Going down memory lane, I am forced to ponder on the famous words of the great human right activist, Martin Luther King Jr.; the need to throw more light on this saying has made it binding on me to elucidate explicitly the true intentions and sincere motives of the late icon when he said; “Injustice
Category: Adult
You have to understand
The young princess cried out in delight: “What a beautiful boy!” Her morning walk to the Nile River, where she takes her daily bathe, has turned into enchantment and she knew that life as she knows it, will by no means be the same again. Never in her life had her eyes seen such a
Making a Conversation Meaningless
“Most people don’t listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.” – Stephen R. Covey People ‘listen’ with the aim of replying instead of understanding. Sometimes they may want to cut the conversation short, so they make it look like they understand so they can move on; they say ‘no, yeah, I totally get it.’ Bullshit. Firstly, it’s not
Dispelling the Self-absorption Myth: Purpose in Listening
“Most people don’t listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.” A few days ago, my colleague and I were discussing “dead” languages. I was nodding along, almost furiously, excited to broach the sort of topic that comes up maybe once a decade. He was obviously well-read and quick to
Would you listen?
If there is one skill that is seen as an essential regardless of time and trend, many would have proposed the art of speaking. It is true in the sense that your daily life starts with a “Good morning” and ends with a “Goodnight”. The ability to initiate, express, and maintain your conversation in a
“Home is where the heart is” : The Worst of Heartbreaks
“you have to understand, that no one puts their children in a boat unless the water is safer than the land” Poetry: a multifaceted feat used to give human thought a body. With this vessel, it can transcend geographical borders and travel the world. Words have the power to be uniquely interpreted based on personal
Most people don’t listen with an intent to understand, they listen with an intent to reply.” Stephen Covey. Do you agree?
I agree. It doesn’t matter whether people listen or not. That is because, end of the day, they already have a response ready. And why is that? Because long before people start to communicate, the purpose of communication has already been determined. Let’s start from the start. When we are going for an interview, we
Conversing Minds
Conversation is usually a form of communication where we express our minds to others. The conversation goes on interestingly, if there is a mutual understanding of each other’s words. I am not talking about the conversation that is done to discuss the experiences of any scientific study or an experiment or any historical event or
My Mother’s Story
There are over seven billion people on this planet today. Logically, I do not think anyone would want to disregard education. As Victor Hugo rightly said, “he who opens a school door closes a prison”. There are two keywords in this statement that I need to explain before moving on – “school” and “prison”. What
He who opens a school door closes a prison door – Victor Hugo
It was a cold and unusual Wednesday morning, some robbers had just been caught, several witnesses gathered round to watch the law enforcement agency ruthlessly drag five able bodied men whose hands have been held together by handcuffs into the police vehicle. I could not but look at the sober faces of these young men
Education: The Key Behind Morality
Crime is rising by the day. There are a lot of people who find their way into prisons in many countries. This sad scenario, especially in Third World Africa, has wrecked havoc as more and more funds and resources are channelled towards finding ways to combat crime. Many societies end up wasting valuable resources in
The Erudite Community
“He, who opens a school door, closes a prison.” – Victor Hugo. “Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt. The maxim “He, who opens a school door, closes a prison,” exemplifies the role of education in human development. Rather than contribute to existing debates, I
Defies for a Dependable Listener
It was 11:00 am, when I was pilling up the assertion of the activity report for the given month. Abruptly, the phone rang and I picked it up while compiling my work, but, the punitive though known voice bothered me to end up everything and heed to the unceasing nitpicking query that comes from the
He who opens a school door, closes a prison
When I first looked at this statement I pondered for a moment. Does this mean if you go to school, you stay out of prison? Or if you’re in prison but look at it as a place to learn it is no longer a prison? Does it mean that education unlocks the gates of your
Why Trees Roar
If a tree falls in the woods, and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? Of course it does. The tree doesn’t require someone to hear it for it to make a sound. So why do we…? If you pay attention to your thought process when you’re listening to someone,
It’s Awfully Crowded in the Middle
With the rise of social media, chatbots, artificial intelligence and the media coverage around it all, the spotlight remains on the squeaky wheel which gets the grease. The quiet contributor in the corner, the child who seeks to share, and the person who has learned to pay it forward; these are the listeners. These are
The interview
‘‘Wow! It’s a pleasure, you could take out time to be here tonight’’ Michael the white American CNN host smiled at his guest. ‘‘ Thank you’’ his guest smiled back at him and continued in an enlightened Hausa accent ‘‘it is an honour to be here and indeed to be chosen as the outstanding person
Warshan Shire’s “Home” and the beautiful desperate: A welcome to refugees
The sky was weeping twilight and sunrise the day Amani and I became friends; we built this friendship on sweet biscuits and time spent waiting for her mama and my papa and all the other Somali refugees in upper rooms. We were too young and unaware to know that, above us, asylum-seekers were slowly becoming
Understanding Crime – He who opens a school door, closes a prison door
Education is one of the fundamental human rights and it plays a pivotal role in one’s life. It is the mirror in which life is seen in its perfect sense. Most of societal evils stem from lack of or failure to educate people. It is perturbing and boggling how many reports of violent incidents are
Oblivion Is The Safest Place Of All
The world is a decidedly unsafe place. The decision to procreate, whether people want to acknowledge it or not, is a game of Russian roulette. The extract from Warsan Shire’s poem is nuanced and undoubtedly has merit, particularly when the context is considered. But I also believe that these poetic lines, and the message conveyed