Of Milestones

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Talking of milestones, why do we like them so much? And why do we dread them in equal measure? Except for the most immodest amongst us, we like to pretend that our milestones are just another day, just another accomplishment or just another event – another bridge crossed. Which is good. There is nothing wrong with subdue and understated celebrations. I quite like having one myself.

But there are times when it is nice to blow the trumpet. I have had two occasions in my life when I went haywire in celebrations. The first was the day I received my admission letter to the university for my undergraduate studies. Well, you won’t understand! So, let’s just move on to the second. It was the day I went in the company of my late friend and brother Eghes Eyieyien and his wife to Idowu Taylor, in Victoria Island, Lagos to check my ICAN result. I left that venue walking on air. I can explain. I had invested so much time and energy, so much emotion into passing the exam first time that I couldn’t imagine any other outcome. But, you know, it is one thing to check your exam result alone, and quite another to do so in the company of your friend and his wife. Oh, by the way, ICAN exam is the qualifying exam to become a chartered accountant in Nigeria, my country of birth.

I doubt if I have had to invest my emotion in anything to that degree since. Not even getting married and having children drew as much from me. But that was until I began to actively write the book, “Israel: Out of the Crucible” for publication. You know you can write for your own delight. You can write for your drawer. Many of you have done so. Your manuscripts are probably gathering dust in the locker in your village home or on the floor of your wardrobe.

I have had to joggle getting the words out of the keyboard unto the writing software with wondering why I am putting myself out there for people to critic. While the writing is a joy to undertake, every other thing hasn’t been quite as smooth sailing. Who knows maybe somewhere in the future I will be in a position to guide others through the process! But I am already going ahead of myself.

Right now, my main objective is to tell you that I have reached a major milestone. I begin the countdown to the launch of my first book tomorrow. It has taken years to get here, yet it looks quite frenetic now rushing towards the finish line.

Maybe this will be enough to encourage you to persevere in your own pursuit until you see the travail of your soul. There is a quote from Martin Luther King Jnr. which I posted not long ago. He said,

“If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.”

Keep moving! Count every increase as a valuable part of your process, no matter how small or negligible it may appear.

On that note, I will like for you to join me on my adventure. You can do so by subscribing to my occasional newsletter at www.uloyokjob.com. I have a FREE eBook for you which you can get from the website or from https://pages.uloyokjob.com

And you can tell someone. Let them know that Uloyok is cooking something nice. I am sure you know how to tell your friends and family on social media. That will be greatly appreciated.

 

Warm regards,

Uloyok

What Time Is It?

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When asked what time it is, most people will think of the answer as morning, afternoon, or evening. Others will think of the exact clock time, such as 10.30am, for example. But time is a much deeper and complex concept.

Science, philosophy, and religion have influenced our understanding of the concept. Some Christians believe that time came out of and is a minute part of eternity. Time is then segmented in other ways, such as dispensations, eons, eras and so on. For example, we have the dispensation of the law and the dispensation of grace.

Science has a view too, but it is an evolving view. To some physicists, time is the fourth of ten dimensions; the first three being length, width, and depth.

Only the first three are universally agreed and verifiable dimensions. Let’s avoid any further complications by overlooking any reference to Einstein’s theory of relativity.

Last month, the world joined the British royal family to mourn the passing of Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh. He died at ninety-nine, and less than a hundred days to turning hundred. That is a long time by any standard. In most African societies, the rite of passage of anybody at that age would take many days to complete. Yet, ninety-nine years is only about a tenth of Methuselah’s age. At nine hundred and sixty-nine years, he was the oldest man that ever lived.

From the first few chapters of Genesis, God didn’t want human beings to get confused about time. Indeed, the Bible is deliberate in the way it weaved stories around times and seasons. And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years. Genesis 1:14.

The book of Genesis spells out how long Adam and his descendants lived. And genealogies are the diet in the book of Chronicles. You want to finish reading the book of Chronicles in a hurry. Few people derive pleasure or understanding from reading genealogies. But without those interventions, we won’t know that death has been working in man to shorten his days on the earth. Adam lived for nine hundred and thirty years. By contrast, Abraham lived for one hundred and seventy-five years and was said to have died at a good old age. Meanwhile, Methuselah had his son, Lamech, when he was one hundred and eighty-seven years old. In the book of Psalms, the Bible puts human lifespan at seventy, plus a few years for good health.

This post is not about an explanation or defence of the Biblical perspective of time. Instead, it is to get you to think about what time of life you are in.

In Ecclesiastes 3, the preacher carries out a detailed explanation of time. First, everything has an allocated time or season. Second, there is an allotted time for every purpose or assignment. There is a time to be born and to die. There is a time to plant and a time to harvest, and so on. Thus, you can experience the extremes of love and hate; war and peace; exuberant joy and deep mourning.

Next, the preacher says that God makes everything beautiful in His time. God has His own time. For example, no one else knows the great day of judgement, not even the angels who minister in His presence. Matthew 24:36. The day of judgment is the day when the time allotted for this dispensation is complete, not one day sooner, not one day later.

Third, God planted the idea of eternity in the human heart but didn’t give him the ability to discover the total picture from start to finish. Ecclesiastes 3:11.

We commend scientists and inventors for doing a lot for our civilisation with their discoveries and inventions. Many of those discoveries and inventions are the bedrock of our lifestyle today. However, they have their limitations. Scientific research utilises observations, experimentation, and deductive thinking. These tools only have answers within the physical frame of reference, a mere fraction of our collective experience.

It is in the physical dimensions that we have a start and an end to things. It is in this realm that things grow and die. The spiritual realm has no such limits, and science doesn’t account for the spiritual component of our experience.

Because events and actions have a beginning and ending, it is possible to have divisible timeframes. And because the Bible talks about the end of the ages, we know that this earth will one day cease to exist. The earth is growing old like a garment, and one thing is for sure, the end of this dispensation is near.

So back to the question: what time is it? What time is it for you as a person? What time is it for you as a man or woman, husband or wife; father or mother; priest or layperson? Are you edging towards your prime? Or are you in or past it? Can God still depend on you to fulfil your destiny? Can your assigned target audience still hope in your ministry?

Promise me, O women of Jerusalem, by the gazelles and wild deer, not to awaken love until the time is right. Songs of Solomon 2:7.

There is a right time for everything. If you awake some things before their time, catastrophe will be the outcome.

The Greeks had two words for the concept of time – Chronos and Kairos. From Chronos, we derive the word chronology. It’s the calendar time or time in successive sequence. Kairos on the other hand is used for specific moments.

It is easier to understand the idea of Chronos. For example, a child starts the first year of school at age five. The voting age begins at eighteen. There is no debate. But when are you going to get married? That depends on factors beyond your control. However, those factors are not beyond God’s control. You have a ministry, but when should you start? You have a business idea, so when should you put in your resignation letter?

These do not have straightforward answers. And yet, they define how well we do in life. Remember the passage in Songs of Solomon and do not awaken anything until the right time. The right time here is the Kairos time.

Knowing what your times and seasons hold can make a difference to your ability to maximise opportunities and quality of life. You will have seasons of deep spiritual emphasis, seasons of prayers, of the study of the word of God. Seasons of giving and receiving nothing in return and so on. Then you will also have seasons of outstanding success. If you do not understand your times and seasons, you will abort the fulfilment of your destiny.

So, my encouragement to you is to find out what time it is.

God bless.

Summoning the Courage to Act

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It was from Myles Monroe I first heard refer to the grave as the richest place on earth. It contains inventions, works of art, books and so on people wanted to create and write but did not. Apparently, Les Brown also has a similar quote. Summoning the courage to birth our ideas is no mean feat.

I lost my good friend and business partner, Eghes Eyieyien on Christmas day 2016. We were friends from the first year of our undergraduate programme. We went on to work in the same organisation before he mooted the idea of starting Pharez, a financial service consultancy where I spent a decade supporting businesses.

Eghes ran the business, and at some point, I became the deputy managing consultant and ran the risk rating division. You will be hard-pressed to see two people so different in temperament working together as harmoniously as we did. Eghes would think up an idea in the night and not sleep until he gets to the office the next day. Before we finish the ensuing strategy session, he would have made up his mind on what he wanted. He was the chief marketer.

I was the brain box and the operations guy. No matter what my friend committed us to do while with clients, it was my lot to make sure we delivered. We both rather enjoyed teaching. It was not surprising that our human capital business thrived.

Reading was another common passion. We loved books and talked about writing a lot. And I can tell you for a fact that had Eghes been alive today, I would not have needed a professional editor. Well, at least at the beginning.

Eghes would think something and act on it as he was talking to you about it. It was incredible to me. I was the exact opposite; I would sleep over an idea for weeks before mentioning it to anybody. And then I sometimes spoke as if I wanted others to talk me out of it. Well, one of my life’s lessons is that you will arrive, but it might be quite late in the day.

For years, I kept wanting to write, as I mentioned in the welcome blog. Summoning the courage to start writing already ranks as one of my best achievements. Yes, my first book’s manuscript is still with my editor. I am finally doing something which brings me joy, and there is a freshness about it when I am in the process.

These are some insights to help you take the plunge.

Consider the end game:

Your emotions may be all over the place. That may be your first challenge. Well, think of it as delivering a baby. A woman undergoes a lot of changes during pregnancy, some hormonal. The creative enterprise is like the process of carrying a baby to term. Yours might be rough and uncomfortable, but rather than abort the process, focus on the end game, and use it to motivate yourself.

Failure is real, but…

Based purely on statistics, the rate of product failure, business failure and so on is high. The fear of failure is real. What happens if no one buys the “masterpiece?” What happens if feedback is negative? What happens if the dream of making enough money to live a comfortable life off it does not materialise? What happens if you can’t make the school team? Well, you can only know by trying.

Don’t ego trip.

This leads me to the third point, which is to make sure you are pursuing something you love and not an ego trip. If you would do it regardless of any potential reward, you will not lack the energy to continue.

I love photography. In 2016, I bought a Canon EOD 600 D camera and a few books on photography. I even paid for a Udemy course on the subject. I respect my desire to capture the moments and I am not bad at it. Indeed, I will continue to develop the skills to make me a better amateur photographer. My passion for photography hasn’t diminished, but I can’t compare it with the desire and drive to write.

Do you have a support structure?

Don’t underestimate the value of a support structure to help during periods of doubts and confusion. When I started writing in earnest, I had many episodes of feeling overwhelmed. It didn’t have to do with the quality of my writing. Instead, I worried stiff about the process of being in the public space. It felt like I was working actively on exposing myself in public. This is why many don’t engage with social media. There are people whose last post on social media is as far back as 2010. They are still connecting with “friends” though.

Having a group of trusted friends, no matter how few, is a great panacea for overcoming the doubts and fear of the public.

Let’s say you have always wanted to learn how to swim. You have paid for gym membership a few times and not taken it beyond that. Why don’t you get one or two friends to help? Find out who else in your circle wants to swim or wants to help smooth the process for you.

Reversing the role

Do you know you can summon the courage to act by finding out where others are struggling and offering to help? Seek opportunities to support others who are struggling with the fear of failure. Some may even need the courage to do something that will enhance their health and wellbeing.

It’s a great way to find inspiration for your own projects. Helping others can give you a sense of purpose and release your creative energies. Besides, everything you sow is a seed. The seeds which help others realise their potentials will bring similar help as a harvest to you.

Conclusion.

Get on with it. Open those drawers and bring out all the drafts you have written. Read through again. Yes, there may sound rubbish. Never mind, get to work. Many people within your circle will support you if you reach out. Or maybe yours is something completely different. Like learning a new language, new skills; whatever it is just start.

 

Welcome to my website

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I have toyed with the idea of writing for years. Generating excuses is what people with my temperament do best. First, it was “I need to get a real job and to settle down” then it was “I don’t have the time” and then I stopped to think about writing completely. When I started to think about writing again, I began to suffer from soul-crushing episodes of self-doubt.

Finally, a few years ago, while working in St. Austell in beautiful Cornwall, south west England, and living away from my family home in Buckinghamshire for two weeks at a time, I began to toy with writing again. In the solitude of my surroundings, I was able to see the connection between my cold lonely nights, writing to let off steam, and my purpose.

Prior to this time, I always wanted to write but more as a hobby. On deep reflection, I remember what my mother said about me as a teenager. She said something to the effect, “you will eat with your pen.” I had always thought her intuition and prayer were for me to make a career in the corporate world. It is still not clear if writing will bring me to the point of eating with my pen, but I am going to put my best foot forward.

A good part of the manuscript of my first book, Israel: Out of The Crucible was ready for the numerous edits before I left my job in Cornwall. I am now actively working to publish my first two books. There’s still a long way to go, but this time I am certain to carry through. The learning curve is steep. Writing as an indie author is a business proposition, not just a literary enterprise. I am juggling lessons on writing and the business of bringing the script to the right readership.

Unfortunately, I am let’s say mentally restless. I think of doing a thousand and one things at the same time. My aspirations currently include learning to swim, learning Spanish, learning photography. I have talked to friends about several ideas and they will ask, “which are focusing on?” and I won’t give a definitive answer.

Therefore, be certain that though this blog will attempt to track my journey as a writer, it will not be a specialized one for budding authors. More likely it will toss multiple ideas, including hard social issues and the challenge of being a Bible-believing Christian in the age of the internet as well as explore my other interests like photography.

Finally, despite the ramblings about other interests, the central focus will be on my journey as a writer. Expect discussions on social and political-economic issues too especially as it relates to my faith as a Christian.

I will be immensely pleased if you can join me on this adventure by signing on to read and comment on the blog posts.