“You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today,” – Abraham Lincoln.

Hello there! Its been a while since I wrote something. Procrastination. For a couple of days I have been postponing to write and until I noticed when you don’t make something a priority you keep postponing it every other day. Many times we postpone things we know we are supposed to do to the next minute, hour, day, week, month and it can go as far as a year or even more. The sooner you realize how you have been delaying things that needs to get done the better. If you keep on saying tomorrow, you realize it may never come.

Two rules of procrastination: 1) Do it today. 2) Tomorrow will be today tomorrow. “I’ll do it someday.” Someday is not a date on the calendar. Setting deadlines for yourself is very important here, because it pushes you towards attaining a goal before the deadline. And it helps make sure you have completed the task beforehand.

I hope you are having a great start of the year. Lets do it now. Lets not procrastinate on things that could make a difference in our lives.

As always thanks for stopping by! Great weekend to you and yours.

Love.

Looking back at the year that just passed, you find things you wish never happened the way they did. And things turning out exactly opposite of how you wanted them to. However hard or tough it was for you, am here to remind you that 2017 comes with new hope. An opportunity to make things right. To do things better. To try again. To dream again. To work towards your goals. An opportunity to watch the beauty of sunrise and sunset. The fact that you are alive and breathing is enough reason to have hope that this year will bring you lots of goodies.

You may not be able to forget whatever happened in the past year, but you can choose not to dwell in it and pick up the lessons. The past is just that and you cannot change it. But you can make today and tomorrow better, much better than yesterday.  You are under no obligation to remain the same person you were a year, month or even 15 minutes ago. You have the right to grow.

Every exit is an entry somewhere else. Don’t hold yourself down with things you cannot change because they have happened already. Believe that this year is a fresh year, in fact it is a brand new start. Stay positive that 2017 will bring you great things. Set some goals, work towards them, enjoy the process and remain happy in the journey. Smile often, laugh more. Remember you are perfect just the way you are.

Wishing you a blessed and successful year 2o17. May all your dreams come true!

 

 

 

Counting days and hours before we say good bye to 2016! This is a time where you are trying to reflect and see what you got done, what you didn’t do, what you achieved and where you failed and learning from the mistakes, because well, they are part of life! Its the time to focus on the things you need to do better come 2017.

Sometimes you get in between, because things didn’t turn out well in some areas, or you didn’t achieve as much as you had planned for at the beginning of the year.  Or you failed at some of the things you had so much hope for. It could be the disappointments you got from people you had trusted. Or because you placed other peoples happiness before yours and expected them to do the same.

One of the things you get to learn is being flexible, to the circumstances you find yourself in and embrace being shaped by them. No matter what happened in 2016, you have to keep your head up and let hope lead you. You’ll certainly be tempted and challenged, but don’t negotiate your dreams or diminish your purpose.

Don’t let the journey steal the hope in you despite the setbacks. Don’t allow fear to drive the bus. If you are still living and breathing, there’s a great purpose waiting ahead of you in 2017. The wait can make you weary. The work can wear you down. But you have to remain focused and consistent.

Don’t let go of what makes you “you”. You have to do what is right for you, nobody else is walking in your shoes. It doesn’t matter what people say or think, the right people will move with you and push you to be better. After all, you can’t please everyone. People are the way they are for a reason and you can’t change the way they think about you.

Just live your life and be happy. Smile more. Take care of you. Take yourself out if you need to. Do what makes you happy. Love on yourself. Appreciate the good things in your life rather than focusing on the negative. Set goals and don’t undermine yourself. Give yourself the love you need and above all, Pray. Remember God is with you every step of the way. As you welcome the new year, thank 2016 for all the lessons you got from it.

To you my friends, I can’t thank you enough for always rocking with me, lets do this again in 2017! Merry Christmas and Blessed New Year!

Love.

 

 

“Take a moment and smile at the fact that you may not be where you want to be yet, but you’re glad that you are not where you used to be.”

At times we go through life’s challenges and feel like we don’t deserve to go through some of the things we do. Just when you think you are making good progress, you get a set back. Sometimes you find yourself taken back to square one. You find yourself flat on your face, biting the dust. And you have to get up, dust yourself and tread on.

But again, no one has it all easy. We all have our own set of ups and downs that are totally different from each other. Unfair things happen, but you have come too far to let setbacks define you or stop you from stepping forward. The rock bottom doesn’t define you. The place you have come from doesn’t define you. Your current situation doesn’t define your future. Your current bank account balance doesn’t determine your life.

Whatever it is you are going through, you have the strength to overcome it. No matter the drawbacks, you are being prepared to go forth and reach your pinnacle. Do not focus too much on your faults. Make the best of what is in your power and take the rest as it happens. Enjoy every moment as it comes, keep smiling at it and take a look back at where you have come from. You are not where you used to be. And where you are now is not where you will always be. The sun will rise tomorrow. And you will smile. 

There is always something good coming, remember that!

Its exactly 6:00 am. You are covering yourself not to see its already time to get up. You know you need to get out of that bed and go run the day before it runs you but you still stay there. You have some crazy deadlines to beat. You have to go to work. You have to rise and be your best. But you are still in bed. Just some few more minutes and you are going to get up. In no time you doze off.

By the time you wake up and reach out to your phone to see the time, its already 7:30 am. Shit! You have to be at work by 8:30am. So you have to prepare as fast as possible because traffic is awaiting you. And we all know how bad it can get especially when you are in a hurry. And that’s how life is. When you want something so bad that’s when it disappears to Venus. Just when you have lost interest in finding it, it reappears.

When you want to wake up early and revise for your exams that’s when you sleep like a log and you only realize in the morning that you didn’t hear the alarm you had set for 3:00am. Then when you are done with the exams your sleep disappears. Its when you are on leave that you have nothing to do, while before the leave 12 hours were not enough for you.

Its when you have a deadline of an assignment that your creative thinking decides to take a leave. You get stuck and you have to finish on time. Damn! You have to do it. And you still do it. Such things are part of what makes life interesting.

Sometimes we beat ourselves up too much for the things we do wrong but we need to remember that we are human. We are human. And human is to error. Whats important is to rectify the mistakes and make sure not to repeat them because a mistake repeated more than once is a decision.

We are all imperfectly perfect. Full of imperfections. The most important thing is to embrace who we are with our flaws and to embrace being shaped by our circumstances. And to keep striving. And to keep doing our best. Because even if you don’t get out of bed the whole day, the story continues. Even if you do what you did yesterday, the story continues.

Don’t let what has been dictate what will be. You have choices. Just because you chose something yesterday doesn’t mean you have to choose it tomorrow. Even though you can’t change circumstances, you can change your thoughts and actions. You can do better than you did yesterday. To mess up you will. But keep showing up anyway!

Thanks for reading.

Its November already and in a weeks time December will be here with us. How has your year been so far? I’m sure you are still getting some lessons from it too. For me, 2016 has been an year of learning and getting to understand that nothing happens by chance. Here are ten quotes that are my favorite so far:

1. There are no mistakes in life. Only lessons. There’s no shame in making mistakes while trying to figure things out.
2. Never give up. Keep going. Keep building. Brick by brick. Stone by stone. Even when its scary, even when all strength is gone. Keep picking yourself up moving forward. And in time, you’ll find that what you once dreamed of is now reality and it will stand.
3. Be a good person and don’t waste your time to prove it.
4. Nobody is built like me and that is my POWER.
5. Be yourself. Be you. Do you. Own who you are.
6. Be nice, the world is a small town.
7. Put yourself first. Love yourself like its the only thing left to do. Your life should consist of making yourself happy before giving your laughter away to someone else.
8. Slow progress is better than no progress. Every step you take towards your goal counts than doing nothing.
9. Where you are now is not where you will always be. There are brighter days ahead. Let time bring the best and most out of you.
10. Don’t start your day with the broken pieces of yesterday.  Each day is a fresh start. Every day we wake up is the first day of our new life.

What are your favorite quotes? Kindly share in the comments section.

Thanks for stopping by!

“No matter where you are from, your dreams are valid” – Lupita Nyong’o

Going to school back in those days wasn’t as easy as it is nowadays, waiting for a school bus to pick you at your home. We used to walk a few kilometers to get to school. That is while using the long route. The short route was by going through the shamba which would take around fifteen minutes and this time you are walking as fast as you can and at times running. Unfortunately the rainy days our parents wouldn’t allow us to pass by the short route as it would flood near the river and we would have to remove the shoes(we were not wearing socks…haha)and walk through the waters to the other side. Though sometimes we would hide and pass the short route even if it’s flooding and by the time you get to school you have a running nose after you have enjoyed crossing the flooded rivers.

Remember, you have to be at school in time, by 7:00am. Or you be ready for the consequences thereafter, some nasty caning on your hands or behind, kneeling, cleaning the compound and any other available duties to be done that day would be yours, just because of getting late for school with a few minutes.

I remember there was this male teacher who was a heavy drinker, once you got late in his duty you would really face it, he would make us sleep on dewy grass in the morning, mind you it’s just a few minutes past 7:00am. He would then start talking using some very rude remarks, “you girls getting late to school, you are about to get married, is this the time you will be waking up to prepare your husband’s breakfast?”

After an hour of being outside while others are in class having their morning preps, you are released to go to class and reminded to wake up earlier tomorrow or you will get a heavier punishment. The next days you wake up before the cock crows and rush not to be late.

Those times we would not have toothbrushes, so we would go pruning some sticks and brush heading to school. And believe me; our teeth would still get clean and sparkling white!

Back then private schools were for children from rich families. We would admire their unique uniforms, pretty stripped socks and well polished shoes, while our shoes were turning grayish due to lack of polish…cheeeii!

But still we continued learning. We believed that our future was bright which still is. No matter where we have come from, our dreams are still valid!

 

 

“If you want to bring happiness to the whole world, go home and love your family.” – Mother Teresa

Have you ever listened to a persons eulogy being read? Or paying tribute to a person who passed on? You listen as a person’s life is read to you, how the person lived since the day they were born, the legacy they have left behind or the role model and how they impacted the society.

Sometimes back I attended a burial ceremony of a certain wealthy man in our neighborhood. The man was filthy rich. He had four successful companies, big cars, large acres of land, he would fly in and out of the country like no ones business, just name it.

As usual the eulogy had the normal main sections; birth, education, church, work and marriage. It clearly stated he had one wife and the number of children he had left behind and how he loved his family. He was a family man. But, nowhere did it mention the number of businesses or cars he had left, the acres of land, or the number of countries he had gone to!

What does this show us? About the things that matters most. That at the end of it all what matters is our relationship with God and family. And the legacy that is left behind. Would other people wish to live the way we did? Or they would say God help me so that I don’t live like so and so.

We may not have everything in this world, but having a family that you can go home to after a hard day, who will be there whether you are broke or not, is surely important and shouldn’t be taken for granted. Let them know you love them. We shouldn’t put the things that matter most at the expense of the things that matter least. After all, its all that matters.

Thanks for passing by!

“What really knocks me out is a book that, when you’re all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you would call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn’t happen much though.” – J. D. Salinger.

Hellos, how are you all doing? I’ve been thinking of doing book reviews for a while from my love of books and well, there is always a starting point! Hope to share with you the most amazing books I come across and the ones you are reading too.

The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari is an interesting non-fiction book that tells the story of  this lawyer who was only concerned about work, money, power and prestige. He collapses in a court room due to a severe heart attack after which his doctor told him to either give up law or give up his life. He had spent so much time chasing the big pleasures of life, forgetting the little ones. He chose his life, sold everything he had including his Ferrari and traveled to India which sort of liberated him.

The book talks about choices, that one’s destiny unfolds according to the choices one makes. This is a book that will make you give some thought to your life, goals and dreams and how your daily habits helps you reach those dreams. It is a recommendation to anyone interested in incorporating routines and habits that can transform your life and help you achieve your dreams.

I like how the book explains on the importance of family and spending time with the people we love. I would give it a rating of 8/10. If you are looking for a book to help you on achieving your goals and your daily routines, you can try out this book.

Which book changed your life? Please share in the comments section below.

Thanks for reading!

“Don’t be afraid of being different, be afraid of being the same as everyone else.”

A lot of times we compare ourselves with others, I have also, countless times. And yes, we are humans. A colleague gets a promotion at work and that completely ruins your day. “Is he/she better than me? How comes am not the one?” Such questions occupy your mind, and when you get the news you give the best “fake” smile pretending to be happy for them while only God knows how exactly you are feeling.

Someone else gets a new car and you put everything else on hold to get a better one so you can show off to them. Another one moves to a bigger house and you start making plans of how you can match up to them, without considering all the other factors.

This kind of competition is quite unhealthy. It gets worse with time if you allow it. The worst part of this comparison is that you compare the best of others with your weaknesses. And this in most cases leave you feeling bad about yourself. Also wasting your precious energy focusing on other peoples lives other than your own.

Comparison is the thief of joy. It rids you of your peace of mind and happiness. Just commit to growing a little bit every day and learn something new everyday. Do some research and read as much as you can to develop your skills in your profession. It is the little consistent steps you make towards your goals that will lead you there, it takes time and a lot of efforts and of course, praying. The best competition to have is when you are trying your best to do better today than you did yesterday.

Its good to be happy for other people’s success. You may not have succeeded in a certain competition or business and someone else did, well and good. Take the lessons. Not everything is for everyone and that’s okay.

Appreciate the little advancements you are making without comparing to how others are doing. Concentrate more on improving yourself more rather than trying to match up to other people. Focus on your own self growth. Do your own thing. Be your own kind of beautiful!

Thanks for stopping by.

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