Category: ARCHIVE

No Equilibrium

There are certain laws that govern the way things happen on earth. I’m not the laws of physics or chemistry. No, I’m talking about the laws of life. These laws have been established by God Himself such that their principles hold in the lives of any individual regardless of religious affliation, age, sex or race. An example of such law is the law of giving. Whoever you are, wherever you are, whatever you do, once you give, you would always receive. That’s how God works.

However, a very important law that its principles govern our activities in life is what I’d call the Law of Equilibrium. I’d state the law simply as, ‘There is NO equilibrium state in life’. That’s the law. And it’s true. The same way a see-saw would never remain at rest in a horizontal plane. In all of life’s endeavours, be it physical (such as working) or spiritual (such as praying), you are either having an upward trend or a downward trend. The moment you think you have attained equilibrium, be careful, you just might have started going down…

Ruminate on this: ‘…No man, having put his hands to the plow, and looking back, is fit…’. That’s the power of Equilibrium!

Praising The Devil

Africans are the most religious people in the world. And Nigerians are the most religious Africans. And the Yoruba people are the most religious Nigerians. I’m African, I’m Nigerian and I’m a ‘Yoruban’, so believe me, I know what I’m talking about.

In my few years, I’ve heard numerous testimonies being shared. However, it’s sad that just a few of these ascribe the glory to God. In this part of the world, the testifiers either give glory to pastors of their churches or the devil. In fact, many times, you’d hear testifiers say:
‘Praise the God of our pastor….’ (Isn’t He your God too?), or even
‘I shouted Jesus and nothing happened, but everything got better when I called pastor…’ (That you are miserable, is the understatement of the year!)

However, giving praise to the devil has become so rampant in our churches here. Of course, it’s never done directly. Nobody would shout on the pulpit, ‘Praise the living devil’ without being hauled out for a deliverance session. But when someone’s given 10 minutes to share a testimony and the individual goes on to use over 9 minutes to tell us how wickedly cunning the devil is. This person doesn’t even mention God or His Might once! I can tell you, that’s tantamount to praising satan. I can’t fathom why this phenomenon is rampant in this part of the world. Maybe it’s the harsh economic conditions, the first-hand poverty and the general mentality. Whatever the reason, I’m sure of one thing: The devil has no power and shouldn’t be praised. The guy shouldn’t even be mentioned at all. We are meant to package the best form of insult for him, which is simply not acknowledging him at all.

The Israelites and the Philistines faced-off for war in I Samuel 17. Goliath, the giant Philistine champion, dared the Israelites to send a man to fight him. What struck me most was how the Israelites were able to know the giant’s exact height and the materials that was used to make his wargear. They even got an accurate weight of all his wargear. Commendable, considering that they did all these from a far distance! But enter David, who failed to recognize Goliath as a threat. To him, Goliath was just mere statistics, a trophy waiting to be added to his previous collection of a bear and a lion. David made God his focus and everything else fell into perspective. God responded by adding more victories to David’s belt. This is the same approach we should adopt when sharing our testimonies. Don’t tell how big your challenges were or how mighty the devil was. Instead, let’s know how big God is; how great and diverse His numerous wonders are.

Bleeding Bland Blood

In the days of old, the eyeballs of the Medical Profession were at the patellas. All were in the darkness of ignorance, groping via trial and error. Dirty gloves were used and reused till they tore. Single needles used on multiple patients. Painful surgeries without anaesthesia. Surgery equipments were not sterilized. In fact, ‘sterile’ was accepted as standard medical practice as recently as the early 20th century. Thank God for advancements in science!

Bleeding was one of the crude practices carried out by the doctors of those days. They would usually bleed a terminally ill patient, with the hope that ‘old contaminated’ blood would be flushed out of the body! As you probably guessed right, these patients were usually bled to death.

The logic behind bleeding in those days was plausible, but was not practical for a number of reasons. For instance, blood is needed to transport materials such as oxygen, food nutrients and waste round the body. Bleeding a terminally sick patient was always going to make matters worse. Also, ‘flushing’ out ‘old blood’ isn’t going to do anything if the basic cause of the sickness was not found. Even if it could, it would take weeks, if not months for the ‘new blood’ to meet the required volume necessary to support life!

Thankfully, doctors don’t bleed patients nowadays. But as individuals, we should NEVER stop bleeding ourselves. Figuratively, of course!
We all have character flaws that we aren’t happy with.
We find ourselves in circumstances we’re uncomfortable in.
We all want a better quality of life for ourselves and loved ones.
But are we ready to bleed?
Are we ready to take a leap of faith and let go of whatever we already have in order to get what we are anxiously looking for?
Are we ready to release the old to make room for the new?
Are we ready to jump headlong into uncertainty?
I can’t answer these questions for you. But as you are pondering on these matters, I wish you a Happy Bleeding in advance.

P.U.S.H

Sometimes ago, I watched a particular Hollywood movie. I think the name was ‘INCEPTION’. It starred Leonardo Di Caprio. The plot of the film was interesting.

It had a lot to do with dreaming. Dreaming in a dream. Sharing a dream with numerous people. However, of all psychological jargon in the film, one made a mark in my mind. It was called The Jump. This was explained as a push or nudge that suddenly changes your altitude from a higher to a lower plane. It’s this change in altitude that causes one to wake up from a dream.

We all have dreams, visions, aspirations and goals. But we are always content to remain in the Theatre Of Dreams. It’s been said that any man who wants his dreams to come true must wake up. But, even while awake, many still remain in the dreamstate. There’s nothing wrong with dreams or visions. However, we must wake up to create the ideals we dream about.

To awake from our blissful slumber, we all have phenomena that nudge us awake. For some, this could be in the form of the activities of encouragers. Others aren’t so lucky, as they are rudely awakened by life’s harsh realities: unemployment, poor health, poverty, etc. In spite of these, we have a place we can all run to where we are in need of a nudge that would wake us up to bringing our dreams to the real state. That place is the place of Prayer.

Are you in a dire need of a nudge or a P.U.S.H? Praying Until Something Happens (P.U.S.H.) could be your best bet in creating the ideals that you waste time dreaming about. Try Prayer. It works!!!

The Platinum Set: Odd And Unique (Part 7)

If we had exceptional results at the end of freshman year, we could cross to Medicine. And so many of us did excellently well. Hopes were high. Excitement levels were fever pitch. Some started buying textbooks for Premedical classes.

Then again, the oddly unique thing happened. There was a new provost in the College of Medicine who wasn’t so excited about crossing into Medicine. So, he banned it for that year. Again, this was the first and last time something of this sort happened.

We were heartbroken. We were disappointed. We had had high expectations that we had missed up to 5 weeks of lectures in our parent department. Everywhere looked bleak. Many of us were further disillusioned by our senior colleagues who told us that all we achieve as a physiologist graduate was a lecturing job. That sent shivers down our spines! So, that ‘disorientation’ caused us to search within and without for what we could do with our lives. Now, we are still pretty much confused. But this time, it isn’t because we don’t know what we want to do. No, it’s because we are spoilt with various mouth-watering career paths to pick from!

As I glance over my shoulders, I can’t help but to see God’s hand at work in The Platinum Set of students admitted into Physiology in 2009. He caused us to be beacons of light in a place where that had been the darkness of anonymity. He caused us to be rivers in a dry and weary land. We are salts that are adding flavour and taste to where there was none before. Despite all the ‘oddities’, we have pulled through. Suddenly, we find ourselves as a point of reference, as a result of our ‘uniqueness’. We are condemned to Greatness, so, you’d better stand by to be stunned!!!

CONCLUDED.

The Platinum Set: Odd And Unique (Part 6)

Another chemistry course was Inorganic Chemistry. Majority of high school chemistry was inorganic. So, my approach to preparation for this course was lax. Soon, it was exam time and when I saw the questions, I almost chewed my pen halfway. There were 50 questions, each starting with ‘WHICH IS ODD?’. Then there were 5 extremely similar options to choose from. How were we expected to fish the right answer out? Well, all I know is that I passed!

We also had fond memories of our Physics courses, especially the BASIC PRINCIPLES OF PHYSICS II. The name struck me as something like a movie series. Interesting.

However, when the time came for the exam, I didn’t find anything amusing about the course. The course was just too abstract. I couldn’t relate with it. I had never been a fan of cramming stuff and I would never be. That’s why I try to understand whatever I’m taught. The bottomline’s that I had never before in my life written an exam like this one! There were options for each question. And naturally, only one was the correct one. Only that, I couldn’t relate to the questions. They were hostile. The fans in the exam centre were on, yet I remember sweating profusely.

I had 2 hours for the exam. An hour and half later, I was at Question 3. Out of 35! I was even sure the answers I picked were correct. Soon, I saw my self shading the answer paper randomly. It was THAT bad! At the end of the paper, I was earnestly praying to have the passmark, which was 40%. I knew I had no hope of passing. Eventually, when the results were out, I passed and got higher than my expectations.

TO BE CONTINUED…

The Platinum Set: Odd And Unique (Part 5)

Physical Chemistry had been overhyped for us. And rightly so. The Almighty 157 was responsible for sacking over 100 students the previous year! Everyone was afraid of being nipped at the bud. So, many faced the course, at the expense of other courses. Different weapons were flashed in the face of the enemy course. I started reading overnight, solving past questions, going for classes earlier than normal, and the works. It was also at that time I started praying like I won’t read and reading like I won’t pray. It paid off. At least for me. 70% of the students who wrote the course failed it. I didn’t get a ‘WOW’ score like I used to in high school. But hey, I didn’t fail!

The funny thing about this course was the exam format. All past questions that I used for practice were in the Multiple Choice Format (MCq). However, in my set, the format was changed! We had to fill answers into blank gaps! I never fully grasped the course but I had been relieved that there would be options to work my calculations towards. And, as was the case of the UME scores, the format was reverted back to MCq after my set. And it has not been tampered with again!

TO BE CONTINUED…

The Platinum Set: Odd And Unique (Part 4)

As at the time I was running around for my admission, I had not written my SSCE. When the time came for that, I made up my mind to do very well. And I did excellently well.

So, here I was, ‘overqualifying’ for the course I had changed to. I had a weighted score of 75.6 while those who had a weighted score of about 66.0 but didn’t change their course were picked for Medicine. I consoled myself with two facts. One was, I wasn’t the only one with my predicament. The other was the mouth-watering prospect of changing back to Medicine, if I did excellently well at the end of my freshman year.

I soon finished with high school and the rest of 2009 was uneventful. There was also a general strike in all public universities, including UI. You can check my post, ‘ Strike Three- You’re Out!!!’ for more on that.

January 2010, all universities resumed work. I and all my classmates with a similar situation with mine devoted ourselves to ending our freshman year with excellent results, so we could cross back to Medicine. There were more than a couple of shocks and surprises waiting for me. For example, I had thought that high school Physics and Chemistry were the last in my life. Instead, I was met with 5 physics and 4 chemistry courses. That, for a freshman!!!

TO BE CONTINUED…

The Platinum Set: Odd And Unique (Part 3)

Days later, the results were out. I rushed out to check my score online. 225. 225 out of 400! I was sad. I fought back tears. Then, I cried. How was I ever going to study Medicine with such a score?! Though I had been convalescing when I was writing the exams, I couldn’t forgive myself for falling ill at that time.

So, what was the next step for me? Staying at home till the next year’s UME was not an option!

I soon found out that I could change my desired course to one that was not as demanding as Medicine, in terms of admission requirements. Then after obtaining admission, I could always change back to Medicine. The idea sounded good. The only clause was that I could only make use of this card once. Fair enough! So, I changed my preferred course of study to Physiology.

If only I knew the events that would unfold as the days went by…

TO BE CONTINUED…

The Platinum Set: Odd And Unique (Part 2)

The story starts with me.

At least to some extent I got to know myself before meeting other people. In high school, I was somewhat an all-rounder. Academically. Though I was never the sporty type, I was quite playful. Looking back, I have discovered that I excelled in all my subjects, despite not always reading. I was neither a geek nor a whizkid. All I can say is that there was, and still is, a grace working in me.

So, because I performed well in my subjects, I was persuaded to pursue a degree in Medicine. At that time, I had no idea of what I wanted to do with my life. All I knew was that I wanted to be where the brilliant students always went to. And in this society, that was Medicine.

My stay at in high school was drawing to a close and soon it was time to sit for the University Matriculation Examinations (UME) for the year 2009. I got the forms and filled in for Medicine and Pharmacy for the University of Ibadan and the Obafemi Awolowo University, respectively. I got the necessary materials for practice and started my preparations in earnest.

About 3 weeks to the exams, I came down with typhoid fever. The sickness was so severe that I gained admission into an entirely different institution. A hospital. The day for the UME exams drew nearer and near. And I was unable to prepare. In fact, I was discharged from the hospital about 4 days to the D-day.

On the fateful day for the exams, I was less than a shadow of myself. So, I went in for the exams, did my best and came out…

TO BE CONTINUED…