THE RUN

One step at a time. Start and keep going. It might look hard, tough and confusing, but the law of process says as long as you don't stop going in the right direction, you still stand a chance of getting there. Not stopping is part of the process and process is a law. The only catastrophe is if you are journeying in the wrong direction, then you end nowhere. Before you bake the bread, learn the recipe. The ingredients needed, how to mix and other steps needed to get the banana bread or the kind of bread you want. Learning always precede doing. If you miss the learning part, then you miss it all. Be an apprentice, read, watch others do it; get the basic know how and then start. If you learn in what you are naturally gifted in, it becomes easy to learn. This is a true story. A young man that had no interest in mechanic work was sent to a mechanic workshop to learn. He kept skipping work, running off and didn't learn anything. His master got tired of flogging him for lateness or absenteeism and reported him to his parents. His parents tried hard yet he did not change until someone advised them to first find out what he was naturally endowed and cut out for and train him in that direction. They discovered he loved tailoring work, sewing clothes. They sent him off to go learn there and within a few weeks he excelled above all he met there. He was so passionate about it that if you do not hide your clothe material from him at home, he will sew it for use or sale. He could sit and work for hours without getting tired. He excelled at it, graduated from apprenticeship with flying colours, established his own tailoring business and became famous through it. 

It took me three attempts to get admission into the university many years back. It was all because I was trying to attempt courses I was not cut out for. While in high school, English and literature came easily to me, I could read novels endlessly and repeat everything I read. Reading was so natural to me just like drinking water, I enjoyed it and still do. Literary criticism was inborn. Thinking up stories was like breathing. I never failed in both English and literature. In fact, till I graduated in high school, I was the best student in literature amongst my set. I won prizes in literature. I failed science woefully, didn't have a clue. The school placed me in social sciences, the appropriate place for me. I left secondary school and time came to sit exam into the university and I followed popular pressure; medicine. Everybody wanted it, all parents wanted it, why not me. It was and still a lucrative course. Doctors enjoy good money. I chose science subjects for exam so I can pass and get admission to study medicine, I failed woefully. I waited another year and tried another course: Economics, I almost succeeded, but the English language score which was my joker amongst the other subjects I sat for to gain admission was cancelled for everybody. I did not do well in the other subjects, but did well in English language. If it had been added to my total score, I would have gained admission to study Economics. English was cancelled and I failed again. So fortunate I did not gain admission  to study Economics, things would have been hard; I was not cut out for it. I waited another year to write another exam, but this time I had learnt my lesson. I simply chose English and Literature as my preferred course. The subjects I was to sit for included English, Literature and two others of my choice and also as required. I simply added Bible knowledge (being a Christian) and probably another subject I was average in. You sit for four papers back then. It was in 1990-1991. I did not stress myself preparing, I was busy jumping about, though I studied well too. It was too easy for me. If I can still remember clearly, I had candies (we call it sweet in Nigeria) in my pocket during the exam; licking and enjoying the game the papers were playing before me. I 'dusted' English, literature and Bible knowledge like sawdust. I finished early and was just busy licking my sweet and watching others sweating over papers. I was not bothered about the result, I was too sure. The result came, I got the third highest result for that course in my university of choice. I would have done better but for the fourth subject that reduced my score. I got far above the cut off mark for admission. I think it was 239 while I scored 253, guess I am accurate being long ago. I simply strolled into campus. I went through literature in the University like a plaything....If you have been reading me, you will know I am saying the truth. In all my works I hardly copy people. I have used AI to create stories only once and probably to add a few martial art stuffs in a previous story and below so far, simply because I did not have the time to study surfing and baking I wanted to discuss. Outside these thus far, all my works have been my own copyright. All my stories my own creation. In my other works, whenever I copy I always state I copied. No one on earth has ever edited my works for me. It has never happened thus far. I can do far better in stories. I make them simple here and elsewhere because they are just blog stuffs meant for relaxation and to teach motivation. Nothing complex is necessary. 

You get my point. Go learn in what you are naturally gifted in then take off running. Never stop no matter how long it takes or how hard it get. IF YOU KEEP GOING YOU STAND A CHANCE, IF YOU STOP GOING YOU STAND NO CHANCE. That statement is my copyright. Let's read Talon's confession below. A fiction I created with slight help from AI. 

TALON'S CONFESSION 

My name is Talon, i am a man more familiar with the chaos of my workshop. I never sat down to follow a process. I was not tidy, nor organised in detail. Business was bad, big work hardly come since I always fail to deliver on promise. I was about to pack it up as a failed profession when I suddenly found myself unexpectedly drawn into the intricate dance of processes. It all began with banana bread. A recipe, a sacred text called for a precise sequence: mash the bananas, cream the butter and sugar, whisk the eggs, fold in the dry ingredients, and finally, bake at exactly \( 350 \) degrees Fahrenheit for **55** minutes. One day, in a fit of haste, I skipped the creaming step. The result ? A dense, gummy brick, utterly unlike the light, fluffy loaf it should be. This culinary catastrophe sparked a revelation. I realized that each step, each ingredient, was a crucial component, and the order was sacrosanct. Just as a lawyer meticulously builds a case, I understood the importance of following a process. I began to apply this newfound knowledge to my work. Before, i'd dive headfirst into projects, often getting lost in the details. Now, I created checklists, breaking down complex tasks into manageable steps. I learned to anticipate potential problems, just as a lawyer anticipates counterarguments. I measured, I timed, I refined. I started with small projects, and soon I was able to handle larger and more complex projects. I learned the law of process. Just like the banana bread, following the right steps resulted in a perfect result. I applied this to my business and things began to move, today business is booming. Thanks to banana bread. 

Now go mash the bananas, cream the butter and sugar, whisk the eggs....

*The story is mine but written with the help of AI in few places. 

(C) Tosin Oke

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Let's briefly discuss a subject that appears simple but not as simple as it looks. 

Simply defined by me : friends are people you move with in your inner circle. They are different from family or staff, they are people you usually call your "homies or buddies...". These are people you share your heart with, chat with and often spend time with. Actually, you need friends in life for several reasons : love, understanding, mutual care and help, connections and to help one another rise in life. Take note of the last point. Friends must help you rise, not press you down. Life often throw them at you as you go about your daily activities. Unfortunately, if you are not wise and you make or keep friends without balancing them with your vision in life or are just emotional about it, you may end up having lots of them but getting nowhere in life. In fact, the wrong ones will ensure you never rise. Let's break it down. 

First of all, you must always make this a yardstick in measuring who to add to friends list or not. Are they there to help you move forward or just there to hold you down ? Friends who only collect from you and not give back to you, their main goal is to constantly drain you of your resources, once you do not have they are gone, waiting for the next time you will have to turn up, take and go. They can be quite nice, chat you up and always come around whenever there is food, money and entertainment flowing from your side. Once that is no more forthcoming, you see them no more. My dear, delete them from your life as I have also decided to do. If they ain't giving back, let them go else you will remain at the same spot. Do not get me wrong, helping those who do not have is good, please do so as often as you can. In fact, you must be generous to receive help too. When you are out to share help to the needy, that is good. Give, it is good. Those you give to does not have to be friends. I have given to those who are not friends. That is a proper way to live. Friendship is different. You enter friendship for mutual help and assistance, if that friendship is not serving that purpose, let them go. Read this reason well. 

In my experience thus far in life, I have discovered this world is like the ocean filled with lots of things, you will agree with me that not everything in the ocean is good for consumption. As you go through life, it throws many things at you either to destroy you or to raise you. This is where you must open your eyes and choose carefully. I have discovered, after years of moving with people, that some people are not wicked, they just do not have the slightest idea of what friendship is or have no idea how to help others, probably a selfish heredity that somehow got into them. Some see friendship as a means of livelihood and when the friend is no more forthcoming with goodies, they move on. Some are wicked though, they move with you truly, but are too selfish to allow any connections they have to help you. They can use your own connections, but any attempt to get help from their own connections, they block you. You help them but they block others from helping you, delete them fast lest your life remains stagnated. There are those who initially come with an appearance of sincerity just to get close enough to you to get from you. They might even come with gifts. Once you and them 'click' and you are buddies, they begin their draining of your resources agenda and never give back to you again. They will keep rising at your expense while you will remain at the same spot. I never wish to be such a friend, this is why my law is "YOU GIVE TO ME, I GIVE BACK TO YOU". If you can help me but do not, though you know I need the help and i have been a help to you before, I am cutting you off from my life until you change in character. 

My reader, woe to a man with many friends yet he lacks help, he has enemies not friends. 

• True friends help one another 

• True friends connect one another to rise.

• True friends see how they can promote each other's works. A man sells building materials and had several friends. His so called friends got a building contract worth millions. They went elsewhere to purchase building materials and did not buy from him. If he was not at fault, he should reconsider such friendship. 

• True friends stand up for one another. If you are in a place and being insulted, yet your friend stand back as if he or she does not know you or even proceed to support the attackers against you, that is not a friend. 

• True friends rejoice to see each other rise, not they rise and block you from rising. When you have friends who tell others not to give to you, delete them fast. There are those who cannot stand others rising around them, yet they want to remain your friend. Run !

• A true friend seek how to use their means and connections to help their friends rise too.

• True friends borrow and pay back. When you borrow, have the means to pay back, but you do not simply because he or she is a friend, you are on a mission to destroy. True friends borrow and pay back.

• True friends do not defraud one another. 

• True friends defend one another.

• True friends run with each other's vision. If you are constantly helping and funding their vision to succeed, yet they never ask how to help your own vision, they are not friends.

• True friends give each other priority in decisions 

• You lack a job, your friend has connections, yet pretends as if you do not need a job, think twice. 

• If they help others, but you they never help; they have an agenda for coming near you. Not to help you but to use you. 

• If you see your friends in need and have what they need yet cannot find a way to get help to them, check your heart.

• Some people move with you simply because someone said to, not because they really have any genuine interest in you, this will show in their disposition to you. 

• Above all, be a good friend, the first law in having good friends. Adjust and be good. 

Help people generally, that is good, a law of success. When it comes to friendship, your inner circle, choose carefully. A simple test of friendship; ask your friends, who can, for help and see what they do. I once helped some people constantly and sacrificially, yet when my mother passed, several months have gone not one of them called nor show up to say sorry till date. Well, I am waiting for when next they will call for help. IF YOUR INNER CIRCLE CANNOT HELP YOU, YOU ARE DOOMED, FOR YOUR INNER CIRCLE IS YOUR HELP IN LIFE. 

(C) Tosin Oke

Reach me through my contacts bottom of this website or contact page for motivational talk. Thanks

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