2017 Chronicles

Generally, 2017 was a memorable year. I could have skipped it earlier at the beginning of January but I thought not to and decided to face it head-on. Luckily, January was my birthday month. For the sake of this weird reason, I had to trust that the year will be fruitful and unleash the mysteriously hidden treasures by the end of 12 like-folds. January handed over the mantle to February and I was grateful that my birthday wasn’t on 29th otherwise I could have waited for 4 years just to turn one year older. Anyway, despite events and moments appearing and disappearing (I mean it), it was a year that I learned quite a lot. The unexamined life is not worth living but also if what you only do is examining then you are not living.

Among the Life Skill Classes that I attended over the year, there was a lot which was common but 10 of them caught my attention. I had to subscribe to the Attention and paid an Annual fee so that I could be updated. These skills include:

Learning from Mistakes

As an Engineering student, the curriculum insists on doing practical and experiments as a way of learning from them, not just for the sake of doing them. Similarly, in life, mistakes are the indication that you are in the life lab trying to come up with an invention or an innovation. Nothing good comes from doing it the first time. It’s the spirit of being consistent in winning and succeeding that makes the product worth an investment. Shying away from mistakes makes you be remembered by your last failure which doesn’t qualify to be a lesson.

“Don’t waste a good mistake, learn from it”

“I’ve learned so much from my mistakes, I’m thinking of making a few more”

“Experiment is simply the name we give our mistakes”

Taking Responsibility

However much you try to make people be pitiful for your mistakes, its human nature that nobody ever will. It’s who we are – it's in our DNA. Taking responsibility means you stop pitting yourself, stop the blame game, seeking opportunities rather than waiting for your dreams to be offered in a golden platter, working hard to achieve what you want in life, among other DOs and DON’Ts. Iyanla Vanzant would have told you to stop whining. Similarly, we are what we eat daily. Habitual practice of taking responsibility is what defines maturity. The more you take responsibility for your past and present, the more you are able to create the future you seek.

Practicing Realistic Optimism

You always need to have an Aim, an Action Plan, and a tentative Outcome. Sometimes, we are caught up in a fancy and fake optimism that we focus on results without doing anything and weirdly without any objective that relates to the results that we need. Its good to be optimistic, it's better to practice and make it a habit, but it’s in the best interest to practice a realistic optimism. Don’t visualize success, but instead visualize the steps you will take in order to make success happen. This is a portion of the syllabus that requires every equating formula to have a factor of honesty in it. Investment is as good as not investing at all. Substituting of hard work for instant riches and luck especially in gambling isn’t an investment. Being youth with a lot of time and energy but no cash is advantageous than being old with limited cash, not enough time for your stuff and of course with inadequate energy. The term inadequate is the best suit in describing a retired government chap at the age of 60. Being realistic also depends on the measure you put in place. Being too realistic often leads to the ordinary life which is the common path to mediocrity.

Not being ashamed to cry

As an Africa Son initiated in tough traditions of manhood; crying is not only considered a sign of weakness but a taboo. Sometimes, we are usually blindfolded by the sign forgetting the cause, intention, or the motive behind a certain instance and circumstance. There is always a sense when Johnny Depp says: People cry not because they are weak but because they have been strong for too long. It's always clever to cry while in fear but wise to cry with confidence. Confidence is a muscle-like component in our life that many don’t seem to understand. Like a muscle, it needs consistent training, habitual practices, and a die-hard hacker mindset. Kids are the strongest and that’s why they cry. Growing with weaker humans turns them into weak creatures. The same reason as to why we cried and dreamt of being pilots, doctor, writers, engineers, and others but after we stopped crying the dreams we had changed.

Practicing Gratitude

Nothing that can bring a sense of the past and present than being grateful. It makes logical sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow. Asking “why me?” is essential not only when bad things happen but also when great things happen. Staying present in the moment gives you the power and ability to manage stress and optimizing relaxation. Gratitude gives life the true meaning and the more you practice gratitude the more there is in life to be grateful for.

Speaking Up

As it said, “The world suffers a lot. Not because of the violence of bad people, but because of the silence of good people.” It's rude to keep quiet while the world is burning down into ashes but there is much politeness in speak-up and your voice be heard. If you’re not going to speak up, how is the world supposed to know you exist? Speaking up is not blaming others but being able to say things as they are. Conflict resolution skill and knowing how and when to ask for help is the skill set that every creature with proper conscious should have. Speaking up is saying NO when you mean it even though you might end up hurting somebody. However much you brag to be team player, if you can’t speak up, you qualify not to exist in any team.

Listening

Nelson Mandela is regarded as the greatest leader globally. One of the key life hacks that he had is the ability to listen. Just as they say, collecting all rubbish in the dumpsite for reuse and recycle is considered as the best environmental conservation method. Being the last one to speak develops the muscle of learning to hold your opinion until everyone else has spoken. It also gives everybody else the feeling that they have been heard. By listening to everyone else, you get the benefit of hearing what everybody else has to say before you speak. This skill gives you a chance of not just agreeing but ask questions so that you can understand why they are saying it, and how they are saying it not just what they are saying.

Managing your Time

Being a millennial and especially in the 21st century is such a privilege. Similar to the Stone Age by having adequate resources for hunting and gathering, 21st century has information overload which translates this generation to be the busiest among all the generations ever existed. Technology has tried to bring resources that should be helping the humanity in managing their time but ironically the same technology has facilitated to a greater degree mismanagement of time. The initial motive of the smartphone was to help in human advancement but you will often hear that the damages they have caused are of the same magnitude to not having them. Still, you can manage your time productively as an individual by learning new stuff, exercising, meditating, and practicing your passions and hobbies. You will find this statement true to some extent if analyzed by the learner's intention in mind: if you are married to a reader and a writer, you will never die. Ironically, the busiest people are the poorest. Warren Buffet uses 80% of his time while learning and his colleague Bill Gates read at least 50 books per year. Maybe the best question to ask is: How many books have you read in 2017?? Managing your time wisely doesn’t only allow you to follow your passions, but broadens them which in return enriches your life beyond measure.

Getting Enough Sleep

No matter how busy you are, you’ll never invent another facebook, calculus or the gravity. But, optimize and maximize your imagination and curiosity, there is definitely a possibility to innovate or invent something. The best ideas are processed in relaxation and stress-free mode. Enough sleep gives you adequate capabilities of processing new ideas. The early bird catches the warm. The point is, they didn’t specify how early. Skills are built in a progressive process. In order to become a mastery of a particular subject, Mental freshness is very essential. Forcing yourself to wake up is another subject of discussion. Less sleep is as bad as excess sleep.

Spiritual Wellbeing

However powerful you are, you'll always cling your hope and faith upon some supreme being. Everyone experiences that moment when you have everything at your disposal but no satisfaction. You might also be in need of something that your power, money, fame, and glory can’t buy. Religious and Spirituality has been experienced by many and explained to have super healing effects. Being able to respect the God that’s above every humans’ understanding is the key to understanding the hidden treasures that are aligned with your life purpose. No matter how wise you are you can never create you or else you couldn’t decide the way you were born. For that simple reason, it’s wise to have a stable connection between you and your God.

All ten builds up in forming the base of the success pyramid. The foundation of this pyramid includes Communication Skills, Decision Making Skills, and Goal Setting Skills. The three skills are the basics in our daily life. Our daily success which sums up into our ultimate successful life with a purposeful ending depends primarily on how well you are with the three base skills. We all anticipate 2018 to be more successful and prosperous than 2017 despite the external challenges that we migrated with from 2017. It's wise to remember though that our strength comes from within. No matter how prosperous 2018 will be, its prosperity will be greatly defined by the freedom you will attain in reaching your year’s resolutions. In other words, Success is the freedom to do whatever you want to do. 

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