Author: #SassyFunke

I certainly live by the sentiment my fellow Nigerian Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (renowned novelist and non-fiction writer) had when she gave a speech at the 2015 Write Now awards ceremony about the pitfalls of pursuing likability. Her words are as below:

“…you’re supposed to twist yourself into shapes to make yourself likable, that you’re supposed to hold back sometimes, pull back, don’t quite say, don’t be too pushy, because you have to be likable.

And I say that’s bullshit.

So what I want to say to young girls is forget about likability”

Lets take a step back, Likability means one that is easy to like. Let me address what likability will bring to you:

1. People like you and perhaps they like all your posts on social media (key to remember this may not transition into cash)
2. People will tell others they like you
3. People will attend your events (and if you’re lucky buy you gifts)

Let me address what likability will not assure you of:

1. Respect
2. Consistency
3. Trust
4. Love
5. Meaningful relationships

I think the key message here isn’t that being liked is a negative thing, more so that chasing being liked is a NO NO… you should never have to change your authentic self to FIT IN. If they don’t like you the way you are, someone out there will (with over 7 billion people on earth, you are in luck). Remember also how inconsistent human beings are, they may ‘like’ you today but ‘hate’ you tomorrow so chasing their likes is like chasing a forever moving target and what kind of life is that to live???

I say to you, follow your dreams, follow what matters to you and remain authentic to you, to your story. So many people I have not liked upon meeting them but have ended up admiring, loving and looking up to simply because they stayed true to themselves.

“If you set out to be liked, you would be prepared to compromise on anything at any time, and you would achieve nothing” || Margaret Thatcher

So I watched the interview with Bruce Jenner a few weeks ago where he shared his struggle being a female in a man’s body and to be honest the first thing that came to mind for me was “What a shame to live those years not being able to be YOURSELF”

For me, this had nothing to do with transgender issues; the issue was so much more fundamental and simple.

So finally Bruce aka #Caitlyn has finally decided to transform slowly into what she feels comfortable in and has graced the cover of Vanity Fair in what I think is a bold, amazing revelation. Of course the world has a lot to say about this (as always), a lot of it negative but wow I am sure #Caitlyn feels beyond relieved. Lets ponder for a bit:

How many times have we lived in the shadows of others?

How many times have we changed who we were to satisfy the needs of others?

How many times have we lived the lives expected of us rather than the live we felt was right for us?

How many times have we changed our views to appease others?

And how miserable were we when we did this…

The question isn’t whether or not Bruce’s decision to be Caitlyn is right or wrong, the true question is who am I and who are you to judge who Bruce should be? The question is have we lived in his shoes to understand his struggles and pains? The question is have we lived growing up feeling we were in the wrong body? The question is who made us God to feel we have the right to judge another…

It doesn’t hurt me to see the negative words being directed towards Caitlyn. It hurts me that the world still hasn’t learnt from the past. Wasn’t it just around the corner that the world thought the roles of black people in society were to be slaves? The world needs to take a chill pill and sit itself down.

We have no right to decide who anyone should be or judge them #PERIOD 

“When you judge others, you do not define them, you define yourself” ― Earl Nightingale

I never understood it when I would bring an argument I had with a friend to my mum and she would say “let it go, it’s not that serious”. To be honest, it would drive me mad as if to say she didn’t understand the gravity of how I felt or how I felt I had been treated.

It’s an odd feeling now as I see myself repeating those words to my friends when they come to me to vent about others (maybe it’s age or maturity or life lessons or just luck). My questions to them go like this:

• Is it possible they saw your point differently?
• Are you ready to lose the relationship or fix it?
• On the scale of your life issues, how does this fare?

I had an argument with a friend 4 years ago. It got really bad to the extent that she went to extremes to make me look bad in front of mutual friends. We didn’t speak for years and she later reached out for some help. I had a choice, and I chose to help out. A few of my friends were outraged that I would consider to do so but I realized that I needed to forgive her, not for her but for me. The loss of friendship actually hurt me more than they knew. I had lost someone I really connected with.

Letting go is important because we will always be offended by those around us but its important to find the seed of forgiveness in us and to remember we also are imperfect beings.

Letting go takes the pain away, It lets you dwell on the things that truly matter.

I encourage you to let go of what weighs you down, to let go of what prevents you from actually holding meaningful relationships. Life is too short to have shoulda’s, coulda’s and woulda’s. As Nigerian’s would say #TheDevilIsALiar (i.e. I won’t let this negative circumstance come to pass or to affect life as it is)

“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.” || Mahatma Gandhi

So apparently I am a DiVA (sighs)…so I decided to visit my source of great knowledge #Google and type “diva definition” so that I truly understood what this label meant. A definition that comes up is as below:

“One who demands that attention be paid to his or her needs, especially without regard to anyone else’s needs or feelings”

I am grossly offended with anyone with this definition in mind when they call me a diva.

I am very much aware that I have certain standards and taste that I like to adhere to. Some say my standards are high but what does that mean? That I like to have certain things a certain way? Perhaps so but is that something out of the ordinary?? Who doesn’t have a preference for how things should be?

What I grossly hate about the definition is that it implies I demand attention to be paid to my needs at the expense of the needs/feelings of others. I don’t demand anything off anyone. I do not think my preferences supersede the needs of others. I certainly don’t see myself as a superior being. I do not ask for anything I cannot afford to work and pay for myself or reciprocate for others. I work hard for the life I live and if I choose to spend money on things that are of perceived higher standards to others so be it. Is it a crime to choose how to spend one’s hard earned cash? If I prefer to fly on private jets instead of taking commercial flights (this is a joke for illustrative purposes so let’s not find any new labels for me, I am not quite at this level…YET lol), Is that an issue to be frowned upon?

Anyways, the reason I bring up this topic is to highlight the broader issue with labeling. People use labeling without understanding what the label means, what it implies and whether or not it is truly relevant in a context. Labeling, I believe is even more damaging in that we bucket individuals into a certain categories, categories which we sub consciously have pre-conceived ideas about. We make decisions based on these ideas that can potentially tarnish the reputation of others.

I guess my hope is that when we use labels in the future, we should also bear in mind the perhaps negative connotations these labels have and also the impact that these labels will have on the perception of an individual’s character in the midst of others.

So to this, I ask of you not to judge people by the labels you have heard of them BUT to build your own connections and make your own decisions about them without the world’s LABEL.

What are YOUR thoughts/experience on this issue of labeling? I would love to hear them.

“Once you label me you negate me.” ||  Søren Kierkegaard

A number of weeks ago, I was told that someone I knew (not someone I would necessarily call a friend) dedicated an afternoon to gossiping and making pretty ill jokes about me in the midst of a few of my friends. This is someone that shortly after, was all chatty and seemingly nice to me. To be honest, my first reaction was to definitely confront this individual (I am not one to shy off letting people know exactly how I feel) but what I did next is what I want to talk to YOU about.

I spent the weeks after doing absolutely nothing. I didn’t confront this individual. I smiled right back when this individual smiled at me in the hallway. My mum has always said to me that silence is healing. Silence really gives you time to see perspectives. It saves you from investing energy unnecessarily in areas that truly deserve none. It can set you free.

In deciding whether or not to remain silent, I asked myself the following?

1. Is this individual a friend or an acquaintance?
2. How much value will I get from confronting the issue?
3. Can the confrontation time be invested in other areas that will generate greater substance?
4. What was this individual contribution to my being?

After analyzing the answers to the questions (1. Acquaintance 2. Zero 3. Yes 4. Zero), I am truly thankful I had the common sense to say nothing.

This brings me to the real point of my post. In life, we will confronted with situations where we want to defend ourselves, to defend the ones we care about, to fight for our rights, to prove we can’t be trampled upon, to prove we are not weak…I am here to say that there is so much strength in silence, in refusing to be dragged in mud, in refusing to entertain certain nonsense, in refusing to stoop to a level below yours. Silence isn’t weakness; there is a beauty within it that unveils itself with time if you are patient enough. Essentially know those that deserve your words and those silence is better suited.

Don’t waste words on people who deserve your silence. Sometimes the most powerful thing you can say is nothing at all || Unknown

I attended a presentation over a week ago from one of the many firm’s that have graced my school’s campus these past few weeks with the hope to recruit some of us students for full-time work positions. The presentation was very impressive from the background of the managing partner to the delivery of what was on offer for us prospective employees.

The piece of the presentation that stood out to me was when the managing partner gave some advice. He said: Ensure you know the skills you truly excel at and make sure you sign up with a firm that actually values that. This for me was probably one of the most eye-opening messages I have heard in the past few months and a message, which was very relevant to me at this stage in my career. I am at a place where I am applying for numerous jobs, some that I know clearly I would excel at, as the skills necessary for them come easy to me (and is highly demanded by the firms) and excite me and I could see my future growth. Others on the other hand are so-so (in that I could do them but was there any passion in me for them, any excitement for me to grow in them?….DEBATABLE)

One of the many reasons I came to business school was to really evaluate what I was passionate about and go about excelling in that direction. It’s certainly hard to remain focused about where to go next when one is constantly having opportunities presented daily from all angles. The comment made by the partner certainly helped put my head back in line as to what I truly wanted and how important it was for me not to forget what that was (to not forget what taking a year out meant for ME) and to truly keep it fore-front as I get bombarded with “noise”.

I think his comment was not only relevant to ones’ career but to all aspects of life…we need to go in the direction of where our value is best recognized because if not, we could end of resenting the position we find ourselves in as the pursuit of happiness in that direction will certainly be much tougher if not even impossible.

#SassyFunke

Your value doesn’t decrease based on someone’s inability to see your worth. || Unknown

Such a big title for a very simple mistake. The biggest mistake I ever made is a mistake we have all made at some point in our lives. We make this mistake because we are human, we believe in humanity, we see the best in people and hope for the best. We see people’s future potential today and invest mentally and emotionally in it.

The mistake I made was to believe so much in words that I ignored the actions that were meant to be the backbone of them. I have made this mistake with my friendships and relationships. Maybe it’s the “Miss Nice” instinct in me that really invest in the potential possibilities of humans not their current realities. I really try to see people for who they could be but as my friends would say “Who made you mother Theresa?”. Looking back, I wasted too much time with people that simply didn’t matter, people that didn’t show or prove to me they had a place in my life. I would have probably saved so much time I wasted on investing in building my own future empire [maybe I could have been on Forbes list of billionaires under 30 a while back *sighs*, there is still time so the hustle begins]

Lets take an example, I go for a job interview where I am promising that I will achieve certain deliverables and lets say for the next few months after accepting and starting the job, I turn up to work 30% of the time and achieve 10% of the deliverables, do I expect to have a job for too long? Do I expect to get a promotion? Do I expect my boss to see me for my potential and say “I know you will do better next year”?  Do I expect a pat in the back? Should I be surprised if I get a warning or if I get fired?

Well the truth of the matter now is that I have changed. I am very rational with my relationships. Until I see substance, I am not even listening to words, I will not invest in YOU. Sassy’s time is way too valuable anyways. If a person can not hold their end of the bargain and all he/she feeds me with is words in space, that person can be certain that their days within my network are numbered. I don’t have many close friends but I can certainly say those that have made it to my core are full of substance (substance of support, of love, of encouragement, of advise, of time).

What do you think? Do you think I am being a bit harsh trying to rationalize my relationships in regard to the value they bring to the table? I would love to hear YOUR thoughts….

#Sassy

“Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment.” || Rita Mae Brown

She called me to let me know she was upset that she lost her iPhone and instead of me further (drowning her in her sorrows) telling her how sad it was that her iPhone was lost and drowning her in words of how was she was going to find it, I said to her not to worry, that worst case she had to buy her a new one (that its all just money, right?). She said what do you mean? I responded with ‘Think about it, one day if given the chance to choose whether to lose your iPhone (or anything menial) or lose something more meaningful in your life, you would certainly choose your iPhone in a heartbeat”.

I used to be the type that got so stressed, I mean my brain would be so over-worked, to be point where I would get migraines when things suddenly didn’t work the way I anticipated them to work. Simple things like traffic on the way to the airport would unsettle me. My brain would over-analyze the impact 20 steps ahead of what the possibilities would be leading to worry and exhaustion. Over time, I learnt to embrace change; I learned to flow with the wind; even now I expect my sails to change. Especially when it involves material things, I do not worry because I know these things can always be bought again if not now, then at a later date. I have learnt to accept that I am not an oracle so I do not have the power to predict the future either.

So this brings me to point of this post: Life will never go exactly the way we want it but the issue isn’t with life but with us. We need to learn that it is impossible to anticipate our lives and that we make the fatal and fundamental mistake of thinking we have the power to do so hence why we are left disappointed. We also need to know that we will lose things, we will be hurt, we will be disappointed, we will feel PAIN but we should not take these feelings too seriously as they are all part of life. More so, we shouldn’t let these changes affect our quest for life, our drive to be more, our path to success, our road to live a meaningful, happy and purposeful life.

Worrying doesn’t empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength.” || Corrie ten Boom