NO LOVE LOST (VALENTINE SPECIAL)

Happy St. Valentine's day to you all Hope your week is going on well and great Special welcome to all joining us newly on the network. Good to have you all. Like we say herein if you cannot be here real time ensure you read up so you don't miss a thing. Today's topic is 'No Love Lost' In the course of the teaching if my ideas throw you out of balance, feel free to disagree and we will interactively learn altogether(that's the purpose of this network). Again, feel free to comment, interject and highlight areas of interest in such a manner that does not disrupt the flow of the teaching. In the end we should all have a great evening. So let's begin....... Love is such a thing even though it doesn’t cost a thing but it sometimes cost lives: in the movie 300, two powerful kings went to war because of a woman. Sometimes it costs cities: Alexander the great almost moved his capital from Athens to Egypt because of a woman. Sometimes it costs ambition; one time U.S Secretary of state, .Miss Condoleeza Rice referred to President George Bush as 'my husband' in a press briefing. (a honest mistake coming from an unmarried woman) I leave the rest to your imagination The phrase ' No love lost' is used to describe ill will and extreme animosity or hatred between parties such that they could barely stand each other. So what is the connection with LOVE you ask? Yes, that phrase had an original meaning before now. In the 1500s, the phrase was also used to describe extreme affection. In the sixteenth century, no love lost could mean that the couple either hated each other equally or loved each other equally. Unrequited love was considered love lost, so if two people’s sentiments matched in intensity and amount of regard, whether love or hate, then there was no love lost. Around the year 1800, the term no love lost began to refer only to a situation in which there is ill will between two people. So I am basing this teaching on the earlier meaning. You may ask again, why choose old English meaning over present day meaning? For the clarity of the message; in 2003, American actor Mel Gibson produced a popular box office breaker titled 'Passion of the Christ'. The title did not connect with the message because passion meant love but he explained that the old meaning of the word was in fact 'suffering and pain'. The present day English language is just about 500 years old. A lot of meaning has been lost in generational transit. It is a fact that present native Brits would not be able to understand the written/ spoken English of 6 centuries ago or more. Even our local languages here in our country suffer from same fate as people move upcountry and into new age and times, it changes accent and many times changes meanings. One fatal disconnect of language is 'inability to capture entirely everything' With this in mind, it is fair to say the English language just like every other language cannot completely interpret words, feelings, situations and phenomenon. Language is a limited expressionist. I love pounded yam. I love my wife. I love my mother. I love my country. I love my job. I love God. I love my car. I love that movie. I love flying. I love my kids. I love mathematics. I love the house...etc You will agree with me that the feeling all these brings differ yet I have used love to describe many different feelings simply because of the 'incapability of language to limitlessly understand and capture my varying degrees of affection' Obviously you cannot love your wife just as your car or food, neither does your love for your mother equate love for your wife. They are different intents and emotional experiences all lumped up in one word. What a confusion! Therefore love is first of all an emotion that has been bruised, degraded and reduced by language. In a bit to interpret what is beyond our understanding, we must of necessity bring it to our shores of knowledge. For you to explain advanced mathematical concepts to a 6 year old you must degrade the concept to his absorbable format using simple analogies. So this is what you must know *Love is a concept designed and demonstrated  by a superior being therefore we need language to help simplify the feelings however same language bastardizes it Love is like a local wrap of baked bean (moinmoin) in layers. As you are removing the outer layer you are faced with inner layers. Meaning all you have ever known and all you know is not all love is about. There is a lot more you do not Love is a curriculum Love is only best expressed to the extent that I know, am taught and understand the subject. I cannot outperform love beyond my 6 yr old brain. That is why to help me understand love, society reduced it to romance, sex, kisses and hugs, belly butterflies, goose pimples feeling, orgasm, cloud nine theory etc. I see an attempt to teach a syllabus but we hardly even scratch the surface. Love is therefore not optimized. The reason is simple, Love as a curriculum is not a subject. Love is a person. Love is tricky Love is a phenomenon everyone agrees to know little about but think they know all about.  That explains the record level of divorce in marriages, and increasing unhealthy relationships. The oxymoron- The more you look, the less you see. Love is filling Everyone has a hollow in him/her that only love can fill. Never mind, the creator made you that way. They may hide it or suppress it or divert it but it's a hollow with a lock and key mechanism. Only the right key opens that door. If you insert the wrong key or the right key into wrong lock as the case may be, the key may get stuck or it damages both the key and the hole. They just won't fit. Do not let current realities make you think flowers, jewelries and potato salad dinner can turn to the right key. 30billion account may not be the right key so also is a red account. Bentley may not turn out to be the right key so also is Toyota Camry 2.2. Your choice of key is not a generic choice. It is your lock that determines your own key not media not peer. So how do you know your lock? You cannot know the hollow until you know the person who put it there and that's God. You must first come to terms with your real self, potentials, life purpose, strengths, weakness, gifts, dreams, desires, character, pain and passion in God. It is this knowledge that forms the basis of the assessment of the key. When the right key comes you will know. It will lock in not crack or grind the teeth. Even when it is not perfect fit, it perhaps just needs some edge smoothening. So your problem is not first that you need a key , it is that you are a hole who doesn't know what key fits. So you keep trying out different keys till you spoil the lock. For the married people on this network, congratulations you already have a key. You're locked in. For singles and those in relationships....pay attention to this is  there is that person out there who is your emotional match. He will surrender his dreams to accommodate yours. He will inspire you, love you, give you, challenge you, bless you, defend you, protect you, sacrifice for you, take care of you. She doesn't see an option apart from you, she will win you, make you, encourage you, stretch your thinking, build with you and build you up, she is adamant about you, believes in you, she perceives she had no life outside you. He/She considers YOU as their purpose. They came here to do life with you and if they don't they know it's a big miss. That's your key but you know what we have been told we can't find nobody with all these altogether. I agree with you. There is such a thing as that but that's why it's called LOVE. It is yet to be maximised. It is a curriculum we will unravel it till we die. Cheers, Paul Amusa

FAILURE REHEARSAL (POOR PLANNERS IV)

When a man reads voraciously, we can tell that he will become an expert in that subject. So indeed, you have got to understand that the things we bury ourselves in daily is what eventually determines what we will end up becoming.

Another category of people who will undoubtedly fail in life except they do something about it are poor planners. Gentlemen, you have got to understand that the old saying; “people do not plan to fail, but fail to plan” is still very relevant in this age and time. What this saying means is this, whatever we fail to plan for, we have already began laying the templates for its failure. We do not plan to fail, we only fail to plan. So when we live our lives without a plan, we are like a man dancing naked in the rain, he is on the edge of shame. While a plan may not guarantee success, lack of a plan will guarantee failure.

Buildings have plans, there is a structural plan, you will hear of a survey plan, you will even hear of government having master plan, there is even a career called town planning. Everything in life that will eventually last must be suspended on a plan. Why is it that you are the only one who seems not to have a serious life plan?

A future that is not planned cannot be arrived in. Poor planners take their lives most unserious and as such who should actually take them serious? A life without a plan is a disaster waiting to happen. Even God himself has a plan for the world, so there is visible order in the things that you see - the universe. There is a plan for everything.  The only evidence that you are serious about anything is a written plan because it is a commitment to that thing. What exactly are you planning to do to make things improve? Do you have a financial and investment plan? Do you have a health plan? So if you do not have a plan and all you do is wake up and live the day the way it comes, the future will arrive like a turbulent tornado and you may not like what it will bring to you.  Why is it essential to have a plan?  Hello sir, a plan will make you identify and manage risks effectively. It is only a plan that helps your life to build a robust system that helps to see what is material and what isn't material and helps to make critical decisions going forward. So whenever there are risks that are about to accumulate, plans will help you to respond effectively to risks in your life. There must be a working plan for scenario analysis in your life. You have got to know what is changing, or is likely to change or what is not going to change. You must also know what poses as a threat to you. A plan is a system that makes life auto regulate itself. Life auto regulates for a man who's got a plan. A man without a plan will look for someone who has one for him and he will operate with that man's plan. So whether you like it or not, you must live life with a plan.  If you do not have a plan; I’m sorry to announce to you that somehow you will live the plan of other people for your life, because 7.4billion people on this planet somehow will hand you a plan. They want you to help them do something, or join them in doing something - either for good or for bad. Somebody will just influence you somehow.  My friend, it is important that you have a plan for your own life. Live your life intentionally Don't miss #DREAMZTIME with Paul Amusa on the following radio stations: LAGOS: UnilagFM 103.1;Tuesdays & Thursdays, 6:20am IBADAN: Diamond FM 101.1; Mon-Fri, 7:50am ILORIN: Betterbyfar FM 89.3; Tuesdays, Thur-Sun, 6:50am   Yours Sincerely Paul Amusa

FAILURE REHEARSALS (III)

Have you heard of people who are rehearsing for failure? Because from their rehearsals we can tell that they may likely fail. That’s the way the routines of some people are. The things that they do clearly shows that they are heading for disaster o’ clock. 

Another category of people who are undoubtedly going to be failing in no time except they do something about it are unchallenged people. You see, the world is full of unmotivated people; people who are fine with every status quo. Such people don’t believe in “no condition is permanent.” The worst set of people to be around definitely are those who care about nothing at all. Unchallenged people are onlookers. They are looking at everything; they don’t respond, they don’t participate, they don’t even react, they are just looking - Passive mediocres! They are people who should never be hung around. 

Unchallenged people lack quality passion that produces unprecedented results. They are people who have resigned to fate, they have submitted to unholy destiny believing they are not just the fortunate kind of people. Haven’t you met people who rather than take responsibility for being unchallenged, they quickly zero in and say that ‘they do not have a destiny and they were fitted for that purpose.’ They blame everything on destiny. They just agree that they were not fortunate and as such the benefits of life were not meant for people like them. 

Unchallenged people settle for average, they like what they presently have and enjoy but they do not aspire for better opportunities. They don’t believe that there is anything like a maximum life, or a progressive report, or that there is always a challenge and there is somebody who can trigger something in us so that we can do more. Haven’t you come across people who great stories do not interest? Check yourself, if you are beginning to notice that you really do not bother about your life and the direction it is moving, then it is a source of worry. When your friends come with a success story and you are not asking questions about how you can intelligently know the process and respond by doing the things that they did, but all you are asking for is a celebration (washing of a new car and drinking beer at their house warming party!) 

Hello there, I am not saying that you should be envious or that you shouldn’t celebrate people’s success. I’m saying if that is all you do and you are not in any way inspired to want to do more, then you are an unchallenged person. You were born to be celebrated also.

If you are going to ever taste greatness and if you are ever going to find your name on the hall of fame of great people, then you must learn to be challenged. When you are challenged your perspectives about things will change. Rather than focus on stupid things, you will ask the right questions. Challenge makes people buckle up and innovate. If everybody were to be unchallenged, then the world would probably be a millennium behind today. Life evolves because people are challenged; there is the hunger to surpass innovations and inventions. The economy rocks and rolls because there is a challenge going on there. In fact, one of the roles of government anywhere is to encourage healthy challenge and competition and discourage monopoly. So what makes life revolve and continue to make sense and become better is the fact that people choose to be challenged!

If you do something, we will do better. Not necessarily because we are dangerous rivals but because variety is the spice of life so we must learn the language of challenge. If you have anyone around your life who is not challenged, then they are rehearsing for disaster o’ clock because a time will come when the fruits of all their rehearsals will come upon them!

Don't miss #DREAMZTIME with Paul Amusa on the following radio stations:
LAGOS: UnilagFM 103.1;Tuesdays & Thursdays, 6:20am
IBADAN: Diamond FM 101.1; Mon-Fri, 7:50am
ILORIN: Betterbyfar FM 89.3; Tuesdays, Thur-Sun, 6:50am
 



Yours Sincerely
Paul Amusa