered. Throughout his lifetime, he SET OUT making differences in his career as US senator. Yes, he was a Kennedy but Ted was just too different! Though he had his flaws, Ted did not let that determined his career and personality. He SET OUT differently! He helped the poor, the needy, the women, and kids as well as deprived ones.

There are hundreds of people like Ted and you too might be one on the list if you come to full understanding that you must be different.

Do not be comfortable being among the numbers in your profession. Instead fight to be out of the number. It does not pay to stay in the group. Get out of the crowd! Be an unforgettable impact.

Do you know how many senators have passed through the US senate? Yet, Ted Kennedy’s differences just SET him OUT! He served ten US Presidents including President Obama. If Ted was not good for the senate, he would have been kicked out and forgotten.

May I ask you this? What will become of you in your chosen profession?

Cheers!

Princess Ayelotan

©2009 All Rights Reserved

www.princessayelotan.com

 

Author

TASTE OF HUNGER

www.tasteofhunger.com

SHADOW OF THE SUN

www.shadow-of-the-sun.com

I CAN’T STAND THIS PERSON!

Being able to accept others into our lives does not require so much from us. There are some of us who think its not possible most times dealing with people. Sure, I knew some people are difficult but I would like to announce to you that this is very EASY.

What you need to understand are those invaluable differences in us as human. Let’s take for instance; when you have two or more cats as pet. They may even be dogs. You will found out as you all live together that these pets are different in their behaviours and you just have to adapt to them differently.

The same applies to how you deal or interact with fellow being.

That you are smart, quick-swift and hyperactive does not means your friend, your parents, your siblings, your colleague or your employee, or your spouse or your kids will be just like you. Some people are slow in executing their duties. In fact, some are extremely slow.

There are others who are sluggish, while there are those prefer to take things easy; you don’t push them and they will work at their own pace. Apart from these set of people, there are those ones with high capacity of getting their jobs done within seconds.

Despite, we all are humans. We have the obligation to accept others as they are. How will this world be if the entire human races are gifted with the same characters, attitudes and other ways of doing things? The beauties of our being are our God-given differences.

Learn to tolerate. Are you an employer and you are having difficulties getting your employees doing their jobs as you desire?

Be reasonable as you apply gentleness but firm approach to instruct them.

Are you a parent; frustrated with your kids’ behaviour?

Check out their own point of view, their weak points and with complete calmness, speak to them.

Do you feel your spouse is becoming a pain in the ass though there is no such as violence or abuses between you?

Look out for convenient moment when there is serenity to discuss and solve the problem

Do not buy the idea that someone is too difficult to handle. If you master tolerance, definitely you will find it easy and smooth dealing with others.

So are you going to embrace tolerance today?

Cheers!

Princess Ayelotan

www.princessayelotan.com

©2009 All Rights Reserved

Author

TASTE OF HUNGER

www.tasteofhunger.com

SHADOW OF THE SUN

www.shadow-of-the-sun.com

WAIT, I SAY WAIT!

Dear Friend,

Have you ever found yourself in such situation that you are in hurry to get what you want? Have you ever been dismayed when what you want did not show up on time or refused to show up at all?

You are not alone. All of us have been in this position at different times, moments, and hours of our lives.

Impatient does nothing favourable than to create unnecessary anguish, depression, sadness, headaches, and illnesses for no reason.

Nothing can be more satisfying when you are holding what you have been long for in your hands. The joy that follows your successes and achievement is indescribable because only you can fully experience it, and if you try to describe it to others, they may not be able to grab the meaning behind it.

So before you get what you long for, is it possible for you to wait and wait without you creating any unnecessary stress for your soul through impatient?

Yes, it is possible and that’s why the purpose of this post is to inform you about Patient.

Patient is a treasure. It is never in a hurry. It comes with beauty, lasting peace, and happiness that nothing else can give. The advantages that come with being patient in life are far more rewarding than the stresses you can get from impatient.

Why not take your time out and wait. Do not be impatient because what you are working towards, what you are expecting, what you are looking for has not yet surface. It will come. Remember, there is time for everything under the sun.

So embrace patient and your life will remain a blessing. Flee from impatient to avoid being ruined.

Wait, I say WAIT!

Cheers!

Princess Ayelotan

www.princessayelotan.com

©2009 All rights reserved

Author

TASTE OF HUNGER

www.tasteofhunger.com

SHADOW OF THE SUN

www.shadow-of-the-sun.com

I MET MR STIGMA

He is neither human nor robot

Yet he lives inside us.

He came to us when we moved

To our new abode

 

There, the entire street gazed non-stop

Their fists tightened, ready for discord

Their lower jaws moved up and down

In response to their spirited anger

 

They watched with contempt

While we pushed in our belongings

Disdain to have us as part of them

To be part of the distinguished circus

 

I knew they are maybe right

To see us as misfit

So I queried Mr. Stigma

“You are different” he replied

 

So I realised that no how far we locate

No matter the effort we made,

Mr. Stigma will not seize to be,

As long as the colour of my skin exists.

 

Princess Ayelotan

www.princessayelotan.com

 Author

TASTE OF HUNGER

www.tasteofhunger.com

 SHADOW OF THE SUN

www.shadow-of-the-sun.com

The TUCK

 

She lowers her head,

Her eyes sweep the hard cemented floor

There she hears them approaching

As they go on and forth.

Tack, tack, tack, tack,

So they move, going on and forth.

She watches their coloured legs, of

Cover shoes, flat shoes, tennis shoes

So she watches and waits,

Waiting to hear the major ‘TUCK’

Of the mercy coin in her cup.

‘Tack, tack, tack, tack,

She listens but listens more for the tuck

Praying more for the sound of the tuck

Because she does not forget,

The hungry little fingers waiting at home.

 

Princess Ayelotan

www.princessayelotan.com

©2009 All Rights Reserved

 

Author

TASTE OF HUNGER

www.tasteofhunger.com

 

SHADOW OF THE SUN

www.shadow-of-the-sun.com