Angel Mother

Dear mama you are precious,

You are the best of the gifts that I have ever had,

Nothing material can take the place

Of the comradeship between you and I

Dear mama you have shown me the light

The instruction received at your knees,

The maternal lesson together with the pious,

The souvenirs of the fireside,

Are never, entirely effaced from my soul.

Dear mama, there is none like you,

Dear mama, how can I thank you?

There is no gift worth your great deeds,

Forever I shall follow your foot steps

Dear mama may you live to enjoy

The fruits of your hands,

For all I am and hope to do,

I owe to you, my angel my mom

BY: EDNA IPALEI

HOW LUCK ARE YOU?

How is your luck? If you believe in luck then you can begin changing it instantly by getting into a state of mind that brings and attracts lucky encounters into your life. You can accomplish this by applying strategies that increase your luck and making your life open to wonderful surprises by following the following tips.

Live in the present

First, the present moment is your point of power to exercise your full energy. Consider this; all your hopes for the future and even your memories of the past can happen only in the present moment. The past and the future have no authenticity of their own. Their realities are “borrowed” from the present moment. Therefore learning to do things right away without procrastinating increases ones luck.

Thinking positive

Now consider your mind as a “mine of thoughts” with only two qualified mines boys “Triumph” and “Defeat”. Triumph is in charge of mining positive thoughts specializing in producing reasons of why you can, why you are qualified, and why you will succeed.

Defeat on the other hand, produces negative depreciating thoughts. It develops reasons why you can’t, deals on weakness and your inadequacy. In short the area of specialization is “why- you- will- fail”

The two interests conflicting giving one a choice of either success or defeat.

To be lucky think on the positive side of life by ‘mining’ in your mind with  Triumph. Consequently by keeping a lucky journal on good things that have happened to you will foster a lucky attitude. This attitude might just attract more lucky things into your life.

Give yourself a hug

Many at times when misfortune knocks on our doors, we are left wallowing in the miasma of defeat and “I wish” attitude. We seat and wait for friends to encourage us. But For how long will you wait my dear? In today’s world where true friends are hard to find self-help will be very important. Give yourself a big hug and move on.

Look lucky

This calls for self-confidence, which can only be achieved by being at peace with your self. Believe in the saying that you are wonderfully made and never wish to be like somebody else.

Good fortune radiates from the way you carry yourself. When walking around, hold your head high and put on a smile on your face. Dress your best to please yourself and not other people and enjoy the feeling of being alive.

Become a social butterfly

Lucky people have much broader social networks than others. This increases their chances of having lucky encounters. ‘No man is an island’ adage rings true. Have you ever met a person who got a great job because they knew someone? People need other people to achieve success. Don’t limit yourself.

Trust yourself

Learning to trust your hunches will build your confidence and help you believe in your ability to choose what is right for you. If you have a decision to make, do not rely on the hard facts only. Consider time too to listen to your innate feelings. Basing your decision on both facts and feeling increase the lucky charm!

Take more risks.

On taking risks consider Jackson B. Junior’s saying: “Nothing important was ever achieved without someone taking a chance”.  Lucky people see taking risks as a natural part of the process of fulfilling their dreams. Be realistic with your risks but don’t use realism as an excuse not to try.

Exploit your potential

Potential is the power, strength and possibilities that come from using your natural abilities. Whether you know it or not everyone has potential. In fact, I know that everyone has potential that it far exceeds what they can explore and manifest in one lifetime. Choose aspects of your potential you want to focus on, in this lifetime. That is, the one extraordinary life you want to create.

We all have the ability to be lucky. Lucky can be developed and it isn’t innate, you are a gold mine and don’t just sit there waiting for someone to discover you.

Build your luck and live a fulfilling life.

Have a lucky day. Won’t you?

BY: EDNA IPALEI

DISCOVER YOURSELF

DISCOVER YOURSELF

Journeys of self discovery are nothing new. Myths, legends, folk stories and fairy tales from every ethnic group tell about heroes and heroines who go on journeys seeking a deeper understanding of who they are. Many of the best stories contain important cultural clues about how to find what you seek.

However in the modern world things are a little bit different. It is sometimes hard to find the wise guidance and practical assistance provided by the parents and guardians. On the contrary, most parents dictate the destiny of their children especially when they reach at the crossroads.

The youths have become victims of circumstances in fulfilling their parent’s dreams. The neurosurgeon, the aeronautical engineer, and the pilot they wanted to be. Many at times this is not what you want to be. They are meant to make the choices at gun point. You take this course or you pay your own fees, you know such threats. The point here is plain. The fact that they once aspired to be doctors name it, is a clear indictor that it was not meant to be. Talk of the bad seed.  The bad or the good traits are genetically transmitted. Am sure my biology teacher served me right.

We also have parents who thing simply because they are successful in their profession, then the entire family should follow their foot steps. This is sad, right? I think that is very selfish and ignorant. All they do not know is you may want to be whatever you choose a journalist because it’s your talent. More so given a chance you will do it with a passion and feel at home.

Their freedom of choice having been curtailed, they are left wallowing in the miasma of defeat. As a result, they let chance, luck or whim determine their future and the road they take through life. Instead of choosing our destiny, we settle for what is safe or acceptable -- and end up living lives we would never have consciously chosen for ourselves.

But within each of us is a hero or heroine just waiting to be discovered. And like every hero, we each have a unique set of gifts and talents inside of us just waiting to be developed and put to use to create the life we dream of. Are you one of the people who want to make the grave yard richer? Regardless of how old you are, the rest of your life lies before you. You can continue on the path you are on. Or you can choose to discover your potential and create a path to the destiny that reflects who you dream of being.

Unfortunately, most of us have never opened the box of potential to find out who we are.

Instead we are shaped by the limitations of our environment and the opinions of those around us. The end result is that we become reflections of our early conditioning and our culture instead of who we truly are meant to be. And so our self image and our fate are sealed by what others see as possible for you

Discover Who You Are & Who You Can Become

                                              

BY: EDNA IPLAEI

WHY ARE PEOPLE SO AFRAID OF AGING?

The thought of aging fills many people with dread . It seems the pessimistic and depressing  mood which pervades their view of old age, is a contemporary reflection of the complaint expressed many years ago in Psalms 31:9-12 “Take pity on me, Yahweh, I am in trouble now…”The question we should ask ourselves is that,”why do people fear aging?” Yet  aging is biological process that we must all undergo.

I have interacted a lot with older people and in the processes learnt that fear of segregation contributes a lot to fear of aging. When people grow old they feel left out of the society. This is because they are not able to live up to the expectations of the environment in which they live in. That is you are what you can produce, achieve, have and keep. Therefore those who are forced by their retirement laws to give up their desire for more property and power are looked down upon as having passed the line of productivity. They are tolerated but no taken seriously.
Interestingly  poor people rarely feel this way. This is because they are used to being isolated by the rich , so to them, aging is just part of life. They were born in the village and they will die there.

In contrast, the working class is greatly affected by segregation. This is because after being given a golden handshake you go back home to unfamiliar world in the village. Used to an active life or just socializing they find themselves idle when they retire.Their lifestyle undergoes a radical change. Their move to the village separates them from their close friends.

We all have only one life to live but  only a few get really close to you and travel its longer part with you, sharing the moments of ecstasy and despair, as well as the long routine days.When you get separated, you have to travel alone. In deed you can not ask even to the friendly people you will meet on this lonely journey,"Do you remember?" because they were not there.

 This might  explains the reason why over the years, anti-aging fixes have spawned a multibillion dollar industry. Many people feeling young because they seem to have won the fight against,oblivious of the consequences.While some people choose to enhance their  appearance by, say dyeing their hair, that is not the issue. My concern is when people equate aging to disease and pathology as that is incorrect.

Is that the reason why the retirement age was moved to 65years? And did you realize that most of the politicians were claiming to be youths during the 2007 election campaign? Even those we truly know that they are above the youth line had  audacity to stand in public and say he or she is a youth and that is why the electorate should vote for them.

Perhaps this explains why those few powerful people who strive to escape segregation feel they can only do so by clinging to their property, power and influence thus becoming oppressor instead of the oppressed.

When I see how powerful old people in church and state often  hold to outdated view customs, thereby preventing real growth and development, I wonder whether,  in fact they are simply clinging to the only acceptable self identification left to them in our achievement oriented world. And that makes them as much victims of old age as their less fortunate contemporaries.

FIGHTING OVER BOGUS PROBLEMS

All couples fight over bogus issues some of the time, and often with great intensity. I will never forget last Saturday when one of my neighbors Mary and john stormed into my house yelling at each other. I was shocked and thought they were coming for me. Just before I recovered from the shock, they said in a chorus “Edna we need help.”

There in my sitting room they sat, quarrelling bitterly whether they would go to “Club undecided “or “Ujamaa”(famous joints in the town) that evening. Each of these intelligent people put forth the most compelling arguments regarding the relative merits of “club undecided” or “Ujamaa” and neither would give in an inch.

I could not help but burst into laughter. The couple was being funny. This is because they have been visiting the two places ever since.  On the contrary this particular day, it becomes the subject of conflict. Goodness! They were undecided in deed. They were shocked to see me laughing and thought I was trivializing the matter. “Edna these is very serious, “Mary said as she broke down into tears.

She made countless accusation against John: taking her for granted, wanting things always done his way.… John could not hesitate either to unleash numerous accusation against Mary. I let them talk as I listened patiently.  After each had said what he/she had to, they kept quiet and looked at each other remorsefully.

I was not quite certain how to be useful to this couple because am not a marriage counselor, but I did know one thing for sure: The emotional argument that I was witnessing between two people who were obviously in a great deal of pain  had nothing to do with the respective value of the two joints in town.

I looked at them and wondered what took them so long to realize the real problem? It was clear to me that there was luck of communication in that relationship. That is they were not expressing their feelings precisely and now it had all bottled to a fight in the name of two pubs.

Identifying the real issue in a relationship is no easy matter. It is particularly difficult among family members, because when two adults have conflict, they often bring a third party (perhaps a child or an in-law) which makes it even harder for the two people involved to work out and identify their problems. The third party may not necessarily be someone, it can be anything. In the case of John and Mary it was the two pubs.

For example a wife says to her husband, “Your mother is driving me crazy. She is intrusive and controlling and she treats you like you are her husband and little boy all wrapped up in one.” The real issue not addressed is: “I wish you could be more assertive with your mother and set some limits. Sometimes I wonder if your primary commitment is to her or to me.”

Underground issues from one relationship or context invariably fuel our fires in another. When we are aware of these processes, we can pay our apologies to the misplaced target of our anger and get back on course: “I am sorry I snapped at you, but I had a terrible day with my supervisor.”

Sometimes, however, we are not aware that we are detouring strong feelings of anger from one person to another or that underground anxiety from one situation is popping up as anger somewhere else. It is not simply that we shift a feeling from one person to another; rather we reduce anxiety in one relationship by focusing on a third party who we unconsciously pull into the situation to lower the emotional intensity in the original pair.

For instance if Mary and John had continued to direct their anger on the two pubs,(club Undecided and Ujamaa) they would have felt less anxious about the life cycle issues in their marriage. In all likelihood, they would not have identified and spoken to the real emotional issues at all. That is taking each other for granted.

Women always have a greater exaggerated fear about rocking the boat in a relationship with a man. Thus we are likely to avoid direct confrontation and instead divert our anger through the relationship with less powerful person, such as a child or another woman.

WORDS BY: EDNA IPALEI

Old ways are not gold anymore

By:Edna Ipalei

They say “Old Is Gold”-old ideas, Ways of living, trends and traditions are always the best and irreplaceable. But is this always true?

I must confess that I was a staunch believer of this saying. Not until my awful encounter in a certain finance office when it dawned on me that some old things, just do not work any more.

I reached the office at 9.00 am and found five other people waiting to be served. So, patiently, I sat on the bench and waited for my turn Wait a minute! Something was amiss. The line was not moving.

Seeing that none of the people in the queue were willing to tell me what the problem was. I walked to the counter.

What I found there left me more worried than angry. Slumped on a chair was a fat, grey haired, big-bellied man. He gave me a tired look, and in my head I wondered if he was unwell. But he did not give me a chance to utter a word.

“Young girl! What is your problem? I have just told others to wait on that bench. You young people are always in a hurry. If you want to be faster than me, just go a head”. He blurted out; a wide grin on his face indicating that he had made his point clear.

My Goodness!? Where are all the young people? I am disturbed to see young energetic and competent people out there looking for jobs while all the offices are full of old and tired goons. All in the name of experience.