Life of purpose

Image credit:  Shutterstock We’re human beings, not human doings, right?  I’ve always enjoyed this phrase because it’s helped me focus on the present, not just the next thing on my to do list. But there is also a negative side to this statement. That is, it can cloud our thinking into believing we are somehow more than the sum of our actions, the sum of what we do. But we’re not. What we do is really all that matters in life. It makes up who we are.  When we’re caught up into thinking about who we want to become, our ego takes over, and we stop working. We begin to place more importance on things that don’t matter -- our position in life, and how other people view us -- rather than on what we accomplish. And that’s a real shame. You are what you do. When you’re not doing it, you’re not that thing! You don’t earn a title because of what you’ve done in the past, and you certainly don...

When asked what surprises him the most during an interview, the Dalai Lama said, “Man. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.” Many of us put our lives on hold, thinking we still have plenty of time to do what we truly love. Year after year, we continue to pretend that we are living our lives. We’ve somehow managed to make ourselves believe that it’s normal to wait 5 long days to actually start breathing again. We complain about our weekdays and live for the weekends because we feel that we have no other choice. We find comfort in our annual leave vacations too, but why do we have to feel alive for only 14-30 days a year? Each day is a gift and there is always a choice, even i...

'God is Real. God Loves You.': See Chris Pratt’s Bold Faith Message in Epic MTV Awards Speech    Chris Pratt has done it again. The incredibly talented actor has a habit of bringing it home when he steps up to the mic at any televised gathering. Injecting some comedy and rural-American values into Hollywood, Pratt is a breath of fresh air amid the stuffiness of an overtly image-obsessed entertainment industry that tends to take itself a bit too seriously.A Christian, Pratt is not shy about his faith, and is unafraid to call us all to a higher standard. And that’s exactly what he did on Monday night when he won the MTV “Generation Award.” The actor brought down the house with a poignant speech, providing the next generation with “9 Rules” for living. The “Jurassic World” star cleverly interspersed words of profound wisdom with a series of hilarious life tips. “I’m going to cut to the chase and I am going to speak to you, the next generation,” Pratt bellowed a...

It was during a team-building exercise many years ago that I first discovered a talent I had no idea I possessed. The exercise itself was pretty run-of-the-mill -- name one special skill or talent for each person in the room. I certainly wasn’t expecting to hear anything life-changing, but I was taken aback when multiple people told me that I was very good at asking questions. It was not really something that I had ever considered to be a personal talent. It was, and is, just something that has always come naturally to me -- something that I’ve never really had to think about. And that’s the thing. Your true talent isn’t something that you need to focus on to do it well, and it isn’t something that you will consider remarkable. Rather, it is something that you should work on honing once you discover it, and it is definitely something that should be incorporated into your career. I’ve spent years working on turning my knack for asking good questions into a career and have helped ...

Rivers have no respect for political frontiers. They are the common property for many peoples and, if they are to be harnessed to the service of mankind, it is essential that we should continue to consult together, to exchange information and to discuss our problems. (Abubakar Tafawa Belewa; quoted in Anyaoku 2001: 20 While the rest of the world is running away from fossil fuel and dredging in the Niger delta it is good news . The funny part is we have not learnt the lessons from the  oil sector .we continue to place economics of  contract above the environment  where future generations unborn we live in .what many don't know is we are losing a precious commodity we don't even care about which is SAND. which is one the world's most sought-after commodities of the 21st century: Sand and gravel are the most-extracted materials in the world. The UN believes that sand and gravel, or aggregates, account for up to 85 percent of all mining activity around the world, mea...

Rivers have no respect for political frontiers. They are the common property for many peoples and, if they are to be harnessed to the service of mankind, it is essential that we should continue to consult together, to exchange information and to discuss our problems. (Abubakar Tafawa Belewa; quoted in Anyaoku 2001: 20) The statement was made by Belewa, then the Nigerian Minister of Transport (see below), in an address to the international conference on navigation on the River Niger held May 1956 in The Hague. The conference venue can be explained by the long association of the Netherlands Engineering Company (NEDECO) with Niger River development, a role since assumed through its Nigerian affiliate by Haskoning Consulting Engineers and Architects B.V. (now Royal Haskoning) in Nijmegen. This paper will review a proposed action by the Federal Government of Nigeria to dredge a year-round navigation channel in the Lower Niger River some 573 kilometers upstream from Warri...