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10 THINGS I WILL DO ABOUT ME IN 2010

We set goals about every thing around us, but most times fail critically when it comes to personal traits. Your character, deportment and antecedent (if I am allowed to combine all three) are an integral part of your human package, and they create a solid platform to launch you into any level of success which you desire. So after assessing myself by myself this past days, I have decided on my top ten ‘musts’ for the year 2010, perhaps for the decade as well. These are traits I want to improve on, and stating them here will keep me accountable; and I know someone will at least try to test me on one of them. 🙂

1. I will be nicer from now on. Being nice shouldn’t be predicated on how you feel, but a natural response to all those around you regardless of their demands. I have found that it is easier to be not nice and grumpy all the time. So deliberately I will challenge myself to be nice and not being pretensive in any way.

2. I will give more. I have always prayed for the resources to give more, but I find that when I increase in substance, it doesn’t necessarily equate with an increase capacity to give. So my prayer will change this year to asking for an increased capacity to give; perchance I may be entrusted with more resources to give.
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MY GREATEST FEAR

A few days ago I had a brief conversation over lunch with a friend from East Africa. It was one of those talks resulting from perceived tardy reasoning when we hoped that our leaders in Africa would have been what we keep dreaming about. But what struck me more was the sudden time travel I was thrown into when thinking about the daunting task of changing the outlook of a continent besieged by many troubles and laden with much burden. I wondered how I would feel on the day that I am to die. Would I be bubbling with excitement that my exit is deserved and my legacy is undoubted? Or would I be crowded by the feeling of wasted opportunities? My feelings were mixed because I have trained myself to believe I will not die an ordinary man, especially being influenced heavily by motivational messages that fill your gut and warrants self confidence from a newly defined self-concept. It was mixed because I saw great chances to make things better and without much cost to me or to my surroundings. But the pot pourri of feelings was not without the the thoughts of ‘what if nothing you do makes any sense and changes anything?’ The rest of that day was filled with random emotions spurned out of the ‘what is’ and the ‘what ought to be’.

Back in school, after sitting under inspiring lectures, particularly those that spin African history into an emotional overtone and overdose, making you feel a spark or a tinge of activism, I entered into endless debates on what role we young men will play in shaping the future we so desire. I met so many like minded folks who confessed exhausted faith in the drama we called nation building. We pressured ourselves into believing we were the gifts of God to our continent, and that we held the ace that will call home the game in our favour. Yet with the fervour, we met peeps who could extinguish your fire with a kind of infectious apathy and unconscionable inanition towards the issue of a progressive society. I will never forget the day, after a hot conversation on disabling executive corruption, that a few guys around simply sneered at all we said and stated clearly why they will grab every opportunity to monetize their virtues. What was more worrisome was their display of cognitive dissonance (the kind I usually ascribe to the Obama era Republican party) in acknowledging the need for honest men and good governance, and yet advising me  “Reggie, stop deceiving yourself. You can’t change anything. Eat your own and go your way.” Well, some things were clear at the least, I certainly knew who not to vote for if that time comes…lol
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SEVEN PEOPLE WHO SHOULD HAVE WON THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE

MAHATMA GANDHI

Achievements: Mohandas K.  Gandhi was the spiritual and political leader of the Indian independence movement and an advocate of nonviolent resistance as a means to effect social change. Gandhi assumed a leading role in the Indian National Congress in 1921 and transformed the party into a mass movement dedicated to ending social and economic discrimination against Indians and achieving India’s complete independence. He was also a vocal advocate for the emancipation of the Hindu “untouchable” class, as well as unity between the Hindu and Muslim communities. Following India’s declaration of independence, he opposed the partition of India and Pakistan. Gandhi was shot and killed by a radical Hindu nationalist on Jan. 30, 1948.

Close calls: History’s most famous pacifist is probably the peace prize’s most famous omission, and the Nobel Foundation has even a Web page explaining its side of the story. Gandhi made the Nobel short list three times: in 1937, 1947, and then posthumously in 1948. In 1937, the committee’s advisor criticized Gandhi’s dual role as a peace activist and political leader of an independence movement, writing that he “is frequently a Christ, but then, suddenly, an ordinary politician.”

As India and Pakistan achieved independence in 1947, Gandhi’s crowning triumph was tempered by the violence and dislocation that resulted. With tensions growing in the summer of 1947, the Nobel committee hesitated to award the peace prize to someone so closely identified with one of the combatants. The committee also seems to have been affected by regional and racial biases; most of the prior awards had been given to white European men.

Although the committee considered awarding Gandhi the prize in 1948, following his assassination, Alfred Nobel’s will clearly required that the award be given to a living person. However, the decision to not dispense any award that year because “there was no suitable living candidate” appears to be an implicit admission that the committee missed its opportunity to recognize Gandhi’s accomplishments.

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