6 VALUABLE LIFE LESSONS KIDS CAN TEACH ADULTS BY @LANRE_OLAGUNJU

Look into the eye of the child close to you; you can be sure that his/her eyes are clear and bright. Kids know how to smile and when they laugh they just don’t care. Little wonder why when they breathe their shoulders don’t have to go up and down like many adults have mastered. No thanks to our mastery in worrying.  It’s quite amazing to discover that majority of what made our childhood memorable and fun has been lost to adulthood. Not knowing that many of them are basically the recipes answerable to making our lives memorable and fun. The greatest of all law is to love and like Mahatma Gandhi puts it “The law of love could be best understood and learned through little children” That makes it easier to understand why Jesus said "I can guarantee this truth: Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven”. The following lessons can be learnt from kids;

 Dream Big

Every child has an expectation of what he or she would become. A child wants to become a doctor or a lawyer just at the site of one. Their intricate ability to dream and live in their imagination is evident in their discussion and play. A child would ride in the best jeep of his choice, create sound of the engine with the mouth and then get the same feeling with anyone who drives such a car as he drives to the destination of his choice. All in the mind! Only kids do such. They are naturally armed with the mindset that they can be anything, giving no thought to fear, limitations or boundaries and to a great extend nature works with the imagination and expectation of the minds. Though to dream is cheap, yet, many adults can’t afford it. 

Honesty

Kids are honest to a fault and they just don’t know how to hide their feelings like we adults do. They say things just the way they are, to the best of their descriptive intelligence and proficiency. Kids wear their expressions all over them. You essentially don’t need to have a degree in soothsaying to tell when a child is angry, happy, frightened or indifferent. Contrarily, with adults, you have to listen carefully to what is been said and then discern the messages behind non-verbal expressions. Adults conceal expressions for many reasons, making communication and ability to maintain sincerity very difficult.  

Valuing Relationship

There are only few things kids love much more than hanging out with their friends. Given the chance, Kids would never leave their friends’ side.  At that age they still have the mastery to admire, respect, and trust their friends unconditionally. Adults forget that a healthy personal relationship is a vital key to happiness.  Adults are the ones scared of talking to strangers. We still hold in high esteem the ‘don’t talk to anybody you don’t know advice and when they call or talk to you, please don’t answer’ –hence not meeting new people, forgetting that our old friends were once strangers. Adults are too careful to spare anyone benefit of the doubt, so very afraid of betrayal. We say all men/women are the same despite that all men don’t have the same name, face or genetic makeup. 

Unending Curiosity About Everything

No one is constantly driven by curiosity as a child. The fact that kids are constantly in pursuit of the unknown guides their education and help them input important files in their virgin but big memory. They ask questions like there’s no tomorrow, and you wonder if the questions will ever end. Look at how P. J. O'Rourke puts it “You know your children are growing up when they stop asking you where they came from and refuse to tell you where they're going” Naturally adults don’t know that you hardly loose a thing when you ask but you risk all when you don’t ask.  Adults don’t ask questions for all the wrong reasons. We feel it’s shameful not to know, but it’s foolish not to ask when you actually don’t know. Adult feel safer to assume not noting that assumption is the least form of knowledge. You might not get answers to all questions like kids don’t but you’ll never get an answer to a question you never asked. 

Playfulness and Simplicity

The primary occupation of every child is to play and it can be amazingly dramatic to see parents spend the first 12 months teaching a new born how to talk and walk all for them to be later yelled at to sit down and be quiet. Kids are the ones that discover dance well before coming to terms with what music is or is not. It’s not a terrible thing to be childish every once in a while. We ‘serious adults’ feel we need to constantly remain so serious to retain our maturity. Maturity is sometimes overrated. Kids live spontaneously and that naturally affords them to maximize fun, enjoying the beauty of every moment.

Great Forgiving Spirit

Kids do not know how to hold grudges; malice is a word kids have to grow up to understand. When they are hurt they might say things like “I won’t play with you again” but you can be so sure that it won’t last. Un-forgiveness has been traced to severe stress and anxiety.

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MASTURBATION AND WET DREAMS By @Lanre_Olagunju

More caution has to be taken these days since notable words have been released from religious quarters. May I offer to advise that you don’t laugh whenever you are in the bathroom, especially if you fall into the category of those who get inspiration under the influence of the shower, else, it would be simply assumed that you’re having a nice time playing with yourself.

It’s a known fact that there are a couple of grey areas in religion. Many of these cloudy zones are better handled by personal interpretation either based on one’s level of understanding or conviction. If you cast your mind back a little, you will remember that it used to be quite controversial to wear a pair of trousers to church as a woman, now we all know that it doesn’t stop the anointing from flowing from the altar. In addition, we all know that the era that God is only pleased with hand woven hair or hair plaited with local thread is long over. Today, contrarily, men won’t even let women have enough shampoo and hair relaxers to go round.

In the same way, I nurse the apprehension that masturbation, one-day, will become the prescribed religious way-out of avoiding the real thing. Just as it is secularly advertized that “if you no fit hold body, abeg use condom”. Or what exactly was pastor Chris Oyakhilome thinking or trying to say when he said “masturbation is not a sin against God” in that video? Was he trying to say that the guilt that comes with touching one’s own sex organ for the promise of pleasure is not from God, or was he just trying to emphasize that Christians might as well, now freely wank in the Lord?

Irrespective of cultural attitudes and religion, masturbation has been found in all societies. Fifteen years of research in human sexual behaviour by the famous sexuality researcher, Dr. Alfred Kinsey, revealed that 95% of males and 60% of females had at a point masturbated. Of the three forms of sexual release, sex, masturbation and nocturnal emission widely known as wet dreams, masturbation has pulled more controversial attention for itself than others, especially among the religious.

A whole lot of fabrications have been conjured from time immemorial as regards the addictive habit. Opinions that masturbation leads to blindness, physical problems such as mental illness and growing hair on the palms aren’t true. Some even nurse the idea that others, including medical doctors and sexual partners, will be able to tell if you masturbate. Another interesting one is that men will run out of semen or sperm if they masturbate excessively. The testis is a factory for mass sperm production and masturbation isn’t going to close down that factory. Myths of this nature and a host of others are big opinions with no factual medical basis.

Medically there hasn’t been physical or mental side effects like many of these myths propose, but doctors are worried about over masturbation especially when it’s a symptom of obsessive/compulsive disorder. Too much may lead to a reduced response to other people’s touch, which might be injurious to any relationship. Obsessive masturbation may be offensive to one’s sexual partner as it might be seen as a substitute for seeming unsatisfactory intercourse. Compulsive masturbation can be a major challenge if it affects a person’s daily personal or professional life or when it hinders a person from fulfilling their responsibilities and commitments.

If religiously we claim that wanking is sinful and morally we regard it as shameful, then what about nocturnal emission, where ejaculation occurs while asleep? Doesn’t nightfall also bring some level of shame during the first occurrence? May be you need to remember how embarrassing it was to first discover that the cartographer in your sexual center can also conjure maps well designed with beautiful white paintings. How many times did you wake up to wonder who sketched the maps of countries and places that don’t exist all over your short and bed spread?

It is well expected and reasonable to say that we are not responsible for our actions in our sleep but according to research by Alfred Kinsey, men who have low masturbation may have higher frequencies of nocturnal emission, though taking certain drugs containing high volume of testosterone might as well be responsible. Also, Dr. Vora in his book ‘Wet Dreams’ said wet dreams are almost constant accompaniment of young adult who are yet to explore sex.

He described wet dreams as a natural way of getting relief of sexual tension while still observing continence. He further explained that a healthy man living with his wife in normal condition should not necessarily have them including those who are given to regular masturbation, for there is little time for the accumulation of the secretion to produce distension of the vesicles.

Some nurse the impression that even wet dreams are bad, though they cannot ascertain that they are sinful, since its occurrence is not under any willful control. It should be noted that the cause of nightfall is not always related to erotic thoughts or dreams. They majorly occur when the reproductive organs are unable to hold excessively produced seminal fluids. One might as well conclude that man needs to ejaculate from time to time even when he’s not sexually active.

This implies that the body can hold a max amount of semen and when it reaches its threshold, it needs to get rid of the excess. So if two actions achieve the same result, how come one has been more controversial than the other?

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CAN WE BLAME GOD? BY LANRE OLAGUNJU

The existence of a supreme being is an issue that till the end of time will keep generating an unending controversy among different races and people. Though I’ve got no intention to delve into that, I can only advise that it’s smarter to live and assume that a God exists somewhere, so as not to die and shockingly discover that He truly does. And if perhaps he truly doesn’t exist, shouldn’t your gentle soul just rest in peace like family, friends, and enemies repeatedly prayed, while you speechlessly watch from another world.

Those of us who agree and confess to believe in the existence of God also acknowledge that He’s so loving, caring, and perfect; reason that He’s made provision for all that man needs to govern over the entire planet earth amongst other reasons.

Though some are too religious to ever nurse the thought that God created pain, but before you rebuke me or the devil that isnt anywhere in me, think about those critical times, when you or someone dear to you went through pains and excruciating experiences that doesn’t match the traditional belief of a good and loving God, though we don’t ventilate it. We just want to think that probably He must have goofed in this area. If not. Why did God create pain? What was the pain mechanism suppose to achieve? This has been my major source of headache from time and I think the quest to know and understand might just be a lifelong assignment.

Great philosophers have posed questions like ‘why hadn’t God designed a nervous system that protect us without the unpleasant aspect of pain. So many conflicting believes even amongst people of faith. Some are of the opinion that man must have stepped out of God’s will and that God uses circumstances to bring us back to normalcy.

The reason why we cherish pleasure is because of the reality of pain. So from a perspective, pain is essential to normal life. Although to one suffering from cancer and the miserable pain of chemotherapy, pain to such is far greater than misery. But to anyone with a reasonable health, pain is a communicator that protects.

Ok let’s take the oldest recorded and the most dreaded disease, Hansen’s disease-(leprosy) for instance. It’s the only one I can think of for now and it’s vital for this discuss. Leprosy is a disease of the nervous system. The bacteria practically attacks the pain cells of the skin, peripheral nerves in the hands, feets, and mucous membranes of the nose, throat, and eyes to numbness.

If we fear disease because of the pain and misery it brings, then what is so horrible about diseases that cost no pain? A woman whose infant was suffering from “congenital indifference” told a horrifying story of how she heard her child cooing and laughing loud all alone as if she’s discovered something new. Only for her to amazingly discover that her daughter had bitten off the tip of her fingers with her newly grown four teeth and was playing in the blood, making patterns with the drips. Could pain be created as a quality that saves us from destruction?

We have at certain points made God lesser than he is over the issue of pain and suffering ignoring that even man has brought more pain to man. Many of the things we derive satisfaction from we don’t complain or lament over. Things such as our ability to perceive, eat and drink, pleasure derived from scratching when the skin itches and also the wild fire pleasure of orgasm.

Tweeets @Lanre_Olagunju on twitter

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7 WAYS TO BUILD STRONG SELF ESTEEM IN KIDS BY LANRE OLAGUNJU

In both kids and adults, low self esteem has always been responsible for; blaming oneself for things that are distance from personal fault, underestimating one’s ability and the making of a super pessimist. Constructive parenting in a healthy family setting gives a lending hand in attacking the challenges related to low self esteem, essentially in kids. Children who don’t have this sense of well being quite early, most times, end up struggling through life searching for it, still unsure of what exactly they are looking for. Since they don’t know how it feels.

 Difficult is not enough to describe the act of giving what is not there. Parents who probably didn’t grow up with great self confidence might see it as a great hurdle nurturing kids to have one. The result of the following self esteem boosters makes the different between the brilliant kids who become successful and the others.

1. Affirm in public and correct in private.

Children need to be showed enough love and acceptance and parents are the only people biologically automated to do that. But most times parents withdraw with a large overdraft. You need to affirm enough to correct. Strict reprimanding is better done in closet, after all the basic goal of correcting is to help improve and not to hurt, attack or destroy. Appraisal should be done from time to time when kids get things right. When correction is done publicly it stops been correction, it becomes humiliation and nothing kills a child self esteem like humiliating them publicly. And if you think that kids will ever forget such words overnight you can be sure to be very wrong

2. Don’t compare kids to others – not even siblings, it’s not worth it.

The uniqueness in every child is always crying out loud for deep expression. Some parents with the intention of motivating their wards do so by comparing them to kids next door, not knowing the peculiar behavioral challenges such kids are also battling with. It’s more profitable to help kids compete with themselves, not others. In every sense there will always be somebody somewhere better.

3. Every child is good at something, discover and encourage it.

As every child grows older she naturally does well at something though only very observant parent discover it. When a child enjoys a particular activity, it boosts her self-image, and this in a way has a magical way of translating into ripple effect on other activities. This phenomenon, in psychology is referred to as the  “the carry over principle” a parent who has mastered the principle explained how she encouraged her child’s passion and involvement in athletics despite that he’d a poor interest in his academics. It didn’t take time before she discovered that his school works improved as his over all self confidence increased.

4. Don’t set unrealistic expectations for kids

It’s so unimaginable how parents automatically feel that because they did exceptionally well in academics, sport, music or a particular career, then just like that their kids will. Error! Every child has her uniqueness and when a child is so exposed to many unrealistic expectations, its damages by threatening her sense of competence which is a valuable confidence builder. Child psychologist advise that striking a balance between pushing kids to do their best and protecting them is safer.

5. Address kids by name.

Researchers say that when you address a child by name essentially when accomplished by eye contact and touch it projects a “you are special” message.  It has also been researched that beginning an interaction using a child’s name helps to gain attention, break barriers and also paves way for corrective discipline

6. Be available to welcome and answer questions no matter how stupid they might sound.

We must be reminded that parenting can’t be outsourced. If the house maid is the first to answer questions like “where do babies come from” or questions like “why do I have a small rat between my legs and Daniella doesn’t?” Then just know that no matter how much money you make the child bears the name of that maid ‘cos he who sits with the child induces the child identity. Make them friends, such that their friends say things like “I wish we could exchange parents”.

7.  Give plenty of touch, attention and eyes contact.

I heard this particular story from a very insightful and distinguished clergyman, Poju Oyemade. During the 17th century, Emperor Fredrick wanted to bring to assertiveness one of his mind bugging observations on the significance of expressive love. So he carried out an experiment that was later discovered to be an expensive one. He gave an order to nurses and baby sitters that they shouldn’t express any form of love or affection to some selected infants. Though they were permitted to feed them, change their diapers and do all other necessary things apart from expressing love in any form of touch, cuddling, care and communication. To the utmost surprise of the monarch and the midwives, all the babies died.

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FREE ENTERPRISE: AN ANTECEDENT TO ECONOMIC PROSPERITY BY LANRE OLAGUNJU.

It’s becoming evidently clear that nations get on when individuals are permitted to decide economic choices that represent their utmost interest. From America, to Japan then Europe, even the uninitiated can quickly reach an agreement that free market has helped to realize economic advancement in such zones. The concept of economic opulence to a considerable extent is inseparable from the theory of freedom which is a forerunner to economic abundance, even the law of first thing first agrees that something must come earlier as a source of development or advancement of another thing.

Prosperity is attained when labour is well channeled and constructive. Constructive labour involves the adequate use of one’s intellect and natural resources to meet needs with rewarding benefits. Economic prosperity a la can be achieved when individuals who comprise of the society harness their individual skills and intellectual brain seed into profitable ventures. However, such an act can only be realizable within the jurisdiction of freedom and the promise of incentive, knowing too well that man is a psychological being and his actions are mostly fuelled either by the avoidance of pain or the promise of pleasure.

Free market system puts productivity ahead of hard work. Productivity is boosted in the sense that taxes are kept low, therefore producers can produce more since they can keep more of what they earn.  It is a result oriented system that ensures the satisfaction of consumer wants, and when consumer satisfaction becomes a culture, sure, demand will increase which will equally push up prices, increasing profits to producers and investors. Increased profits will attract more investors and eventually push up wages to attract more workers, thereby reducing unemployment. It should be noted that as supply of a particular product gradually increases, consumers are definitely going to experience a fall in price. Therefore, free market creates an atmosphere where consumers needs are satisfied, it creates more employment and rewards workers with apt incentives. This explains why workers in third world countries labour for long hours with little or nothing to show for it.

Free enterprise promotes civility. Commerce makes it possible to do business or service to another without bearing him real kindness, traders require the trust and confidence of those with whom they trade, and so contribute to a climate in which promises are kept. Though altruism might be very appropriate in other areas of life like family, we just know that it won’t take us any far in business.

Free enterprise has a brilliant way of reducing cost of living and yet increase the standard of living.  As I write, I can’t think of any other apt scenario to verify my claims apart from the great revolution that took over the Nigerian telecommunication sector. Before 2001, NITEL, one of the prove that shows that the Nigerian government has nothing to offer, succeeded in providing only 400,000 lines for a population of over 150 million. So inequality might reign among the haves and have-nots. At the onset, when GSM was introduced into Nigeria, as usual only the rich could afford it. The poor might have to use-up an entire savings to purchase one. 


During this period, since the nation was still bound with the psychological chain and fetters of a comatose telecom system, we all felt it was Ok to be charged $0.65 for sixty plus one seconds call. Customers paid per minute, and in cases when you don’t use up a minute, mathematically you dash away money for service that you dint use. In fact, MTN at that time had said that per second billing was absolutely impossible. It only took the advent of GLO to realize that that wasn’t just a lousy joke; it was also a market lie! Today, the onetime luxury of the wealthy, only accessible to the rich few has become the necessities of the many. Now that all telecom providers have to strive amidst healthy competition, prices of both GSM lines and call rates have drastically fallen. Lines that were sold for N20,000 in 2001 are now been sold for a giveaway prize of N100 with many value added benefits. Sure you’d agree that a whopping 19,900% decrease in prize in every sense signifies a reduction in cost of living.

It’s a common place mistake to think that freedom in its real sense is the absolute absence of restraint. No! Permit me jog your memory to the theory of civil society which spells it out that freedom is a system whereby just restraint is applied to men. Restraint is vital because power is open to abuse by those who exercise them. This is where the rule of law now comes to play, because rules must be rules else, men will become savages and undomesticated. Alexander Hamilton wrote in The Federalist Papers in 1787, “Men love power ...Give all power to the many, they will oppress the few. Give all power to the few, they will oppress the many.” At the risk of adding yet another quote to this paragraph, may I quickly bring to mind the words of the British historian, Lord Acton, in a letter to Bishop Mandell in 1887? “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are always bad men” were his own insight. Private owners yes must be able to decide how well they use their property yet, they must be held accountable for their actions.

Critics and challengers of economic liberty are fond of the opinion that freedom does inevitably lead to a degree of inequality in people’s wealth and income. I concur. Yet, I must point out that they most times forget that attempts to use government to determine people’s income creates an haphazard society where access to political office determines wealth, like it’s the case of Nigeria and many African nations. At the point of choosing a lesser devil, it must be noted that this form of inequality is more detrimental to the poor than the inequality of wealth created by free enterprise. Free enterprise rewards people with high incomes only as long as they serve the customer better than others do. So?!

 Others are so very quick to blame recession on economic liberty during times of economic expansion while they neglect the fact that economic recessions are triggered by inflation as a result of government expanding the supply of money and credit recklessly at a velocity faster than the growth of the economy itself. Inflation is birthed by increasing the supply of money relative to the supply of goods and services. This has always been a way of whittling away the value of money. This in-turn takes the rate of unemployment northward, which lend credence to Newton’s law which says that “for every action (including economic, emphasis mine), there is an equal and opposite reaction” the way out isn’t to murder free enterprise, but to simply take the supply of money out of government. Sometimes, unemployment is caused by regulations and unbearable taxes, which causes a misalliance between supply of labour and consumer need. In a free enterprise economy there is always availability of work .Come to think of it, can the demands of consumers be exhausted?

If Nigeria and other African nations must be healed of poverty majorly caused by corruption and gross irresponsibility of political leaders, a free market system is the right medication. The idea of partial- deregulation is just like strengthening the cause of a disease and passionately attacking the symptoms. It’s a colossal waste of time!

No one tends to take care of what belongs to no one or everyone like what belongs to him.  

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YOUR LOVE IS NOT ENOUGH BY LANRE OLAGUNJU

It’s not enough that a man be born, he must learn to live. It’s not enough that a man should live; he must learn to love and master to bear the pain, thrill and excitement that comes with love. What can be more exhilarating than to be in love? Though one must also note that to give one’s heart, is not only to give that person the right to love you back but also the power to hurt as well. No matter how close or how emotionally connected we are with another person, to a large extent we still can never fully know and understand another person’s design, which predominantly structures why they behave the way they do, their motivations, belief system, philosophies,  passions, dreams and goals.  At best we can only derive an approximation based on assumption of their full thinking process.  Come to think of it, assumption they say is the least form of knowledge. The manufacturer of the mind, God, describes his own product saying. “The heart is a twisted thing, not to be searched out by another mortal: who is able to have knowledge of it?”

Questions relating to when you should make known or public your love affair and whether true love is blind or crippled has always and will ever remain subjective topical love issues. Love is a great motivator and inspiration in every relationship but the fact that we fall into it probably explains why a one time lover gets demoted to suddenly become “a good friend” like we say it when the whole thing is dwindling away into history or a foe when things become terribly sour. Maybe when we begin to walk, against falling in love, love might restore its blind sight.

“When you love, you love. I mean, do you stop loving somebody because you have different images? You know, Bobby and I basically come from the same place, you see somebody, and you deal with their image, that’s their image. It’s part of them; it’s not the whole picture. ” pop idol and six-time Grammy award winner, Whitney Houston, told Rolling Stone in 1993.  Yeah love is all that matters and it does conquers all things, but when maturity meets with love, it births a superior orientation that makes one see common sense beyond a common tool in any relationship because it hurts to be left alone by someone you love. It hurts to love someone who can't love you back. But what hurts the most is to end a relationship that was never even destined to start. For instance If a bird falls in love with a fish, where would they live? Who gets the fins and who loses the wings? It's an irony. That's how cruel but poetic love can be. Many are of the opinion that if Whitney Houston never met Bobby Brown, probably her life would have been less tragic and far from a striking cautionary tale.

Even when we eventually settle with that bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh, the question of whether love is enough still arises. I’ve repeatedly heard those married for donkey years say things like “understanding, patience and endurance is all that matters” some out of their own personal ‘not so exciting’ experiences go as far as categorically predicting that you should at some point expect that your spouse will come up with characters and traits absolutely synonymous of a stranger, and you just beginning to wonder where on earth you got this person from. This is far from the image of love the media paints. They only showcase the feel good hormonal responses that bind two people initially, and then they edit reality away. “There isn’t a perfect relationship, the major point is to move forward” a married adult friend once stressed to me.

Let me share the misery of a man I read some years back in one of those Funmi Akingbade’s sex and sexuality columns on Saturday Punch Newspaper. This particular man was demanding for help to manage his psychological trauma. After forgiving his wife, he still had issues struggling with the mental play back of another man’s sex organ inside her.  This happened after both partners in a playful atmosphere asked questions related to how they coped when both were temporarily separated by distance. The woman at one point confessed that she had a onetime secret affair. She must have summoned enough calories of courage most likely because she couldn’t hold the guilt anymore.   In response to the man’s challenge, the columnist scolded him for indulging in such a risky fact finding in the first place and like you would expect, he was advised to move on. And at the minute you critically consider the effort and investment that relationships consumes, and the contagious effect of divorce on the children and others. ‘To move on’ becomes quite a handy response.

That you love one another doesn’t really guarantee all the happiness, the feel good feeling will die and probably resurrect again. The long married says it takes a whole lot of conscious effort from both parties to keep it alive. In fact, that hard work and conscious effort is what they refer to as love. There is so much to great relationship than love.

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