Personally, the "LIFE - MAKE IT COUNT" series has been a blessing to me. It has challenged me, confronted me, and pushed me to be a better person on my journey of making my short life here on earth count. If you have been consistent in following this series, you will remember that we have talked about counting on God first, establishing good and healthy relationships as second to none, cultivating a worthy character, and having a good name. We also looked at the fact that integrity never grows old, the need to build capacity, thanksgiving as a way of life, and being comfortable in your skin. Other variables discussed are consistency, investing time, nurturing others, commitment, putting oneself out there, and leaving the past in the past.  I will want to wrap this series with one last issue that I see as the icing on the cake, without it, fulfilling all the above would be a facade. To make your life count, you have to pay the price of making life count. This entails knowing

  is going to be one of the shortest pieces in this series, but I dare to tell you that if you open your mind to the realities it carries, it will be the most liberating to you. In his book, " The purpose-driven life ", Rick Warren raised some important variables that drive people's lives. Among those variables were guilt, resentment and anger, and fear. Let me note here therefore that we are all driven by something - good or bad, from the past or the future.  To make your life count, I believe you have to leave the past in the past. Regardless of the experiences and encounters of the past, all you need to carry from there are the lessons learned. Truth is, a lot of people are living less and dragging through each day because they are still stuck in the past. For some, it could be guilt for what they have done, hence they find it hard to forgive themselves and receive forgiveness as well. For others, it is anger and resentment from an event of the past and they find it h

This piece is one of the oldest I wrote two years ago, but for the sake of this series, it has been dusted and beefed up to help us make our lives count. Thank you for following the series this far, we have two more to go. Please stay a little longer with me. 2017 was a decisive year for me, it was the year I finished my National Youth Service and took some life-shaping decisions afterward such as starting this blog which took me almost three months to finally give it a shot. Why? Because I was not sure I could do it, I was not certain I was ready to put myself out there to public scrutiny and the criticism (Good or Bad) that would follow from many people that will read my kind of writing. So far so good, four years down the line, here I am, putting myself out there. What does it mean to put yourself out there? It is not just about going out on dates, hanging out with friends, being at social gatherings or events, or even being an extrovert. As good and commendable as those things are,

Today's piece will be straight, punchy, and very blunt; to make our lives count, we need to get a grasp of the reality of nurturing others. I have always wondered, what makes people think that if they help someone especially those below them it makes them helpless? Or rather, can lightening up someone's candle make yours dim? I strongly believe for me and you to make this our time-bound life count, we must be comfortable with nurturing other people and celebrating their success.  Over the years, in my little sphere and corner of influence, I have seen quite a handful of people looking up to me in so many aspects of life for nurturing. This has set me on my toes to live as I should and ensure that I don't fail them when it's all been said and done. We all have something in us that is instrumental in the lifting of others; it could be a word of encouragement, a little push, our widow's mite, our time, our wisdom, teachings, our listening ears, or even our way of life.

  Invest it, you said? Yes, invest it. And no, I don't mean money, but something much more important and sensitive than money. If you can understand it, utilize it and make good use of it, you will not only make money out of it but derive value out of it as well. If you invest it, your life would have been a Magnum opus and your life would have counted.  The issue I will share today is that which we are familiar with in words but strangers to when it comes to action, we talk about it so much that we do so little of it in our day-to-day lives. It will point out to us where we are wanting but not to guilt-trip or witch hunt anyone but to bring about a transforming change in our lives. So let's talk about time.  Time is one of the greatest and indestructible gifts and treasures God has given to man. There is no specific scholarly record about who invented time, we can only talk of the Egyptian use of horology technology to measure time as far back as 1500BC. Yes, we can talk about

  This piece is a mashup of my previous writings on commitment. For the sake of this series "LIFE - MAKE IT COUNT", I will dust up some of the issues and share them with you. What comes to your mind when you hear the word "commitment"? Does the sound of the word excite you or scare you? The hallmark of a life that will count is marked by commitment. Commitment is the state or quality of being dedicated, loyal, devoted to a cause or a marked-out endeavor. Cambridge Dictionary defined commitment as "a promise or firm decision to do something. The willingness to give your time and energy to a job, activity or something that you believe in".  Inferring from the above definition, it is obvious that for everything we do and/or do not do, commitment plays a vital role. The fact that you are reading this piece right now, you must have committed your time and resources to do so. So whether it is school, business, decision to change some bad habits, making major cho

  It's been a long series, but a retrospective one for me. This is because most of the issues I have been sharing are what I have to learn to live out every day. (I hope you have learned one or two things so far from this series). Today I will share something that we are too familiar with but living it out often eludes us. To make your life count, you have to be consistent.  Just like trust, consistency once established, you don't just lose it. Building consistency is like earning trust, it takes time but can or may be lost in a blink of an eye.  In life, we exert our efforts, direct our attention and channel our determination to achieve or get some things through persistence, only to let them slip past our fingers because we lack the keeping power of consistency. What I mean is, persistence gets it, consistency keeps it; so by all means, in your persistence in life, be consistent.  What would be your definition of consistency? In describing what consistency is not, Hundred Lif