Statements of Encouragement: Priorities.

 Hello and eku deede iwoyi o! It`s already February everybody!

I will like to follow up on last month`s write-up with this because they work hand in hand.

Anytime a person doesn`t know what his priorities are, he can find himself in trouble because he is liable to make poor decisions. German Poet John Wolfgang said, “Things that matter most must never be at the mercy of things that matter least.” I must admit this has been an area of weakness for me such as pleasing people at my expense. I experienced a crisis that caused me to come to grips with my priorities.

What are your priorities? I once asked my students this question and I want to ask you; In fifty or a hundred years from now what are you doing now, that will still be important? The house you live in, the car you drive, the position you hold, the money you have, etc. won`t mean much. What really matters? I encourage you to work hard to keep unimportant from becoming important and vise vasa. I must tell you that the secret of your success, depending on what the definition of success is to you, is determined by your daily agenda. It boils down to what you do today. Every day of our life is merely preparation for the next. Each is a process.

Growth, success, and fulfillment come from making wise decisions on the priorities for your life and managing them well daily. You need to know what priorities to set for every aspect of your life. It is also necessary to be disciplined and persevere to be able to maintain it and avoid distractions daily.

We celebrate you if you were born in February. May you always follow your own unique path when walking through this life's journey!

Have a wonderful month everyone! Stay safe, get vaccinated, or get the booster shot as soon as it`s available, stay strong, mask up, and stay healthy.

Eric Thompson

YAJ.

Statements of Encouragement: Distractions.

 Compliments of the season everyone, Odun a yabo fun wa o!

I will like to encourage you not to be distracted as we are experiencing the rise of omicron, the new covid-19 variant. I will like to share this story with you;

A man and his son were once going with their donkey to market. As they were walking along by his side a countryman passed them and said, "You fools, what is a Donkey for but to ride upon?" So the man put the boy on the donkey, and they went on their way.

But soon they passed a group of men, one of whom said, "See that lazy youngster, he lets his father walk while he rides."

So the man ordered his boy to get off and got on himself. But they hadn't gone far when they passed two women, one of whom said to the other, "Shame on that lazy lout to let his poor little son trudge along."

Well, the man didn't know what to do, but at last, he took his boy up before him on the donkey. By this time they had come to the town, and the passersby began to jeer and point at them for overloading the poor donkey. The man and boy got off and tried to think about what to do. By the time they arrived at the market, they were carrying the donkey on their shoulders.

Don't let this covid-19, omicron, and other variants or people keep you from pursuing your dream.

This is the time, 2022, to stay focused on your purpose.

We celebrate you if you were born in January. Your birthday is a perfect occasion to pause, reflect and promise yourself another great year full of adventure. Wishing you a wonderful year ahead!

Have a wonderful month everyone! Stay safe, get vaccinated, or get ready for the booster, stay strong, mask up, and stay healthy.

Eric Thompson

YAJ.

Statements of Encouragement: Tenacity.

 Hello and eku deede iwoyi o! Welcome to December again everybody! I'm so glad you're still here and healthy during this difficult time. Hope this year`s statements have given you a little bit more backbone, more courage to face some of the difficulties that we all are surrounded by at this time especially with the new omicron variant.

Margaret Thatcher said, ‘You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.’ She was a wise leader, and she understood that when we go to war against crisis and adversity, we don't get this victory easily. It doesn't come quick. If we win a battle, that doesn't mean we won the war against this adversity. It just means that there's probably another battle coming and another battle coming after that. You see, crisis tests two things in our life. It tests our tenacity and it tests our persistence. You have to understand it's not easy. It's uphill.

There are no easy wins. Imagine when we thought that the covid-19 was going down and suddenly the outbreak of another that can be contracted even after taking the full Covid-19 vaccine shots. Glad though that it`s not as deadly once you`re fully vaccinated.

A major leader in Israel in the area of military strategy once said Eric, if you're fighting the enemy, and if your advance is going too smoothly, to be honest with you, you're not winning that battle. You've run into a trap.’ In other words, they've just let you have it easy so they could surround you. And I just want you to know almost everything easy in life, whether it's in the military or life itself, is probably a trap. Remember what Margaret Thatcher said is true wisdom. You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.

We celebrate your trip around the sun again if you were born in December. Wishing you a very special birthday and a wonderful year ahead!

 Have a wonderful month everyone! Stay safe, get vaccinated, or get ready for the booster, stay strong, mask up, and stay healthy until we will be able to gather again possibly soon.

Eric Thompson

 YAJ.

Statements of Encouragement: Changes.

 Hello and eku deede iwoyi o!

I was going to write about Change as the topic for the month then I remember that I have written a lot on the topic 2 years back way before the pandemic. Please go back and read again if you have the time because they are just as very useful now.

However, I will add that one of the most distinctive aspects of the traditional worldview that has always assisted Jews to cope with change is the view that humans aren’t ’ merely smart animals but are qualitatively distinct and unique beings. You may know the old childhood guessing game of “ animal, vegetable, or mineral. ” Well, the view is that there is a fourth category to add to that three — human. 

Minerals undergo almost no change through the ages. Marble, for example, is cut from a quarry in Italy and shipped to New York City where it will form the facade of a bank. The years go by, and the marble remains virtually the same as it was. Finally, the building may be demolished, but the marble is preserved to be reused in another building.

 Vegetables don’t last anywhere near as long as minerals. During the existence of, say, a radish, the vegetable changes more than a mineral does, but its changes are minor. It may grow larger, it may become redder, but it is still just a radish. There is only a small quantitative difference between a ripe radish and one that still needs a few more weeks in the ground.

 Animals change far more than vegetables. A newborn puppy dog can be almost irresistibly appealing; yet the same animal a few years later might be a mangy cur, the scourge of the neighborhood. A newborn calf must be nurtured by the farmer until it can take its useful place in the herd. That mature cow is very different from the calf it started out as, but once it is mature, it will change very little in appearance or even in milk production.

Humans are indeed unique. Not only does the appearance of a person continue to change throughout his or her life, but so do experience, character traits, and skills. Few people would like to be judged by the way they were 20 years ago. People change; and for the most part, they would like to think they change for the better.

The only way to prevent change like this pandemic from utterly dominating your life until you are driven to distraction by the absence of any fixed framework of reference is to make sure that your life does possess a fixed and unchangeable framework of reference. Your ability to embrace some changes and to profit from them depends on your ability to staunchly resist other changes too though.

We celebrate with you if you were born in November the only month with NO. We wish you no sickness, no accident, no failure in all areas and no weapon formed against you shall prosper.

Have a wonderful month everyone! Stay safe, get vaccinated, or get ready for the booster, stay strong, mask up, and stay healthy until we will be able to gather again possibly soon.

 Eric Thompson

 YAJ.

Statements of Encouragement: No Surrender.

 Eku deede iwoyi o! Good day everybody!

I've often admired Michael J. Fox. I loved his acting and think he's a wonderful person. He says, ‘One’s dignity may be assaulted, vandalized, and cruelly mocked, but it can never be taken away unless it’s surrendered.’ Now Michael J. Fox has Parkinson's disease. I happened to watch an interview a couple of years ago where Michael was on television and you could see by the movement of his body, that Parkinson's disease was taking some major control over him. To be honest with you, it was a little difficult to watch. But it was also inspiring because even when he was making awkward movements, his words were so positive, so uplifting, so encouraging that I was mesmerized by this man who is going through great physical difficulty and yet was not ready to yield. And so, when he said those words, I thought to myself, probably that happens to him because his difficulty is quite visual. But it's not what happens to you, the assault and the mocker from the outside, the pandemic crisis. It's what happens in you. And Michael J. Fox has learned something that I want to learn myself. But I want to pass it on to you, also. It's not what happens to you. It's what happens in you. Like I`ve posted some time ago, it's your choice. It's my choice. Michael made the choice. Choose not to surrender to the adversity in your life, this pandemic. But as you consistently weather the tough times, you become tougher, or stronger, here's what I know, the tough time you're going through and that I'm going through right now will not last. Let`s keep that positive mental attitude. Keep the motions going in a good way and after this tough time is over, we'll look at each other and smile and I'll just kind of point to you and say, Hey, tough people, we lasted, didn't we? Thank goodness, it seems the COVID is losing its grip as the medical personnel, the scientists have been working hard to get rid of it or as they say, see how we can live with it. Thank you, Michael. You inspire all of us.

We celebrate with you too if you were born in October and we are blessed to have you in the family! 

Have a wonderful month everyone. Stay safe, get vaccinated, stay strong, mask up, and stay healthy until we will be able to gather again possibly soon.

 Eric Thompson

 YAJ.

Statements of Encouragement: Overcoming

 Eku deede iwoyi o! Good day everybody!

Helen Keller said, “Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.”

Helen Keller was a political activist, and was a huge influence for the women's suffrage movement. She was an author, a lecturer. But what I want you to know about Helen Keller is that she was deaf and blind.

Take a look at this story; during a class prank, a student stuck a paper on his classmate's back that said “I`m stupid, and asked the rest of the class not to tell the boy. Thus the students began laughing on and off.

Then came the afternoon math class and their teacher wrote a difficult question on the board. No one was able to answer it except the boy with the sticker.

Amid the unexplained giggles, he walked toward the board and solved the problem.

The teacher asked the class to clap for him and removed the paper on his back.

She told him: "It seems that you didn’t know about the paper your classmate has pasted on your back." Then the teacher looked at the rest of the class and said:

"Before I give you a punishment, let me tell you something:

Throughout your Life, people will put labels on you with many nasty words to stop your progress.“All you have to do in life is ignore the labels people give you and seize every opportunity you have to learn, grow and improve yourself.”

“Had your classmate known about the paper, he wouldn't have gotten up to answer the question.”

“It’s clear that he doesn't have any loyal friend among you all to tell him about the sticker.”

I would encourage you during this difficult time to listen to overcomers. You see all around us, we have people that are being overcome. They're kind of like victims, and then we have overcomers. These are victors. These are people that rose above the difficulties of their situations.

Helen was saying, I’m deaf, I'm blind I have all kinds of reasons not to succeed, not to do well, but I want you to know I've overcome. The fact is, she had a helper who literally taught her through touch.

Who you listen to determines how you respond to this crisis. So I encourage you, find some overcomers and listen to them. What they'll tell you is this: It's dark. It's difficult. It's not easy, but you can overcome, keep going, and keep running your race.

We celebrate you if you were born in September! The world got a little bit better on this day because you were born and we are blessed that we are your friend!

Have a wonderful month everyone. Stay safe, get vaccinated, stay strong, mask up, and stay healthy until we will be able to gather again.

 Eric Thompson

 YAJ.

Statements of Encouragement: Decisions

 Eku deede iwoyi o! Good day everybody!

I will like to encourage you all again this month with another amazing story.

Thank you for the feedback on the previous stories.

First look at this quote on decisions: 

“It is our decisions, not our conditions that determine the quality of our life.”

A businessman said to his employee: I want you to build me a house; here are the plans,

I want you to do it according to this plan! I do not want you to miss anything!

The employee read the chart and was upset because he only had 3 months left until his retirement, he started saying: 3 months on retirement and this guy is giving me a job that will last six months.. ..., I don't really mind, I'll do what I can, it will save me more money!

So the employee began to work and made the pillars of the house without much care, and he also used cheap and low-quality materials for construction, in every building in the house he used materials that did not match the structure, and only worked on the facade to deceive the owner from the outside, and what could be left was left, and that

"To earn” the time he usually needs to do so and leave as quickly as possible.

When the construction was completed, the owner appeared and looked at the house. He was very impressed with its appearance from the outside, so the employee thought that he had deceived the businessman.

The businessman looked at the employee and approached him and said: Take the keys! ...it's your gift! ...for all the years you served me! It’s your home!!!

Wow! That's kind of a turnaround, isn't it? It's our decisions, not our conditions that determine our quality of life.

How do you think this guy felt when he heard this? Unfortunately, he reaped what he sowed because of his decision.

We rejoice with you for another trip around the sun if you were born in August!!! We hope you`ll remember to keep having a good time in this journey we all call life, especially during this trying time.

Have a wonderful month everybody!

Eric O. Thompson

 

PS. Get vaccinated when it gets to your turn because FYI I`ve got mine, it helps.