SUICIDE: YOU KILLED MORE THAN YOURSELF. By Abimbola Iyabo Aina-Alao

SUICIDE: YOU KILLED MORE THAN YOURSELF.

Wanna kill yourself? Imagine this. You come home from school one day. You’ve had yet another horrible day. You’re just ready to give up. So you go to your room, close the door, and take out that suicide note you’ve written and rewritten over and over and over You take out those razor blades, and cut for the very last time.

You grab that bottle of pills and take them all. Laying down, holding the letter to your chest, you close your eyes for the very last time. A few hours later, your little brother knocks on your door to come tell you dinners ready. You don’t answer, so he walks in. All he sees is you laying on your bed, so he thinks you’re asleep. He tells your mom this.

Your mom goes to your room to wake you up. She notices something is odd. She grabs the paper in your hand and reads it. Sobbing, she tries to wake you up. She’s screaming your name. Your brother, so confused, runs to go tell Dad that “Mommy is crying and sissy won’t wake up.” Your dad runs to your room. He looks at your mom, crying, holding the letter to her chest, sitting next to your lifeless body. It hits him, what’s going on, and he screams. He screams and throws something at the wall. And then, falling to his knees, he starts to cry. Your mom crawls over to him, and they sit there, holding each other, crying.

The next day at school, there’s an announcement. The principal tells everyone about your suicide. It takes a few seconds for it to sink in, and once it does, everyone goes silent. Everyone blames themselves. Your teachers think they were too hard on you. Those mean popular girls, they think of all the things they’ve said to you. That boy that used to tease you and call you names, he can’t help but hate himself for never telling you how beautiful you really are.

Your ex boyfriend, the one that you told everything to, that broke up with you.. He can’t handle it. He breaks down and starts crying, and runs out of the school. Your friends? They’re sobbing too, wondering how they could never see that anything was wrong, wishing they could have helped you before it was too late. And your best friend? She’s in shock. She can’t believe it. She knew what you were going through, but she never thought it would get that bad… Bad enough for you to end it. She can’t cry, she can’t feel anything. She stands up, walks out of the classroom, and just sinks to the floor. Shaking, screaming, but no tears coming out. It’s a few days later, at your funeral.

The whole town came. Everyone knew you, that girl with the bright smile and bubbly personality. The one that was always there for them, the shoulder to cry on. Lots of people talk about all the good memories they had with you, there were a lot. Everyone’s crying, your little brother still doesn’t know you killed yourself, he’s too young. Your parents just said you died. It hurts him, a lot. You were his big sister, you were supposed to always be there for him. Your best friend, she stays strong through the entire service, but as soon as they start lowering your casket into the ground, she just loses it. She cries and cries and doesn’t stop for days.

It’s two years later. Your teachers all quit their job. Those mean girls have eating disorders now. That boy that used to tease you cuts himself. Your ex boyfriend doesn’t know how to love anymore and just sleeps around with girls. Your friends all go into depression. Your best friend? She tried to kill herself. She didn’t succeed like you did, but she tried…your brother? He finally found out the truth about your death. He self harms, he cries at night, he does exactly what you did for years leading up to your suicide. Your parents? Their marriage fell apart. Your dad became a workaholic to distract himself from your death. Your mom got diagnosed with depression and just lays in bed all day.

People care. You may not think so, but they do. Your choices don’t just affect you. They affect everyone. Don’t end your life, you have so much to live for. Things can’t get better if you give up. I’m here for absolutely anyone that needs to talk, no matter who you are. Even if we’ve NEVER talked before, I’m here for you.

Copy and paste this as your status to show people there are people out there that care. Let's see who actually read all of it.
For anyone that feels this way, we are trying to demonstrate that someone's always listening.

#SuicideAwareness

Savings

It's been a while, but I'm back at this. Somehow I believe it will help someone 'out there'... More on that later.

Today I just realised that part of the reason why I failed miserably in the past when I tried to save money was because I didn't really think it through.

There are a number of simple reasons why your savings plan could be dead on arrival. I'll use the seed and bread analogy from Jesus.

You're trying to save your bread. Bread is meant to be eaten. If you haven't earned enough money to feed yourself, it will be very hard to save anything.

You're trying to save seed while it's planting season. If you hold onto your seed (money, skills, etc) at the time when you should be investing, when harvest time comes (or when your bills fall due) you will end up spending that seed.

You don't know when the seasons change. This is a painful one. Distractions can keep you from knowing when your planting season or harvest season comes.

You can't tell the difference between seed, flour and bread. Seed is anything you have or know that is of value. Flour is seed that has been processed for storage and use later. Flour is a form of savings. You can save to invest later or to eat later.

You need to realise that you can save all three, but in different ways and for different periods of time.

Placement

Nigerians have to be careful not to allow ourselves get distracted by the dim-witted but gregarious and verbose displays of people who unfortunately got a good education, little manners and 15 minutes of fame.

We need to pay attention to the upcoming federal and state elections and prepare for them.

It is important that we begin to use every forum to inform would-be office holders that we will hold them to account for the work they are elected to do. 

Lagos, Enugu, Kano and Kansas don't belong to any human being. This entire planet belongs to God. He determines who occupies each territory. If you have been blessed to find sustenance and purpose in a locality, dwell in peace (as much as it possible) with all men there. 

Abraham dwelt in Canaan, traded with the indigenes and probably helped them fight some battles. Yet he preserved His honor by preserving his identity and mandate. Our true uniqueness and our preservation of the same lends us honor among those whom we deal with. There is no mention in scripture of God telling Abraham NOT to let Isaac get a wife in Canaan. I stand to be corrected. It is not his ethnicity that granted him uniqueness - it was the covenant he was in with God.

Likewise we must understand what it is that matters and give that its place in our lives, preserving our true value. As we keep ourselves focused on what really matters, we align ourselves with the purposes of the Kingdom we are loyal to - the Kingdom of God. 

We are effectively neither Nigerians nor Africans - we are ambassadors of heaven - and we need to behave ourselves accordingly. We are on earth to show people how government is run in heaven. When the ambassadors get their job done right, the city rejoices (my re-phrase).

So please pray for Nigeria, ask God what you can do to make this nation better and get to doing it. I've started - have you? 

An intentional life - thankful.

This year I celebrated my ninth year of marriage. I am grateful to God: not for the things He did but for who He is. If may take it further, I'm not just grateful to God for who he is, but more so for HOW He is who he is.

I used to thank God for the things He did, but I've gone past that. I recognized that we experience God only as He shows off His nature - we know Him by the Words He speaks and then by His actions, but eventually, we go past that to find His intentions. The Why.

Officially traditional medical science will say I am susceptible to epileptic fits. I have managed myself rather well over the years as I stand in faith in a state of divine health. I believe God for a fit-free life all my days on the earth.

That said I avoid stuffy environments and strobe lights (they give me headaches).

Today I am thanking God for the unintentional and yet intentional miracle I know as my life. For a person given to too much thinking (cause my synapses are firing very actively), life has thrown me enough curve balls to know that there is a limit to my forecasting, planning and projecting.

Nevertheless I find that by my God, in spite of the curve balls and my own failings, I am experiencing the goodness of God.

Adding to this six years later (June 8th 2019) I still declare God is faithful. He has given me grace to make a success of my path.

I have to confess it's been a struggle - to accept where I am and move forward with and in spite of it.

As I often say, for the Believer, success is inevitable - success is daily living. I refuse to end a day without sowing life into all the fields of my life, towards a beautiful harvest tomorrow.

So I encourage you - don't wait for calm seas and clear skies. Don't count on people to support you. Don't look for anything more than what you already have (within reach) to enjoy your fruitful life.

Jesus said to engage our world (ask and you will receive so that your joy may be complete) He didn't ask us to go add to ourselves before we engage. Whatever you are now is all you need for the next fulfilling step of your life.

Move. Live. Enjoy. Now.

Relationships... and other stuff

Opposites attract... then drive each other crazy.

There are some areas where I believe similarities are not negotiable.

Brother beware when you are going through a catalogue of living room furniture and happen upon a picture of a home and she says 'I don't like this picture... the house doesn't look lived in' There is a possibility that she doesn't mind having varied items lying around the house round the clock. If you are a neatness freak, decide on what you can/cannot tolerate.

Learning - Adult education continued

Whoa!

I am tired - and that's not the bad news or the sad part. It's just the appertif. I am allowed to be tired. I exhausted myself by trying to figure out God's next steps. I have a gift that God gave me - it is not unique to me. I believe everybody has the same ability. To see. To know truth from falsehood. If we honestly look at our lives, we'll know what we are doing wrong and what to do to get back on track. It is the will to do it that makes the difference. Part of this seeing is seeing what we need to do next. Seeing the future... detour...

Flowing from my open mind I decided to surf the internet last night and came across an article by a lady who says she had been a lesbian for decades but over the past 5 years had met a man, fallen in love, and had four kids. She admitted in the article that she knows a lot of gay people will hate her for alluding to the fact that sexuality is a matter of choice and not a genetically predetermined state. As she expected, there was a shower of responses stating just that. They are still arguing. Me, I came away from the site with a lesson: (some) people are afraid of taking responsibility for their lives and their situation and will give anything to put the blame for it any and everywhere else.

Another lesson learned is that the cost of total transparency can be so great that people have to hide behind 'usernames' and 'avatars'. Luckily the internet provides this escape for many people, even though some of the responses and advice that comes to them are 'unbudgetted for' :)

Me I have 'market to sell' so I use social media to reach out to prospects. It works just fine for me. Back to the human will.

I will be honest with myself and admit that I am often tempted to be impatient with God (that's positive confession-ese for I am impatient and compulsive), and I run ahead of him sometimes just so that things can 'move along'. I have gotten into enough messes by trying to jump-start stuff, but still I cannot stand idleness, or that 'being in-between' state. It is harrowing. I can SEE the next steps as clear as day. I know what needs to happen... So like Snappy Doo I say: "let me at it!!!" even though I may be biting off more than I can chew.

Which brings me to my dilemma. Can people really change? Would I be deceiving myself to presume that someday I will by a calculated, methodical series of 'actions' which become 'habits' which then form my 'lifestyle' transition into a patient dog, waiting for the fattest bone? How will this change occur? Is what I am trying to change really that bad? Will the bone show up in the end? Who's bringing it? Or do I simply need to by SELF-CONTROL, practise being led by the Spirit of God? Hmm...

I identify with Joyce Meyer and Benny Hinn in their love of perfection and getting things done in a certain way. I learned from Joyce that some elements of what the psychs call OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder - which is a general term covering a multitude of anomalies) is embedded in her/my personality make up. I love motion, progress, symphony, order, sequence (I also love pauses, but only where they should occur and for a specified duration under certain specified conditions) :)

In trying to change myself I have found that it is impossible to unlearn what has been learned (Go and ask Adam and Eve how much they would pay to unlearn the knowledge of good and evil, or better still ask God why He didn't give them a lobotomy) rather what God has designed is that greater life, greater truth, higher laws can be learned, introduced and lived by, that elevate us from the limitations of our previous and ONLY known way of doing things (personality). So for an aggressive perfectionist, adding on NEW skills (like giving people the benefit of the doubt, empathy, listening, investing in training subordinates, etc) then using them rightly, causes the difference. So the change in a person is not that they by encountering Jesus forget how to steal or rob or bark at people, but that they learn how to create and give instead.

This is the true nature of change. We must exercise our wills to do the new things that we have learned and stop doing the wrong things we learned in the past. A distinction must be made between ABused skills and bad habits. Being particular, attentive to details and 'generally fussy' about order/arrangement of things and plans is not bad. It is a highly sought-after skill in the workplace. It can, however be misapplied or ABused, when the person NEVER allows for input from others, insists on their own way, or refuses to accommodate any 'failures' or departures from their preferred standard. Being inflexible is a bad habit that is often adopted by perfectionists.

People with OCD-ish tendencies need to submit themselves to the Spirit and to God's love. It is only in trusting God that they will find the freedom to release things into His hands and ask for His leading. We can only trust God when we become aware of His love for us... when we see just how committed He is to giving us the best life possible in spite of our imperfect selves. (Obsessive people see very well. Believe it or not, one of the things we see very very very well, is our own imperfections.) Having become a beneficiary of that love that overlooked all our imperfections and ajudged us righteous, we develop the capacity to be mellow and patient. We do not lose our sense of structure and order and propriety, but we put it in its place: under the love with which God has loved us.

The Higher Law/Way takes over from there and peace comes in to secure us in the in-betweens.

So now I can sleep better ;)

Time Travel

I see the future. I saw it yesterday. I've seen it today.

Anthropologists tell us that by studying a culture you change it. Every time I see my future, I change it. I improve it. I don't see only myself in the future. I see you. I see Nigeria.

Nigerians expect and receive service from public servants. We do not honor thieves, fraudsters or reprobate businessmen. How would we? They're all in jail; rightly dressed in garlands of ridicule.

Nigerians do not deceive themselves by believing that someone else will attend to the issues of the day. They without hesitation roll up their sleeves and get things resolved.

There is a clanishness to our communities. People know their neighbours: all of them. Irrespective of religious beliefs, all the residents come together in times of celebration or sobriety. They are honest, straightforward and transparent. They say it like it is.

There is calm in the land. It almost seems as if the city and people are laid back, but don't be fooled. These Nigerians are smart and very industrious. They've made a name for themselves on the world stage in commerce, science, sports, politics, you name it. Yet in the face of that they are so... humble.

This is one country where every citizen is allowed to blossom as they discover their talents.

What do you see when you see the future? Do you dare to create it with the word of YOUR power? You do not need to answer that question: the answer is yes.

You indeed do create it every minute of every day when you speak. Understand that nature obeys your command: it doesn't dare ask you whether you REALLY wanted what you said. It just gets it across to you.

Travel to the future. Describe it. You will live it. Have a good one.