"THE COMPANY YOU KEEP” - ANONYMOUS

It Is Better To Be Alone, Than In The Wrong Company

Tell me who your best friends are, and I will tell you who you are. If you run with wolves, you will learn how to howl. But, if you associate with eagles, you will learn how to soar to great heights. “A mirror reflects a man’s face, but what he is really like is shown by the kind of friends he chooses.” The simple but true fact of life is that you become like those with whom you closely associate – for the good and the bad.

The less you associate with some people, the more your life will improve. Any time you tolerate mediocrity in others, it increases your mediocrity. An important attribute in successful people is their impatience with negative thinking and negative acting people. As you grow, your associates will change. Some of your friends will not want you to go on. They will want you to stay where they are. Friends that don’t help you climb will want you to crawl. Your friends will stretch your vision or choke your dream. Those that don’t increase you will eventually decrease you. Consider this:

· Never receive counsel from unproductive people.
· Never discuss your problems with someone incapable of contributing to the solution, because those who never succeed themselves are always first to tell you how. Not everyone has a right to speak into your life. You are certain to get the worst of the bargain when you exchange ideas with the wrong person.
· Don’t follow anyone who’s not going anywhere. With some people you spend an evening: with others you invest it.
· Be careful where you stop to inquire for directions along the road of life.
· Wise is the person who fortifies his life with the right friendships.

Happy moments? Praise God
Difficult moments? Seek God
Quiet moments? Worship God
Painful moments? Trust God
Every moment? Thank God
If you see people without a smile today … Give them one of yours

I thought this was such good advice. We know this but fail to act upon it in our daily lives. Part of my New Year resolution is to always leave behind those that pull me back, not that I have many. But there are also those who you try hard to drag along with you, like a coach you try to make them keep up but really what you need to do is to let them keep to their own pace. Its always hard to let go, but you might be preventing yourself from moving ahead and not just physically or academically or financially but emotionally as well.

Bloggyy bloggggg! Its been so long. The Christmas festivities and fun completely messed up my routine. Blogging was the last thing on my mind. SO what happened since I last blogged? A lot!

I had a blast as usual. The office closed officially on the 22nd of December and I didn’t come back to work (well properly) till the 12th of January. There were just so many holidays including Sallah and Malaria! One was fun the other wasn’t. There were several ‘do’s’, I’ll give u some highlights

Beach Party: Woke up early and met up with friends at the boat club where we got on a boat with our hearts in our mouths and traveled for about 30 minutes to a little private beach somewhere just outside Lagos. Had fun, swam, drank, ate, socialized etc etc. The real ordeal was on the way back. These crazy ass boat men decided that although the journey would be paid for, the wanted their payment upfront. They therefore promptly stopped the engine and told us to either pay N1000 each (note that we were 15) OR bob around in the middle of the ocean which I was happy to do as they would be bobbing too but alas as I mentioned we were 15 so there had to be some janded/yankee scardey pants shouting ‘what’s N1000 to you anywayyyy’ like they had never had a Nigerian accent, probably a strong one at that. The point was that….U DON’T LET THESE THIEVES WALK ALL OVER YOU!!! Dumb asses, all of them. So we ended up paying, then the thieves smiled and started the engine and I was alarmed at the injustice of it all. Scrap the final part of the day and I had fun.

Foo’s bday: We danced till six in the morning at Tanjia’s, the latest craze. Started off with dinner and then as was written on the Menu of a 50 yrs old Bash, another ‘do’ I attended, ‘Dance, dance, dance’! Oh my, didn’t we have fun that night. We even went to the Vault, another club, midway through the party and then returned. Talk about dancing spirit.

Lunch/Dinner: Step’s bday at Debonairs, a new pizza place, lunch with the girls at Yellow Chili’s, a Nigerian eatery (how I hate that word!), good bye family dinner held for my brother at Pearl Gardens (he didn’t come cos he didn’t ‘feel’ like it, *^&%*$&&%, so we changed the occasion to plain old family dinner), Barcellos, Roberts Café….the list endless. Any weight I could have put on was lost cos of the malaria attack…silver lining….

Sallah: Celebrated the first day of Sallah at Baby’s place. Scrumptious food including a variation of baby’s specialty..Gizzard and Dodo which turned out to be goat meat and dodo. wasn’t the sammmeeeee, I look forward to the next time we have that. Second day of sallah, after being semi-stood up at silverbird, I ran to the ever loving arms of my girlfriends! We ended up spending the second night of sallah arguing with a bunch of guys, trying to convince them that all girls weren’t actually Gold Diggers, but we wouldn’t date a guy who works at a cyber café…WITH NO AMBITION..there’s the clause. I mean if this dude had plans to move up and I was feeling him….it could work. But on the other hand if the guy had all the money in the world and spent all day playing playstation…We wouldn’t date him either…these guys would just not believe us. We went home with sore throats!

So all in all the break was gggggreeaat! Lagos is back to being clogged up and busy and the foreigners have left making it seem like the past few weeks never happened. My phone is ringing off the hook (vendors, not friends), there is mad traffic (if ur lucky you won't get mugged) and a work related email just came in. SIGHHHHHH