‘Seun Tegbe: In 2016, Make Your Own Green the Greener Pasture

Hello BNers.. Happy New Year to you. I wish you a WOW and memorable 2016. I’ve been really neck deep in work these past few weeks that I almost forgot my commitments to BellaNaija. I know nobody cares, but I just wanted to get that out there.

One particular prayer I’ve been saying for most of my friends in reply to all the new year wishes I’ve gotten is that ‘Your effort will be greatly rewarded in 2016’. I’m not sure how many of my friends did think about the prayer before saying Amen – at least not the same way I thought about it. I’m not throwing out meaningless sweet words just for the sake of the season. I sincerely hope that everyone who will make an effort to do something worthwhile and positive this year will be rewarded. I’m a big fan of effort and it is all I talk about. I won’t repeat all my previous rants on effort here right now but you can check it out on my blog

I’m sure by now some of you have made your New Year resolutions of what to do and what not to do, and some of you might have even broken such resolutions already. The New Year, new me kind of BS. As much as I’m not against well thought resolutions and meaningful determinations, I’m not one to make resolutions. I don’t really get all the fuss about the calendar cycle starting again. Every year we make a big deal out of the 1st of January and how the New Year is going to be a year of breakthrough, success, ‘bountiful harvest’ like in the church I attended on the 31st of December and a whole lot of other sweet-sounding phrases. As nice as they all seem, I see them as wishful thinking if no effort is made to better every day. I rate effort a lot and I’m sure so do you. Sometimes the effort counts for me more than the result.

Since I’m not a resolution person I haven’t made any New Year Resolutions. I explained why about this time 2 years ago. Check out the article here
But I do have a few things I want to say that I think might mean something or be of help to someone in 2016 and beyond.

1. Make a conscious effort to differentiate your talent from your passion in 2016. Sometimes you might need to pursue one, and let the other go, or at least, pursue them with various levels of ferocity. I’ll expand on that. I love medicine, medicine is my passion but not my talent. Medicine is what I want, what I chose. My talents are writing and music. Music I’ve had to let go, writing I still pursue and so far it’s been working well. Your talent and passion might be the same it’s not impossible, but in case they are not you’ll have to decide what you want to do. You shouldn’t be trying to be a medical doctor, musician, and model all at the same time. Focus your energy one or two talents on passion, and you’ll stand a better chance at succeeding. When I was young I used to be very good at typing and handling computers generally, at least for my age, and many adults always told me how I should study computer science when I grow up. That I worked computers didn’t mean I had the math skills to study computer science. It was neither my passion nor my talent. It was just something I did, and did well.

2. Quit postponing your life or putting off your life till tomorrow. Very often it happens when young people set a goal to graduate university at a particular age, get a certain job at a certain age, buy a car, marry, and so on. Everything has a date. Well… life doesn’t work with calendars. You have to start living for today. I don’t mean you shouldn’t plan for the future, I mean there are experiences and skills that are vital for tomorrow that you will miss if you totally neglect today, and only plan to start living at a particular date or age. Get out there, mingle, take classes, learn vocations, and work every day on improving yourself… The future you will be grateful

3. Still on talent. It is no secret that the Nigerian educational system is deeply flawed, and it is not one that gives room for talents to be groomed and modeled. Children are taught the same skills, in the same way, irrespective of the huge talent difference that exists between them. And it doesn’t end there; they grow up and universities and colleges give them what to study, and those courses are mostly limited to a few abstract courses. You applied for medicine and you get botany, plant science, earth science or any other sweet name used to disguise farming. Ok..I’m kidding, I know earth science is much more than farming, you also study worms and types of soils.. But I digress

I’ve been greatly encouraged by former colleagues and friends I know that have mastered different arts outside of whatever the education system told them to study, especially the badass pastry chefs and pencil artists. They didn’t start big, but they started somewhere… They didn’t allow the statistics or mass communication they studied to fool them either. I hope you get my point, I’m not saying you shouldn’t go to school, I’m saying see the bigger picture.

4. While I was searching my brain for what to write for BN, I stumbled on a draft I wrote over six months ago but for some reason I didn’t develop… I decided to develop it, but my brain had other ideas. Well here is the raw draft:

The grass is not always greener on the other side
It might seem green or even be green but it might also be synthetic
Or maybe the other man just waters his lawn every day
Mowing and watering it like his life depends on it
Because his life does depends on it. What you see is what you think
But you can’t always look at the green grass on the other side
You’ve got to plant your own grass, tend and water it regularly and hope some toxic animal doesn’t pee on it
Everyman to his own garden, lawn, and terrace
The pasture seen is the pasture green
Make your own green the greener pasture

I sincerely do wish you a WOW and memorable 2016. Don’t forget, it’s the effort that counts. Make the effort, and I do pray it’ll be greatly rewarded.

Once again, Happy New Year to you. Stay healthy and stay safe. God bless.

Photo Credit: Dreamstime