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Percentage Love.

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It’s not every day that we are able to give 100% to the people we love. There are days we are drained, depressed, tired, frustrated, or simply running on empty. And I think one of the beautiful things about friendship is learning to give each other more grace during those seasons. I was talking with a friend today, and he mentioned something he calls “percentage love.” It sounded catchy, but the way he explained it fascinated me. He said, when a friend is going through something and all they can give at the moment is 10% of themselves, their energy, or their capacity, sometimes, for that friendship to work, I have to give more. Maybe I have to give 50% so that together, we can still make 60%. Maybe, in that particular season, I have to carry a little more because they simply cannot. And damn, that got me thinking. There are relationships that probably did not need to end, they just needed more of you at a particular point in time. Picture this. You’ve been friends with some...
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THE LOVE OF GOD.

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I was listening to a teaching by Pastor Emmanuel Iren a few days ago, and he explained a concept that I couldn't get over. It was what I later found out is called the moral dilemma, or the trolley problem. Now, I want to ask you the two questions. Take a moment and really think about them. Here are the scenarios: 1. You’re controlling a runaway train. It’s heading towards five people who will die if you do nothing. You can pull a lever to divert the train onto another track, where one person will die. Question: Do you pull the lever? 2. Now imagine that the one person on the other track is your own child. The five people are strangers. Question: Would you still pull the lever? I'm pretty sure that when you read the first question, your answer was almost immediate. Save the lives of five people at the expense of one. It's the lesser evil, abi? But then you read the second question and suddenly, you're like, "Nah. To hell with the multitude. I'm savin...
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Sometimes, it’s not about what was said, but how what was said made you feel. A friend of mine had some issues with her clearance this week, and because it’s the last week of our exams, she had to hurry to get everything sorted. She was going from one office to another, trying to fix things, and as you can imagine, she was already completely drained. Then something happened that made me think twice. She came back yesterday after all the stress and burst into tears. After I had calmed her down, I asked her what was wrong, and she told me that someone in one of the offices she had gone to said something mean to her. So I asked, “What did she say?” Guess what? Madam couldn’t remember. The thing that had apparently broken her heart so badly, she couldn’t even remember the exact words. In my head, I was like, “Wait. The thing that made you cry this hard, you can’t remember what was said? As how?” But then I realised something, it wasn’t necessarily the words, it was how those wo...
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NECESSARY SELFISHNESS.

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I had a conversation with a friend today and at the end of the day, one thing I left that conversation with is: I have got to be more selfish. Yes, I will be selling fish! Lol. But seriously, we explored the concept of necessary selfishness, the kind that is necessary to propel you forward. Because sometimes, being a good person can make you too accommodating, you understand everyone’s perspective, you consider everyone’s feelings, you give people grace, you make room for their limitations, and before you know it, you have made your own life negotiable. And I think there is a threshold. Have empathy, absolutely. Give people grace, understand that everyone has their limitations. But at the same time, be very thorough about what you want out of life and what you expect from the people you allow into it. You cannot be so considerate of other people that you become inconsiderate of yourself. There are things you have to be selfish about; your time, your purpose, your standards, the kind of...
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HOME

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There's this thing my coach would always say. He'd be like, "Always come back home when you are trapped." And honestly, there's something so soothing about that. It's giving, if all you can do is crawl, crawl back to your source, and it'll all be fine. There's something priceless about knowing that no matter where I go, no matter how far I wander, I can always come back. If I'm stuck, I can always reach out my hand, if I've lost my way, I know there's somewhere I can return to. I think one season when my coach demonstrated this the most was the season he cut me off several times because I refused to grow. And each time, somehow, I'd come crawling back, not because I deserved another chance, but because I knew that home was still home. And he'd be there, arms open, ready to receive me again. It taught me something about falling. Maybe the point isn't to never fall, maybe the point is to know where to go when you do. W...
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“Don’t name situations based on the evidence you see, name it based on the future you desire.” ~ X What do you see? I think one of the craziest stories in the Bible is God telling Abraham, at an old age, to look up at the stars in the sky and try to count them, then telling him that his offspring would be just as numerous. Here’s the catch: Abraham actually believed it, and it was counted to him as faith. That’s such a Gbam!! moment for me because the audacity to see beyond your current situation is not even small. You’ve got to be delusional enough to look at what is and still believe in what could be, then go a step further and name it. Our experiences are limited, and we’re often stuck inside the box of what we’ve seen, what we’ve known and what is currently burdening us. But there are infinite possibilities outside our present reality. That’s why exposure is priceless. Sometimes, you just need to see that something is possible before the dreamer in you has the courage to believe it...
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THE THING WITH INTENTIONS.

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"Good intentions are not good enough." ~ X Gbammmm!! It was Eric Gugua who put it so brilliantly: "Don't put yourself in a position where you are at the mercy of someone else's intention when they don't have the capacity to do right by you." That line has stayed with me. It reminded me that it is entirely possible for someone to have the best intentions and still leave you hurt because their actions never reflect those intentions. While we should extend grace to people, there comes a point where continuously excusing their behaviour becomes self abandonment. Good intentions are beautiful, but they are not enough. The real question is, do your actions agree with your intentions? We are often quick to defend repeated misbehaviour with, "They didn't mean it." But after a while, intention stops being a convincing excuse. What you consistently do eventually becomes a reflection of what you truly intend. You cannot keep doing the same thing over ...
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"Why are you angry? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted?" ~ Genesis 4:6 to 7 Remember the story of Cain and Abel in Genesis? They both brought sacrifices to God. Abel's sacrifice was accepted, but Cain's wasn't. Cain became angry, hurt, and jealous. What I find interesting is that before Cain murdered his brother, God spoke to him. God didn't immediately condemn him. Instead, He asked, "Why are you angry?" Then He followed it with a question that still speaks today: "If you do what is right, will you not be accepted?" In other words, God redirected Cain's attention from Abel back to himself. Cain's problem wasn't that Abel was accepted. His problem was that he refused to deal with the reason his own sacrifice wasn't. How often do we do the same? We get upset when someone else gets the opportunity we wanted, the promotion we prayed for, the recognition we hoped for, or the results we've been chasing. We beco...
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"People experience people differently." ~ X I was watching a video today, and the person said, "Siblings do not have the same parents." In my head, I was like, "You say what?" But then it was explained, and it actually made sense. Come to think of it, the way your parents treat you is often different from how they treat your younger or older sibling. Every child gets to experience a unique side of their parents. For instance, the last born is often treated with a little more warmth. They get to experience the more relaxed side of their parents, while the first born is usually raised with stricter hands and higher expectations. Growing up, I had so much freedom. I was the child who could wake up one morning, decide I wanted to attend a camp meeting the next day, pack my bags, and leave. It still baffles my siblings because if they wanted to do something as simple as visit a friend, they either had to sneak out or come up with an elaborate excuse. Me? I'...
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There's this thing people do that honestly gets on my nerves. They state the obvious. For instance, I say, "I can't sleep," and the next suggestion is, "Have you tried closing your eyes?" Wow. I didn't think of that. It never occurs to some people that before someone reaches a conclusion, they've probably exhausted the most obvious options already. Most times, when we complain, we're speaking from the point of having tried and still not getting the result we want. So when I say I can't sleep, I've already closed my eyes. When I say I have a headache, trust me, paracetamol has crossed my mind. When I say I'm tired, I've definitely considered resting. Not every complaint is a request for obvious solutions. Sometimes people simply want to be heard, understood, or maybe offered a perspective they haven't considered, not the first thing that came to everyone else's mind. Dearest reader, the next time someone tells you they'...
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"If you protect yourself from the lows, you end up missing all the highs too." ~ X The two go hand in hand, the best and the worst. To get to the best, you'd have to be willing to survive the worst. It's all part of the journey. Sometimes we're frightened by the level of risk. We're scared to try because, what if I fail? But if you're never willing to fail, how exactly do you expect to win? Take the germination of a seed, for instance. The seed is planted and covered with soil. It stays dormant for a while, hidden in the dark. At what looks like its lowest point, buried beneath the earth, it begins to sprout. And from that place comes the beautiful plant we admire. Just like the seed, we must understand that growth isn't always glamorous. There will be seasons that feel slow, lonely, and uncertain. Seasons where it seems like nothing is happening, but that doesn't mean nothing is growing. Dearest reader, don't run from the lows so much that you...
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NON-NEGOTIABLES

There's this thing Pastor Iren would often say, and I find it so profound. He'd say, "We can play, as long as we know there are some things we can't play with." In my head, I'd always be like, Gbam! Some people call it standards. Me, I call it non-negotiables, because every individual has to have the basics they don't joke with. While everything else is negotiable, we can dance around preferences and vibe around opinions, there are just some things that simply cannot be played with. Now, when we differentiate the negotiables from the non-negotiables, then we can truly walk together. You see that scripture that says, "Can two walk together unless they agree?" What do you think they are actually agreeing on? They obviously cannot agree on everything, can they? Yet, they must agree on something, and that becomes the basis of their journey together. That is what I believe non-negotiables are. And we must prioritise this above all else. We must put sy...
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WHAT IS EASY?

I was having a conversation with my coach the other day, and we got talking about the concept of easy and hard. You see, when you hear the word easy, what comes to mind? Effortless, abi? But what if easy isn't all that? And what if hard isn't all work? Because what you do with ease isn't always easy, and what you do with difficulty isn't always hard. What we call easy or hard is often a product of habit and work. Ease is mostly habit with a little work. Hard is mostly work because the habit hasn't been built yet. The thing about habit is that it is built over time. So you'll notice that when you ask someone who has gained mastery in an area how they did it, their explanation often sounds surprisingly simple. They give you steps that worked for them, but those same steps may not work the same way for you because you're both standing on different habits. What they do, they now do almost automatically. You, on the other hand, are still building the foundation t...
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Dearest reader, I do not have a profound insight to share this day, but here's a poem from my day! The chair feels like punishment. It is strange how sitting down can hurt more than standing, yet all your body wants is the kindness of a bed. Inside me, something keeps tightening, loosening, then tightening again, like a child who won't stop pulling at a loose thread. Differentiation. Integration. The numbers stare back at me, and for the first time, I think they are winning. My water bottle is downstairs. On a normal day, that is barely a journey. But you see today, those stairs look like they belong to a different country. So I stay here, mouth dry, head heavy, hoping thirst would just learn patience. Funny how the smallest things become impossible when your body decides today is the day it will remind you that it has limits. Welcome to a day in my life! Where the greatest achievement is not solving past questions, but making it through the next minute without crumbling. Good ...
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The highlight of my day was coming across an old write up I wrote sometime in August 2024. It was titled Profound Lessons from Drum Lessons. It was hilarious, but also beautifully written. While reading it, I noticed I had mentioned someone I no longer talk to. Somehow, whenever I hear that person's name now, the only thing that comes to mind is our last memory together, and it wasn't a pleasant one, it was a fight. So stumbling upon that write up and being reminded that my experience with this person wasn't always horrible was surprisingly refreshing. It made me realize how easily we reduce people to one experience. Here I was, convinced this oga was a completely terrible person, only to be reminded that it wasn't always like that. There was a time when he was a source of inspiration, a good friend, and a solid support system. Sometimes, one painful ending becomes so loud that it drowns out every good memory that came before it. We let one chapter rewrite the entire st...
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"It's either they get the message and they change, or they don't get the message, but they stop abusing you." ~ X To that one person who feels that speaking up about what makes you uncomfortable would get you misunderstood or ruin the friendship, hear me out. Not talking isn't protecting the relationship, it's empowering the behaviour that keeps hurting you.  Read that axiom again. Most times, we're so scared of how people will react to our feelings that we choose silence instead. We convince ourselves that enduring it is easier than having an uncomfortable conversation, but silence rarely solves anything, more often than not, it teaches people that your boundaries are optional. The truth is, it can only go two ways; They either get the message and make an effort to change, or they don't fully understand it, but they become aware enough to stop doing the very thing that makes you uncomfortable. Either way, you've been heard, and to me, that's a...
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THE EXCEPTIONS.

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"It's not the action, it's the person." ~ X We all have exceptions. People we hold in high esteem, people we admire so deeply that even if we'd never do a particular thing for the rest of the world, we'd do it for them without thinking twice. We'd give an arm and a leg, simply because it is them. Now, here's the crazy part. Betrayal only feels like betrayal when it comes from the people you've made exceptions for. When they do the very things you never imagined they were capable of, it hurts in a way that words struggle to explain. Because not everybody can hurt you. The people who truly can are the ones you've given permission to, the ones you've trusted enough to get close, the ones you've loved enough to let your guard down around. That's why they say love and trust are like handing someone a knife and hoping they don't stab you. They are the exceptions, they have access, they have the capacity to wound you in ways strangers ...
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Just because you're considerate doesn't mean you'll be considered. One of the hardest lessons adulthood teaches is this: people don't always love the way you love, think the way you think, or show up the way you would. Sometimes, we make the naive mistake of expecting people to do right by us simply because we would if the tables were turned. We assume our kindness will be mirrored, our loyalty reciprocated, our consideration returned. And when it isn't, it hurts, but growing up is realizing that people will be, well,,, people. There's a saying that goes, "You cannot control what people do, you can only control what you do." I'd like to add something to that. You also cannot expect people to treat you the way you would treat them. The only thing you truly have control over is how you choose to respond. That's why I love this quote by Eric Guaga, "Don't put yourself in a position where you are at the mercy of someone else's intentio...
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THE ILLUSION OF IMPORTANCE.

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There is something called the illusion of competence. It is the tendency to overestimate how good we are at something because we do not know enough to recognise how much we do not know. Sometimes, I think there is a similar thing with importance. The illusion of importance. The belief that we are more significant in people's lives than we actually are. That people are thinking about us as much as we think about ourselves, that our absence is being noticed, that our opinions are being carefully considered, that everyone is watching, analysing and remembering. But most people are busy living inside their own heads. They are thinking about their own problems, their own insecurities, their own mistakes, their own futures. They are worrying about the things you probably never noticed about them, just as you are worrying about the things they probably never noticed about you. You think everyone noticed that awkward thing you said, they probably forgot, sometimes, nobody even noticed you ...
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“Onto Him who is able to keep us from running mad...” ~ Eric Guaga I came across this line yesterday in a video by Eric Guaga and, omor, it made so much sense. Like, mahd because I could virtually relate. There are seasons you go through that feel like the universe is actively testing your sanity. Seasons where you are almost losing it, where you are hanging on by a thread and wondering how much more you can take. Yet somehow, even in the middle of the storm, even when everything feels like it is going crazy, there is just this Guy upstairs, quietly ensuring that you do not completely lose yourself. And that is such an epic advantage. To have a God who keeps you grounded. A God who allows you to go through fire without being consumed by it, a God who lets you experience tribulations without allowing the tribulations to completely destroy you. Because life is already tough. Every day comes with at least a thousand things competing for your sanity. There is always something to worry abou...
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