“It is good people who make good places.” Anna Sewell
#Most people are inherently good.
a cooking pot and twisted tales
Thoughts and Tales…A Lifestyle Blog with a Zing.
‘Be wise,’ this caution repeats in my head so many times in a day, sometimes as early as when I rise up in the morning, that I am beginning to question myself to find out where my foolishness lies and why the caution keeps popping into my head.
How I wish the repetitive caution ‘be wise,’ jangled hard with cymbals and
vuvuzela when I am about to help myself to a second slice of pie or cheesecake.
I have no problem with being wise after all, that’s what aging is meant to bring, even though I am beginning to question some older people’s sense of reasoning these days.
Some of them seem to have sold their sense for two cents that common sense is becoming less common in the quarters where you expect to see it.
Be wary of slick-tongued politicians. They make promises that they can’t keep. All their bluster is simply empty air. I guess a nation can’t live without leaders to direct their affairs, but the current state of affairs of my dear country Nigeria makes me wonder what those old men garbed as politicians are doing in there?
They are selling the nation short and robbing it blind. Could they just be honest for once in their lives?
I guess not. It’s simply not in their best interest to be pillars of honesty, otherwise, they can’t become thieves.
Besides Nigerian economic and political woes, these days, I have become more cautious with listening to news that simply raises my angst.
I have basically whittled it down to the barest minimum. I barely bother to listen to CNN anymore because all I get to hear is American political brouhaha and we have till November to suffer through such news, not that they used to show better things in the first place
Anyway, before I become dour and boring, let me heed to my inner voice of be wise and save myself some foolishness.
This weekend, I am going to be absolutely and decadently lazy. I am going to be doing some ‘me introspective time’ and generally chilling with my brood.
Life is certainly beautiful and as Linda’s prompt suggests, I am just going to ‘be’ing and not doing.
© Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha
It takes such men like those in the photo below, to create beautiful landscapes that we admire.
Landscape, The Daily Post Photo Prompt.
“When you stop expecting people to be perfect, you can like them for who they are.” Donald Miller
None of us is perfect, all are found wanting, we are in it together – Jacqueline.
“Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.” Carl Sagan
Ever since I made up my mind to let go of dwelling on non-essentials that didn’t further my existence and probably only contributed to making a miserable day, I found more peace.
Ever since I chose to make conscious, deliberate efforts to apply positive affirmations and frame of mind to my days, it only got better.
Yes, it is possible to live a purpose-driven life.
Yes, happiness is a deliberate choice.
Yes, each day can be as best as we can make it all things being equal.
Of course there are things that are out of our control, like nature and other people’s actions, but we run our own workshop of our minds and home.
Indeed, there are days that are a bit off, but, I’ve observed that once you get into the habit of positive thoughts and living, such moods and days barely last because your mind fights to switch to the frame that works best for it.
Your days are as good as you make them. Be happy not by trying to convince others, but by being yourself and the best that you can be.
© Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha
The Photo 101 course is drawing to a close this weekend. Phew! It’s been fun, but hectic too.
Well, today’s theme is to ‘double and rotate’ so I serve you my takes below.
Regards,
Jacqueline
On Thursday’s, I share pictures about ‘Echos of my Neighbourhood.
I would like to invite you to participate. The challenge is quite simple.
Every Thursday, share a photo of bits and pieces of wherever you are at any point in time. It could be houses, backgrounds of your neighbourhood, activities and so forth and you can tag it Echos of my Neighbourhood, add my link to your post so that I will get the ping from your post.
Every other Thursday, I will publish a post with the links of all those who participated the previous week.
This is just a fun way of getting to see more of the World around us through your eyes since we cannot all be at those places, we could at least, see them through you.
The beauty of Burj at night as we drive by.
This week’s echoes is a mix of several faces and places. From shopping for groceries to going with my bloke and the boys to get a haircut where yours truly spent some time being more observant than usual to the business of manly grooming.
I saw men threading their eyebrows to make it look less bushy. Lot’s of scalp shaving with a scary blade, massaging, barbing, shampooing and rubbing of scalps. Interesting outing I must say 😉
With the children on Spring break, a bit more leisure time so taking them to the cinema and some skating play time was involved.
Thanks to Kat, I got the idea to include a video of real echoes of my neighbourhood, which I will do from time to time. This was fun to do. We drove and I stuck the camera up to catch a one minute video.
Please watch and let me know what you think.
Thank you 🙂
© Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha
Last Week Echoes gave us some peeks of different neighbourhoods, hop on let’s go see and we will be glad to see some of yours
Dr Meg Sorick’s A warm welcome to Meg. Meg shows us beautiful photos of her world and her good looking bloke. Please go over and say hello. She also offers visitors a tall glass of something good to drink 😉
Mind and life matters A warm welcome to Rashmi. I am loving our neighbours in echoes and Rashmi shows us beautiful snippets of so much love in her photos and the cutest tortoise ever.
Spring Lady Lee’s photos bursts in colours and interesting garden friends to keep artful.
Peregrine – Falcons of Norwich Kim shows us a poetic glimpse of the fastest flying raptor bird in the World.
Crossing the Brooklyn bridge I am not sure you’ve seen this detailed shots of the Brooklyn bridge. Well, I haven’t. Thank you Jazzy Tower.
A flowering evening pretty pictures that goes with sweet meats too 🙂
Cubicles of Individuality I totally enjoyed looking at this and I bet you would. Maybe you can tell which category you belong in.
How sweet life is Ralph When you go to Bus Terminal located at 42nd Street and Eighth Avenue, keep your eyes open, there’s a lot to see.
Thank you to all Echoes’ contributors. I am learning a whole lot from this challenge as well as having fun with it.
It would lovely to have you join us. Regards
‘Irrespective of RACE, RELIGION and GEOGRAPHIC location, under the layers of our skin, lies the same human.’ ©Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha