The problem though, is that this is not like a rule or law in my country- I just decided, probably based on my own assessment of wobbly arms vs. toned arms, that wobbly arms should be hidden away from sight! Well today, I decided to come out of the closet! And would you believe it? No one looked at me like I was a two-headed monster or something! I’m not quite sure what I was expecting but no one gave me as much as a second glance and even better I really felt great! For some inexplicable reason, I had to strain to see the stretch marks and my arms appear firmer!
Today, I also wore my natural unpermed hair out in broad daylight (ok, I felt a little frumpy). Still, I did something I’d been dreading/anticipating- you see, I’ve always considered women who flaunt their natural hair a special kind of bold, they must be to shun the protective elegance that a weave/braid provides the average Nigerian woman. Until I read an article (I think it was on Lagos mums) that made me think again. According to the article, the writer, a Nigerian returnee wondered what we communicate to our children when we say (by our actions) that unless a woman hides her natural hair in weaves/braids,she was not beautiful. She wasn’t even talking about natural unpermed hair! Just her own hair: Permed or unpermed!
Luckily, that day I was out on a group (mostly female) visit to motherless babies home so I counted- 22 women on board: 20 braids/ or weave, 2 permed hair! A whopping 91%! I've kept this crazy count on since then and I am yet to find a situation where the count for natural hair exceeds 65%! This woman was on to something! Did I mention that I also exercised for 1 hour Today?
What’s so special about today? I’m not exactly sure but somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, I decided that I was tired of the old me! Sure, there are great sides to me but I am majorly lagging on all areas of my goals- rather than loose weight, I’ve put some on! I dropped out of my Ph D. Programme, got sacked , started my own business (didn’t exactly like it!), started another even less satisfying job (got sacked again). I was beginning to feel like the poster child for failure and feeling the depression that comes with all that junky thinking when just randomly listening to one of my audio books I noticed: Thomas Edison, Walt Disney, Madonna, Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank (Home Depot), J.K Rowlings (famous for the Harry Potter Series) and Oprah Winfrey.What do all these people have in common? They’ve all been fired! Yep! Someone, typically more powerful/rich considered them underpar! Guess what? At the time of their assessment, this might have been the case! But not today!
I don’t know about you but sometimes just thinking about the distance between my dreams for Africa and today’s reality it’s enough to just throw my hands up in the air and give up! Same too with some personal goals, but then that’s the easy thing to do another often unconsidered option is RECREATION. Brian Tracy is very famous for his saying: "To achieve something you've never achieved before, you must become someone you've never been before"- So here goes, my purposeful attempt at personal and African recreation.
Please Welcome: Africa my Africa, the one stop mindful blogspot for Africans, Africans in diaspora and all things African. Starting with Nigeria (honest, it’s a simple numerical consideration). This is a community for MINDFUL conversations & actions, research, business, career, entrepreneurship, fashion, Religion, politics, education, music, opportunity and more. Using the power of technology, we’ll learn & practice how to make our personal and national lives truly worth living. I’m excited about the day’s ahead, are you?
References
http://www.businessinsider.com/17-people-who-were-fired-before-they-became-rich-and-famous-2012-3?op=1#ixzz3fyl2Ev8a .
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Spot on! Ada. I am a firm believer in the gospel of Recreating oneself,and being totally african(still working on that seriously).Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteThanks Oba, I was beginning to wonder if the comments section worked, LOL!!
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