You can read that post here.
So after last year's post, I thought, "Why can't we be doing this annually?" Then the reply came back: not bad, not bad at all.
Herein, I am unleashing a few lessons from 2014, aligned in no order at all...
1. I discovered that the best thing a person can do to themselves is to either be fully involved in something or not to be involved in anything at all. The truth is this: playing middle ground is both unhealthy and dissatisfying. It elevates indecision, and indecisive minds build no real castles.
2. If and when something (or stuff) is wrong, stop and fix it. Playing passive won't help a thing. I have discovered that people who complain about things without making effort to make them right are worse than those who don't care about whatever is happening.
3. Failure creates masterpieces out of men if they use it well. I believe that those who have failed before are better teachers than those who only believe in success.
4. Stuff comes and stuff goes; nothing lasts forever. Nothing except things that concern the Heaven of God.
5. We ride on different levels of integrity, intelligence, origin, ability and self-drive. This means that it is useless and demeaning to your awesome self to compare yourself to others. It is better if you compared your new self to who you were yesterday or a few minutes ago; there, you'll be growing.
6. Our social media platforms (Google+, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and WhatsApp) are full of people and families wanting to make you feel that your life is so boring, less advanced, eventless and you ain't all that blessed as they are. But it is not always that way. There are so many of us that pretend almost about everything. It is an art we have perfected.
7. You can't fully satisfy everyone. (The key word here is FULLY.) Playing God to people in/and their lives/needs will only leave you drained, burnt out and extremely exhausted for nothing. That's why there is God, then there is man. Stick to being a human being and you'll be safe.
8. One of the worst habits to pick is that of doing something (whether good or bad) because everyone else is doing it. This is called "being a junk cabinet". You always end up junky.
9. God is not my servant, nor is He yours. We shouldn't therefore try to dictate how He works in or through us on any given day.
10. Serve the LORD. If He blesses you, well and good; if He doesn't, serve Him. He'll bless you anyway. Oh, and He knows why you serve Him anyway. You can't fool Him.
11. My spiritual life is not dependent on my leader or pastor. Blaming either or both of them for what goes wrong with it is like Judas Iscariot blaming Christ for falling out.
12. If I boast of what I do or what I am able to do, I boast foolishly.
13. People (including myself) will want you to do stuff for them like accomplish a project, meet a target, go somewhere on their/our behalf but they will never appreciate the sacrifices you made along the way to meet their demands. In short, most of us are really ungrateful, so put that in mind before offering us a helping hand.
14. Work with what you have. Stay contented. What you don't have is not yours, so don't plan your life using it. (This I learned when my employer transitioned from one small organization to a bigger one. People expected promotions and a salary increment. Both have not appeared.)
15. I've discovered that every moment a parent treats an 18 year old the same way they treat a 10 year old, they lose them by 2%. That means, it will only take 50 times of lack of confidence in a teenager to lose them completely. It also means that if a parent does it consecutively for a whole year, the child they'll be seeing in the next year will be totally different from the one they knew in the past year.
16. You are more awestruck (either positively or negatively) when you see yourself as you really are than when you look at others with an eye intending them to be the way you expect them to be. Try it one time.
17. Don’t peg your life on people. Because; they come and go, they change everyday, and because even the government subsides in meekness and uselessness. Pegging yourself on how people see you and think you are will bring you down. Brands/people are not liked passé, but brands are made to be loved with time.
18. Don’t think that you know it all. Sometimes silence is the best option. In 2014, I begun learning how to just say nothing at all. (I seem to be that guy who’s always talking about stuff so this has been bit of a challenge to me.)
19. Also, I realized that our relationships are affected by how much we speak – people abhor proud people who always think they know it all... So it is good to be aware that the so-called fools know some stuff about silence that the wise don’t.
20. God is here, God is there and… God is everywhere; but what counts in our relationship with Him is our consciousness of His omnipresence. He rarely moves unless we do. He loves me even at the very moments I think I don’t deserve it. He cares, and would love us to appreciate Him for who He is and what He does and also have a deep understanding of Him through a constant relationship with Him. He desires, above all, that we learn and grow in Him. He cares about our relationship with others around us too.
21. Hurry is the devil. Hurry changes nothing for the better. Actually, hurry fuels anxiety/fear, complaints and impatience which are the three things that are very much against the character that the LORD seeks to build in us. There is therefore no need to hurry in life. At all.
22. Entirely, nobody cares. This is the safest point of knowledge you can ever have, so use it for your own good.
23. Mostly, people want to be part of something great – something big – but they mostly have no idea of how to bring it about. Also, mostly, people only get involved in something that will eventually directly benefit them. Of these two kinds of people, I learned that leadership is about knowing how to meet the needs of both without necessarily satisfying them.
24. When you do nothing, you achieve nothing. Even God does something, why do we think that we shouldn’t? Riches and prosperity are outcomes of hard work. It is impossible to nurture success without hard work and commitment.
25. There is no limit to creativity and becoming better. Each one of us has the potential of becoming better. You can become better if you choose to and work hard on it. But remember that although copying the status quo may make you adopt easily, it will soon throw you out of business.
26. Creativity requires that you stretch your limits a little. It is tough, but is it always the father of invention.
27. When you use you as your own mirror and while using the Word of God as a reflection, then you can grow healthily amongst many of your type.
28. We die slowly in so many places without knowing. Gradual spiritual death to a Christian is maybe one of the most underrated things.
29. Every believer needs to learn and become equipped in Christian apologetics. Neither for "awesomeness" nor for their leader(s) sake, but for this very reason: it is a good thing and a mark of sanity to know and become sure of what someone believes in and to be able to defend that very course.
That's all for now.
Until next time,
Bonface Morris.
