LESSONS FROM THE BOOK "YOU BECOME WHAT YOU THINK

 10 LESSONS FROM THE BOOK "YOU BECOME WHAT YOU THINK" BY SHUBHAM KUMAR 

Shubham Kumar's "You Become What You Think" is a potent exploration of the power of our minds and how our thoughts shape our reality. It's a roadmap for cultivating a positive mindset and unlocking your full potential. Here are 10 key lessons from this transformative book:

1. Your Thoughts Are Your Architects:

Imagine your thoughts as bricks and your life as the house they build. Every positive thought, every belief in yourself, is a sturdy brick adding strength and stability. Negative thoughts, like cracked bricks, weaken the foundation and limit your potential. Kumar emphasizes that we have the power to choose our thoughts and become conscious architects of our own lives.

2. The Power of Mindfulness:

Think of your mind as a garden. Weeds of negativity can easily sprout and choke out the flowers of positivity. Mindfulness is like tending to your garden, weeding out negative thoughts and nurturing positive ones. Through practices like meditation and introspection, we become aware of our inner landscape and learn to cultivate a healthy mental space.

3. Reframing the Narrative:

We all have stories we tell ourselves about who we are and what we're capable of. Sometimes, these stories become limiting beliefs that hold us back. Kumar encourages us to identify and challenge our negative narratives. Ask yourself, "Is this belief truly serving me? Can I reframe it into something empowering?" By rewriting your inner story, you rewrite your destiny.

4. Action Fuels Thought:

Positive thinking is powerful, but it's not enough. We must also take action to bridge the gap between our dreams and reality. Kumar reminds us that true transformation comes from aligning our thoughts with our actions. Set goals, take concrete steps, and persevere in the face of challenges. Remember, action fuels thought, and your journey begins with the first step.

5. Gratitude Unlocks Abundance:

Focusing on what we lack breeds scarcity. Instead, Kumar encourages cultivating a practice of gratitude. Appreciate the good things in your life, big and small. When we shift our focus to what we're grateful for, we open ourselves up to receiving more abundance in all its forms.

6. Find Your Purpose:

What sets your soul on fire? What makes you feel truly alive? Discovering your purpose is not just about finding a job; it's about aligning your life with your deepest values and aspirations. Kumar encourages us to explore, experiment, and listen to our inner compass. When you live purposefully, every step becomes meaningful, and every challenge an opportunity for growth.

7. Embrace Challenges as Stepping Stones:

Life is not always smooth sailing. We will encounter obstacles and setbacks. But what defines us is not what happens to us, but how we respond. Kumar teaches us to view challenges as stepping stones, and opportunities to learn and grow. When we embrace adversity with resilience and a positive attitude, we emerge stronger and wiser on the other side.

8. The Power of Forgiveness:

Holding onto anger and resentment is like carrying a heavy weight that slows us down. Kumar encourages us to practice forgiveness, not for others, but for ourselves. Let go of past hurts and negative experiences. Forgive yourself for your mistakes and move forward with a lighter heart. Forgiveness liberates us to live in the present and embrace the possibilities that lie ahead.

9. Invest in Relationships:

Human connection is essential for our well-being. Kumar emphasizes the importance of nurturing positive relationships with loved ones, friends, and mentors. These connections provide support, encouragement, and a sense of belonging. Invest in your relationships, and they will become a source of strength and joy throughout your life.

10. Continuous Learning is Key:

The world is constantly changing, and so should we. Kumar encourages us to embrace a lifelong learning mindset. Read books, explore new ideas, and step outside your comfort zone. The more we learn, the more we grow, and the more equipped we are to navigate the ever-evolving landscape of life.

Daily Times, Wednesday, March 26, 1958

 

ADELABU IS DEAD!!!

 

“Shagamu Car Crash Victim; Two others die in night collision”

 

Paper Reads: Alhaji Adegoke Adelabu was last night killed in a car crash at ode-Remo Shagamu.

 

Two other People who were travelling in the same car as Alhaji Adelabu also died, they are still unidentified 

 

The news of Alhaji Adelabu’s untimely death was revealed in Lagos by Chief Festus Okotie-Eboh who was the Minister of Finance

 

Nicknamed ‘The Lion of the West” Adegoke Gbadamosi Adelabu (1915- 1958) aka 'Penkelemesi'('Peculiar Mess')/ Lion of the West. Orator, Writer and Politician. 

 

Born in Oke-Oluokun Ibadan, he attended the CMS Schools in Kudeti and Mapo as well as the prestigious Government College Ibadan(GCI). At GCI he had an outstanding academic record yet to be surpassed. He also studied at the Yaba Higher College finishing in record time. 

 

On graduation, he joined the UAC becoming the first African Manager. He was a fearless, highly influential and charismatic Politician and he co-founded the Ibadan Peoples Party with Adisa Akinloye in 1951. He later joined Zik's NCNC and became the Leader of the Opposition in the Western House of Assembly. 

 

On Tuesday, 25 March 1958 he died tragically when his Oldsmobile Rocket was involved in a fatal accident on the Lagos-Ibadan Road. He was aged only 42 and left 12 wives and 15 children

The guy was looking at me and was brimming with a broad smile. I didn’t really know him, but, at least, he was wearing the Departmental Students’ signature colour. So, I knew he is a student in the Department. I smiled back cautiously. I had to be cautious. It was strange: a stranger just smiling broadly at you without any known or suspected reason… I am relatively new in the Department and the University. And, perhaps, there are reasons one should be apprehensive of unknown faces smiling broadly at one. Folks could be mischievous with these forms of unprovoked smile-to-friendship-gestures … I had been blackmailed by friendly folks before. In fact, they were so friendly and smiling until they got what they needed to blackmail me… Ope l’owo Ori. All thanks to my Head, my God… For, in the Yoruba esoteric order, ‘Ori Eni l’Awure Eni. One’s Head is its Essence of Fulfilment. And, deeply and properly understood, still within that metaphysical musing, Ori is God. In essence, one’s Ori is its destiny, its God… Hmm, Ope l’owo Ori…

The guys smiled again broadly and this time around announced within the broad smile: ‘Sir, I want to see you!’ Impulsively, I repeated what he said after him, ‘You want to see me?’ as if he should deny saying it. But, with a sense of self-assurance, he responded in the affirmative, ‘Yes sir!’ I said, ‘Okay then’… I was not going to join Davido in his self-deception to say ‘I am not available. Dem no dey see me…’ As a Lecturer, I should be available and folks must be able to see me easily. ‘Sir, I will come to see you in your office…’ ‘No problem’, I responded…

Somehow, the discussion was not on anything I was expecting. I had earlier given complimentary copies of some of my plays to the Head of Department. This student happened to be one of the students who had been able to lay-hold of the plays through her. In his case, it was a copy of For the Love of Sisyphus… He had read it and felt he had to see me for such an immediate discussion and to make an urgent request. He came in and I offered him a seat. He was still beaming with the broad smile. I asked him to state the reason he wanted to see me. Perhaps, a bit distraught now sitting before me, the victim-Hero of the play, he gradually picked his words one after the other in expressing himself… ‘Sir, I got this play, pointing to a copy of For the Love of Sisyphus on my table, from the HOD. When I started reading it, I could not drop it until I finished it. Sir, I have never read any book or play like this in my life! I have never… The style is so unique. The action is completely unusual. Yes, I have heard of issues like this, but I have never seen anybody treated it this way in a play or book. This is totally a different play from all the plays I have seen and read…’

At that point, I was a bit reassured. I became relaxed. We began to discuss the world of the play. The events leading to the play and the play… He was also so fascinated by the fact that all the actions in the play took place in the consciousness of Wale, the Protagonist. And, being a lover of creativity, and one who is inclined to it himself, he confessed he was already imagining the different possibilities of the play in a performance on the stage. In fact, it turned out that was part of the main reasons he had decided to see me – to seek an official permission to be allowed to put the play on the stage. I don’t know if you had ever been obsessed with the thought of a thing before in your consciousness? Have you? If you had, you would know it would be as if you were actually possessed of some strange daemons from the infernal world, the place the fire as of the Hades is made by only-God-knows-who…

He told me of the immediate contacts he had made with his would-be collaborators for the play production. I told him the play had actually been performed before. Two times now, if my memory still functions well. But, truth, I have never been opportune to see it in a performance on the stage. When we started rehearsing it in Maiduguri for the stage, for a command performance, we had to put the rehearsal on hold when those who promised to bankroll the production could not make good their promises to do so… To date, the best of the play I had personally seen in a performance was a reading performance in Osogbo in 2017. That day, it was a harvest of crying as folks could not hold back their tears at a point in the reading…

I remember I wrote that play in three successive nights in April, 2017. I would rise up in the middle of the night around 12 like an Iroko goblin and off to my study. My study to my room was just as described in the play of the encounter of Wale, the hero of the play, with Sisyphus, the absurd mythic hero itself. It was indeed as if I was possessed of something outside of the natural order! In three nights, between 12-mid night to 4am, the play was ready as it is today! I was done, and an eternal burden was lifted off my neck. It was a way of getting my pound of flesh without a drop of blood from those worthless fellows… I knew that play would write its own history and it had started…

At its first publication, I gave out over 700 copies free! I remember a day I was travelling to Ile-Ife in a public transport from Osogbo. The guy who sat by my side in the car brought out a copy and was engrossed in it, reading it as if he had an examination to write on it. I kept quiet. Our journey started… He would breathe out heavily at interval continuously as he was reading it. When we were almost in Ife, I asked him if he would believe I am the author of the play he was reading. He looked up at me in total distraught and said that could not be true. Then he looked at my face, went back to look at the picture of the author on the back cover. He looked at me again and back at the back cover. He saw my logo, my white hair signature. He became perplexed and was fascinated at the same time. He told me how he got the play…

He is a DSS personnel. The play was handed over to him in their office in Osogbo to read and do some findings. He would not tell me the whole gist. That would amount to revealing official secret to me. We struck some conversations around the events in the play and eventually exchanged numbers … He would later contact me after I won my case against Osun State University and those useless fellows at the Industrial Court in Ibadan in 2022 to congratulate me. The story and its developments had remained with him since then… I have known folks who are frustrated because they could not act on their convictions on the case. In my case, I have known DSS and Police Officers who are frustrated…

Of course, the story has now become a myth. Quite a number of people who had read the play have had grounds to contact me to claim the events were unreal. That I must have added some spices to narrating it. Some accused me of deliberately exaggerating the framing of the actions in the play to present myself in such a way that the others were cast as the devils. Even now, while I am still alive, some folks think the events of the play are larger than life…

I have had occasions where I directed folks to internet links to confirm the story. I have on many occasions given out the contacts of some of the characters in the plays. The doubting Thomases have had to directly call some of the dramatic personas, especially Ejiro Mercy. I have had feedbacks from them narrating how she blocked them off when they started investigating the matter… The story leading to the writing and the publication of For the Love of Sisyphus is a story my Yoruba people will call ‘Story Aye’, the story of ‘Aye!’ Aye being a metaphorical way of recognizing, saluting and eulogizing the ‘Iyamis’, the Witches, the ones with the power to feed on the intestines of the importunate without a physical contact, respectfully to avoid their wrath! I have become a myth in my lifetime by the virtue of the play…

I gave my approval for the production of the play. The guy was elated. He promised to come back to see me with his collaborators for further discussions and consultations on the production… I smiled. I am fulfilled. I am done. For the Love of Sisyphus has become the story Aye! A proper Aye’s Tale. I have thus become an Aye in my right! I have become a myth to be told now and, in the generations to come… And, tell me, what is a mortal with a fleeting life like me looking for again in its absurd life when he has become a living legend in the myth of Aye, a myth to be told as long as the Earth remains? What?    

‘Bode Ojoniyi

26 March, 2024.             

Few days ago, my wife had protested to me on the phone: ‘You started a story and would not complete it? Why did you start it when you would not finish it?’ And, like a chicken retrieved from a well, wet and shivering, I soberly promised her to complete the story. I have been under intense pressure from individuals, journal editors, mentees, colleagues and senior colleagues to deliver on one assignment or the other in terms of editorial inputs, speech preparations and sundry academic interventions. Whenever I think I was almost done, clearing the volumes on my table, calls and mails would come in again requesting me to do this or do that. These are aside my teaching and research assignments… And, to meet some of these deadlines and promises on my honour, I have had to put my own works on hold… still, many would not understand the pressure on me…even my wife at times…

Well, from my wife’s protestation, it struck me that there could be folks who are equally waiting for the end of the story of my encounter with a human trafficker. For, if my wife who was with me at the park where the whole event took place, live in her presence, is still eager to read my framing of the events in a narrative, how much more those who were not present at the scene but who have been following on the story? It was clear to me I would have to put completing the story on my ‘to-do’ priority list… Sincerely, I have been thinking of taking a final break from university teaching to face a career in creative writing as full-time. I have muted the idea to one or two people who would not listen to anything of such from me. To them, I would be denying a generation of students the opportunity to meet me and benefit from whatever giftings and knowledge I have got to impact to them…

It again dawned on me: We only often pretend that our life is completely free and that we own our actions hundred percent! It is perhaps one of the lies we indulge in to possibly feel good and cool in ourselves-duping acts. Truth is: we are not completely free and we don’t always act freely. We are often under constraints, different constraints such as cultural, traditional, religious, social, family, friends, and existential survival constraints. A whole lot of relational constraints and demands that often prevent us from having to act. There are things I won’t do because of my friends, families and admirers. For instance, three times, I could not follow through on my decision to leave the service of the University of Maiduguri because certain people in my life, very dear people, would not support my decision… Our decisions are often negotiated and remediated by different home-comrades as the existentialist would call them. And, there are times we must rethink a decision, not necessarily because of ourselves, but because of our considerations for the importance of the others in our lives… This is what is called being responsible to the others as well as being responsible to ourselves…

Well, as we were standing by the bus and other passengers were arriving, a lady, probably between the ages 19 to 21 arrived by the bus. She was shabbily dressed in oversized blouse and baggy trousers. The trousers were falling off and she was intermittently pulling it up with her hand. The blouse was hanging slackly on her. She held a torn paper bag with about two or three pieces of faded clothes in it. They were such clothes that had seen their better days. The look on her face was forlorn and distant. She was evidently nervous and cautious. Like a London bond stole-away without a clear picture of what the future holds beyond the illusion of some hallucinatory apparitions on her vision, stayed at a corner by herself. At last, she gradually approached a lady with a POS machine. She whispered something to her. The lady then took her to her boss, who was herself working as the Abuja Bus Park Registrar. The boss lady collected the small phone in the hand of the shabbily dressed lady. She entered some codes on the phone and asked her for something. Apparently, it was a bank account number, or perhaps, an Opay account number. The lady called the numbers and the boss lady, after punching the numbers and sending, announced it was successful. She was boked for the bus. She quickly went inside the bus and sat at a corner at one of the back seats.

Throughout the period, she seemed and remained apprehensive of some unknown possibilities. She was probably praying silently that such unknown apprehensive possibilities would pass-over her. She must have perhaps agonized in her spirit like Christ for the unseen ‘cup’ to pass-over her! Unfortunately, her prayers were not answered in the immediate as a woman in her late 50s or early 60s, another lady, almost of the age of the girl, and an Okada Rider, arrived by the bus and went directly for her. The Okada man immediately seized the phone in her hand. The woman was shouting, ‘Get down! Get down! You are not going anywhere! You want to run away.’ The woman had quickly created a dramatic scene to legitimize her action. She had announced to everybody at the park that the lady ran away from home. By then, the Okada man was trying to drag the lady down from the bus. The lady had started crying and saying she would not come down. At that point, I quickly, I interpreted and gave the scenario a meaning. It was clear to me: it was a case of forced labour through human trafficking arrangements. I then stepped in…

Madam, who is this girl to you? Is she your daughter? She could not answer me. I then told her that if the lady is not her daughter, and as she is evidently above 18, she cannot force her to come down from the bus. It was at that point that she flared up and claimed that she paid 200 thousand naira for the girl! I then immediately accused her of forced-labour and trafficking in humans against the laws. I told her I don’t care about whatever amount of money she had paid to whoever for the lady. I would get her arrested immediately. My position ignited the flame of activism in the others who had appeared like a marooned lost village girl in Esikan market through the saga to that point. It was like a revival where the spirit had taken over the ministration from the presiding Bishop. One man went for the Okada man and collected the girl’s phone from him. He handed the phone back to the girl. At that point, a call came in from a friend, I picked it. It was coincidentally timely as the woman thought I was calling to get her arrested. She quickly tactically left the scene with the other girl and the Okada man…

There and then, I became an instant folk hero! Everybody started thanking me for being the Angel of the girl’s freedom. She was now overwhelmed by the experience and began to cry profusely. People rallied around her to console her. The woman who was grandstanding and commanding her to ‘Get down’ with her Okada-comrade-at-crime had disappeared into thin air, never to be seen again by the lady. My wife gave her a token to buy a new sack-bag to for her clothes to replace the torn paper bag. A man who identified himself as a journalist took her number with a promise to follow up on her to write her story for publication in one of the dailies. Some other people also took her number in the bus. I decided I will not take her number. I felt I had done what I needed to do for her. I would remain in the shadows… We left Osogbo. Her dream of freedom became real…

We arrived Abuja and parted ways, perhaps, never to meet again…

‘Bode Ojoniyi,

26 March, 2024.

 Thomas Hardy's "The Mayor of Casterbridge" is a novel of character and fate, exploring the depths of human emotion, the inexorable force of past misdeeds, and the struggle for redemption. Published in 1886, the novel is set in the fictional town of Casterbridge (based on the real town of Dorchester in Dorset), and it follows the rise and fall of Michael Henchard, a man whose impulsive actions set the stage for his tragic downfall.

Summary of The Mayor of Casterbridge

The novel begins with a shocking act: Michael Henchard, in a drunken rage, sells his wife and daughter to a sailor at a country fair. Upon sobering up, he realizes the gravity of his deed and vows to abstain from alcohol for 21 years, equal to the number of years he has lived. Henchard's life then takes a dramatic turn as he rises to become a successful grain merchant and the respected Mayor of Casterbridge.

Years later, Henchard's wife, Susan, and his now-grown daughter, Elizabeth-Jane, return to seek him out after the sailor is presumed dead. Henchard's attempt to right his past wrong by remarrying Susan and accepting Elizabeth-Jane as his own leads to a series of events that unravel his life. The arrival of Donald Farfrae, a young Scotsman whose innovative methods contrast with Henchard's traditionalism, sets off a rivalry that ultimately leads to Henchard's professional and personal ruin.

As Henchard's fortunes decline, his character flaws—pride, jealousy, and impulsiveness—become more pronounced. His attempts to manipulate the lives of those around him backfire, and he is left isolated and destitute. The novel concludes with Henchard's tragic demise, a poignant reflection of his internal turmoil and the inexorable consequences of his earlier actions.

Hardy explores the theme of character as destiny, suggesting that Henchard's downfall is as much a product of his own nature a