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“When we overcompromise for the people we love, it soon turns to resentment.” ~ X In the words of Huwa, stop glamourizing the art of chipping away at your own spirit to make someone else whole when they don't even recognise it. We do this silly thing when we're in love or when we love people. We give up parts of ourselves to please them until one day, we can no longer recognise ourselves. I remember attempting to learn how to play the drums because I liked a drummer, lol. One time, I even learnt to play the famous Free Fire video game for a guy, or watched an entire 80-episode series just to have something to talk about with a friend. But growing up is realising that I didn't have to. Yes, love requires compromise, but when we begin to overcompromise, it is no longer just compromise. It becomes giving up the very things that make us who we are. And that can quickly spiral into resentment in the long run. There's this really cool couple in Grey's Anatomy, Arizona and...

"A man without conviction would fall for anything." ~ PVO One of the things I think is important is having a mind of your own. It's so easy to get carried away by what everyone else thinks, what is trending, or what people around you believe. Before you know it, you're agreeing with things you don't even understand, simply because everybody else seems to agree. You need to know what you believe in and why you believe it. You can't afford to be a coconut head that just goes wherever the wind blows, abi? Dearest reader, do you have convictions of your own, or do you just go with the flow? The world around you is constantly suggesting and if you do not forge a firm conviction you'd wake up one day and not be able to recognise yourself anymore because you've become everything and anything.  A friend of mine would say, you have to choose the kind of person you want to be, and we all choose but the funny thing is, not choosing is also choosing but then you b...

"The image of God locked up in sin." ~ PST Kenny How do you see unbelievers? Humans are judgmental. We often have a superiority complex, and it's evident in the way we explain away our part in conflicts, in our tendency to blame everyone else but ourselves, and in how strongly we feel about the things that concern us while vaguely understating the things that concern others. We do it in church too. Subconsciously or consciously, we suddenly take "Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers" more seriously. We preach and emphasize condemnation so frequently that we begin to position ourselves as the elites of the human race, like the cool kids' table where everyone else is filthy and unworthy. But what if we looked at everyone else as the image of God? All mankind was made in the image and likeness of God. It's a given. You don't have to be in Christ to have been created in His image. Do you get? However, what distinguishes us as Christians...

You have no idea just how close you are. On today's episode of Grey's Anatomy, a surgeon participated in physician-assisted suicide. The patient was terminally ill. She was going to die; it was only a matter of time. But she was in so much pain, and she wanted to be put out of her misery. If you asked me, omor, beautiful choice oo, but another surgeon, Owen Hunt, who had previously served in the military, was totally against it. He tried to stop the procedure and convince both the patient and the surgeon attending to her not to go through with it. Initially, I was pissed at him. I was like, "Bro, leave the woman to die na. At least that's one decision that's up to her." Kinda shii. But it wasn't until the episode was drawing to an end that I began to understand where he was coming from. While serving in the military, Owen had lost a friend. They had survived an explosion, but his friend was severely injured while Owen was relatively unharmed. He tried ever...

“God made you short, but who made you quiet?” We are all perfectly imperfect humans. We have shortcomings here and there, things that are way out of our control, and that sucks. But we also have things we can control, things we can decide on, things we can change. Sitting around blaming the universe for everything is just such a victimistic thing to do. Yes, you are short, but I bet there is something about you that you can at least have control over, something you have a say in, and you know this. What we do, you and I both, which is sad, by the way, is focus so much on the things and places where we lack that we neglect the things we can actually fix. Dearest reader, we are all disadvantaged in some ways, but we need to look past those disadvantages and figure out what to do with the advantages we have been handed as well. Because really, we are not handed a bunch of disadvantages without an edge. That is not how it works. So, you may be short, like Dr. Bailey in today's episode ...

So, Kingatha and I do this crazy thing where we talk about stories, books, and movies alike as though they are things we have experienced ourselves. You need to see us discussing Grey's Anatomy, talking about Derek's eyes, or discussing a book character we have never met and only know through the pages we've read. It's fun, and because of our active imaginations, we get to talk about these stories as though they are tangibly real. So today, in a bid to explain how sometimes you have an experience that feels like the best thing that could ever exist, only to experience something even better later and realise just how ordinary the first experience had been, Kingatha pulled out the "Ceiling Versus Insom" card. It was a beautiful reference, and I got the gist immediately. Now, for some background, Ceiling was the silly name Ifemelu called Obinze in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Americanah. It was very cute, like an inside joke only the couple understood. Insom, o...

“Some love is so consistent that we mistake it for background noise.” ~ X There is just this kind of love that is constant, always there, and over time, we forget to appreciate it until the day it is no longer there. Suddenly, its absence is loud, hard, and heavy on us because it is the kind of love we have grown so accustomed to. For some people, it is a mother's nagging, the constant bickering of loved ones, or the annoying little habits of our friends. Oftentimes, the little kindnesses we experience over time begin to feel like home. We keep expecting them because we are used to them, and somewhere along the line, we stop seeing them for what they are: expressions of love. Perhaps it is because we have become so familiar with their presence that we no longer recognise their value. We forget that not everyone has someone who checks up on them, someone who notices when they go quiet, someone who remembers the little things, or someone who cares enough to be annoying. We mistake co...

I have basic axioms, and one of them is the popular, “Flee from the appearance of evil.” I have most definitely written on it in passing, but the thing about my axioms is that they keep evolving. So when my coach questioned this line I throw around in a conversation today, it was an opportunity to expand what I actually held. My interpretation of “flee from the appearance of evil” had been hinged on this: if it looks like evil, run. Don’t begin to investigate it, don’t try to discover how bad it really is, just go the other direction. Anyways, the initial Scripture this was picked from is 1 Thessalonians 5:22: “Stay away from every kind of evil.” So I decided to check out the Greek word used there. The Greek word often translated as “appearance” is εἴδους (eidous), from εἶδος (eidos). εἶδος literally means “form,” “kind,” “sort,” or “appearance.” So essentially, that verse of Scripture wasn't just telling us to bolt whenever something looks like evil. It is telling us to flee from ...

“There's always a way. Even when things look bad, there's always a way.” — X Those are the exact words of the most confidently optimistic yet realistic patient I've come across in this series. On today's episode of Grey's Anatomy, Derek Shepherd pulled off one of the most intriguing and riskiest surgeries I've seen so far. It was a beautiful tumour wrapped around a man's spine, so dangerously positioned that one wrong move could leave him paralysed for life. And yet, the tumour was so complex that there was barely any room for error. Initially, when Derek was shown the scan, his first reaction was intrigue. He called it a beautiful tumour, but eventually concluded that it was inoperable. But the patient wasn't hearing it, oga told him to find a way, that there was always a way. It almost felt like the patient had placed a bet on Derek, and Derek now had to find a way to win it. On his first attempt to remove the tumour, Derek stood in the OR for ten hour...

Guess who was very happy about 130 views on my YouTube channel! Background story: I run a mini YouTube channel where I post YouTube Shorts, and I remember when I started out, I was getting a lot of views. I literally got my first 1k views on the channel and I loved it. Anyways, along the line, the views began to plummet. From over 400 at times to 26, or 7, or 5. It was annoying. It’s the kind of thing that makes you want to say, “You know what? Maybe I’m not cut out for this shii.” But then I had to remind myself that I don’t run it for the people, I run it for me. So even on days when I get 2 views, which is usually my sister and a friend, I’m still going to make another video and upload it. That’s exactly why I was so happy when I got a notification that my last video did a solid 130 views. I hadn’t seen that number in a while, and it was really nice. 130 people who don’t know me watched me talk about something I really like. How cool is that? If you ask me? Super cool. Dearest reade...

Is it still loyalty when there are certain boundaries, certain lengths you simply would not go to, even for someone you love or deeply respect? I was having a conversation with someone recently, and their definition of loyalty and reverence sort of baffled me. I was of the opinion that you could be loyal to someone and still have meaningful boundaries. That you could love, respect and stand by someone without automatically agreeing with everything they do or following them everywhere they go. They, however, seemed to believe that loyalty meant jumping into the fire because the person you are loyal to jumped in first or said you should. That if you truly revered someone, questioning them, disagreeing with them, or refusing to follow them into certain places somehow made your loyalty questionable. And it got me thinking. Because where exactly does loyalty end and blind allegiance begin? Is loyalty doing whatever someone asks because you love them, or is it loving them enough to say, “I c...

“Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain.” ~ Exodus 20:7 Remember how, in children’s session growing up, this was one of the verses they used to instill the fear of God in us? It was one of the scariest Bible verses, and at the time, it was interpreted to us as, “Saying God’s name anyhow is a sin,” one that God takes very seriously. It wasn’t until recently when I watched this YouTube that I began to understand the verse differently. Not that saying God’s name carelessly is completely unrelated to the commandment, but that the commandment goes deeper than simply saying “God” or “Jesus” in the wrong context. The Hebrew word translated as “take” is nasa, which carries the idea of lifting, carrying, bearing, or taking up. So there is something about carrying the name of God that this commandment addresses. And that got me thinking. By calling ourselves Christians, we take on an identity, we identify with Christ, we carry His name. Which means that perhaps taking His name ...

When the people we love are in pain, we often feel like there is something we have to do. Save them. Help them. Find a solution. Say the right thing that will make everything feel better. But more often than not, the greatest act of care we can offer is simply being there. Sit with them through the discomfort. Hold them when they cry, listen when they need to talk. And sometimes, just shut up and allow them to exist the best way they know how at that point in time. Not every pain needs a solution from us. Sometimes, people just need the comfort of knowing that they do not have to carry it alone. Like I would often say, letting people be is such a love language. There is something beautiful about loving people without constantly trying to fix them. About giving them room to feel, to process, to be quiet, to fall apart, and eventually find their way back to themselves. Sometimes, love is not pulling someone out of the dark, sometimes, it is simply sitting beside them until their eyes adj...

When I say Cristina Yang is my favourite character from Grey’s Anatomy and Derek and Meredith are my favourite couple from the show, I’m serious. Let’s talk about Derek and Meredith. They don’t have a perfect relationship, but there’s just this ease with them that I love. Take, for instance, the patient they once worked on together, a man who had killed five women and was on death row. The case was a lot for both of them. Derek’s dad had been killed by someone like him, so Derek wanted the man to live long enough to face his death sentence. Meredith, on the other hand, felt compassion for the man despite his crimes. She would rather he died in the hospital, as he wished. So yeah, on this particular case, they were completely at odds. But guess what? They were not unkind to each other. Meredith literally attended the man’s execution, she’s sentimental like that, and when she came out of the execution room, Derek was outside waiting for her in his car. Seeing that made me want to scream!...

I don't have any inspirational yada for you, nah. Just something that happened today in a group chat I'm part of. Well, today being Independence Day, there were wishes in the group, and then someone replied with, “What's really happy about this independence? I bet you're looking for network or light at your location, hence there's nothing to celebrate about the country.” But the person at the other end, who had made the wish in the group chat, replied with something that struck me. He said, “Not me, I have light and I have network.” So apparently, the fact that he's doing just fine somehow means all is well with the world. And maybe it wasn't even what he said, but the way he said it. There was this strange, almost off putting arrogance to it, like it doesn't really matter what everyone else is experiencing as long as it isn't his experience. Dearest reader, it got me thinking about how many of us are like this. As long as the system works for us, th...

How do you live with yourself? On today’s episode of Grey’s Anatomy, my guy killed a woman. Okay, maybe “killed” sounds a little harsh, but that’s exactly how Derek Shepherd saw it. Of all the surgeons in the series, Derek is the attending I absolutely love. Yes, he has a fine face and good hair, but aside from that, he is a badass surgeon. Literally a mini god in the OR, a world class neurosurgeon who seems to know exactly what he’s doing every single time. So there was this particular surgery. It wasn’t some impossible, never-before-seen procedure, it was a simple surgery, one of those procedures they do so often that, at some point, you probably could do it with your eyes closed. Derek was confident she would live, but surgery is surgery. Things can go wrong, even when you have done everything right, she developed complications and eventually died. And that broke him. It was painful and personal, and somehow Derek couldn’t separate the fact that she died from the feeling that he had...

“There’s a hole the size of God inside your heart, and if He doesn’t fill it, something else will instead.” ~ X I came across this quote recently, and it got me thinking about something rather fascinating about human beings. Long before the world became as connected as it is today, before people from completely different parts of the earth could communicate with one another, human beings were already trying to answer some of the biggest questions imaginable. Where did we come from? How did the world begin? Why are we here? Different cultures developed different explanations, they had their own creation stories, gods and beliefs about how the world came to be. Their answers were different, but the search was remarkably similar: there was a desire to understand where everything came from. And I think that says something about us. There has always been something in humanity that reaches beyond itself, a longing to know our Creator, to understand our existence, and to find meaning in the f...

You're more likely to answer that a good person is someone who does good. But have you ever considered that even bad people are capable of doing good? The most horrible of persons can still exhibit kindness, generosity and consideration every now and then. If that's the case, then what exactly makes a person good? What exactly makes something good? What exactly is good? If anybody can do good, and anything can appear to be good, then what defines good? What makes good, truly good? We all know the statement, "God is good." Which means that if God is the standard of good, then to understand what is good, we have to understand the will of God. Not performative good. Not pseudo good, not simply what looks good to us, but good as defined by the One who is good. Therefore, what is in God's will is good, and perhaps that's the distinction we've been missing. An action doesn't become good simply because it produces a good-looking result, neither do...

How far is too far? Where do we draw the line? On today’s episode of Grey’s Anatomy, there was an interesting twist, one that had me wondering just how serious the oath to “do no harm” is when it comes to saving a little boy’s life. So, here’s the full gist. There’s a psychopathic serial killer who murdered five women and was completely unapologetic about it. He’s also on death row and scheduled to die in the next five days. On top of all that, he has a serious surgical injury to his spine. Now, there’s also a little boy, around four years old, who needs an organ transplant. He’ll die within hours if the transplant isn’t done. Although he’s at the top of the transplant list, there’s no matching donor. And guess who is a match? The death row serial killer who murdered five women. Interestingly, the man is ready to die. He doesn’t want the surgery to fix his spine or the injury to his head. He wants to donate his organ to the little boy because, after all, he’s going to die in a few days...