Change for many people is a difficult task to accomplish because most of us are not clear on how to achieve it or know what exactly we need to change.

When we want to break a habit for instance, all we try to do is make up our minds to stop the habit believing we can. If it’s about starting something new or different we just resolve also to start it thinking it can be possible by just making up our minds subsequently, however, we realise it’s not that easy. It doesn’t really work by just making up minds.

Life is tougher than that and change isn’t really that easy, if not, we won’t have all these issues were dealing with today.

You see, life is a bit complex; there is no vacuum or neutrality in life, you can’t be independent of the forces in life, they’re a stronger and naturally can overwhelm the ordinary man – forcing you to act and do things against your preferred will.

 All you’re inclined to do in this case is to align and flow with the dictate, you can’t control life, and you can only choose to align with directions, instructions, courses and forces either spiritual or temporal.

Let me explain, life in truth exists in extremes and not just opposites, darkness, in reality, is the absence of light and not just the opposite of light. Death is the absence of life and not just the opposite of life. Failure is the absence of success and not just the opposite of success, poverty is the absence of riches not the opposite of riches. Meaning everything in life operates in degrees and extremes not opposites. If you increase light, darkness will diminish, if you increase life, death will diminish, if you increase riches poverty will diminish.

What’s the implication of this you may ask? Simply put, it means if you want to stop doing something you have to start doing what is known as the opposite.  For example, to avoid poverty you don’t stop spending, on the contrary, you start increasing your income. Change does not come by stopping something; it actually comes by starting what may be the opposite of what you don’t want.

Incidentally, life is never constant or regular, it’s extremely dynamic and it keeps changing; no one has control over it, all we need do to rule over situations and circumstances is to keep changing and adapting to new trends, new ways and new developments.

If change as earlier analysed is a function degrees and not really opposites, there is then a need to keep growing, improving and appreciating in degrees rather than diminishing. We must always stay in tune with current trends and developments adding more and more to ourselves in knowledge, skills, ability and capacity.

Many of us today are busy working hard to master a world pattern and global systems that will expire very soon.

We are not improving in preparation for what will happen, we are busy focusing and mastering business and career versions that is about to expire.

Many of us today are struggling and troubled because we were not effectively prepared for this future, the generation that raised us did a job that could make us fit well into their own experience and not for our own kind of experience and future.

Worse still they prepared us excessively for trouble, challenges and negative developments and rarely taught us how to handle success, prosperity, leadership, high position and riches,  hence, the reason for such gross mismanagement and self-centered orientation.

Let me illustrate, when I was a child in primary school my mother travelled overseas for further studies and was away for a long while, during her absence my grandmother came to cater for me and my siblings and my experience is something I’ll never forget.

My grandmother took us through some interesting experiences and training I remember so well it seems like yesterday. For example, she banned us from using the blender and insisted we use the grinding stone to grind pepper, in her opinion, she was preparing us for a time when there won’t be electricity or if we find ourselves in a community where there is no electricity.

So she forced my sister and I to always use the grinding stone to blend pepper instead of the blender – a painful experience having pepper all over our bodies and eyes at times; very painful, we were just kids, less than 10. Now in the future, she was supposedly preparing us for, I can’t remember the last time I set my eyes on a grinding stone apparently that lesson was irrelevant.

My grandmother would also insist then, that we take our baths with cold water in preparation for boarding secondary school, according to her, no one would boil bathing water for us in boarding school so, we should start learning how to take our baths with cold water. I can’t forget those very cold harmattan mornings in Kaduna, and there I was, having a cold bath at 6 am in preparation for a boarding secondary school I never went to eventually. It was unnecessary. We were just playing with pneumonia.

Many of us were raised with rules and values that are not so productive or no longer useful and relevant today. Many were raised with fear and suggestions on how to handle poverty, lack, failure, disappointment, heartbreaks, treachery and insufficiency.

We were raised to be fearful, over rate money, selfish, greedy and have a servitude mentality. We were trained and raised to see our language, dressing, culture, and lifestyle as inferior to that of the western and eastern world, hence our language is called vernacular and when we speak it, we get punished, our traditional dressing is not formal, our food is inferior and unhealthy we are told we are generally less in ability and thinking compared to the outside world.

Growing up the emphasis was more on respect and morals, sit properly as a lady, if a boy should touch you you’ll get pregnant, button-up as a boy be handy as well, learn to cook, to sweep, to clean, to buy things from the market, to take care of your things, to show respect to adults, to work hard, study hard, get a good job and you’re fine.

Most of us were not taught to dream, to have a vision, to work towards dreams, to work as a team, to accept criticism, to learn from mistakes, to handle rejection, to handle positions and titles, to manage people and accomplish great visions. I don’t think any girl was prepared and taught how to handle the position of a first lady, or the office of an MD, or function well as a senator, as governor or even the president! All the teaching the girls got was more about the kitchen, the home, the husband, managing in-laws and family support. Unfortunately, what you don’t receive you don’t have, what you don’t have you can’t give and what you lack you can’t manifest.

I submit most parents were sincerely wrong preparing us for a future that will no longer exist –their thinking was limited to their own kind of adult life. Truth is, it’s not really their fault, they were also not conscious of the fact that by the time we become grown like them, the world in system and trend would have changed this much.

Grinding stone is no longer relevant, learning to bath with cold water in harmattan is now child abuse, typing and shorthand is no longer so relevant, scientific calculator is no longer that common and visiting a physical library to carryout research for assignments and projects is not that common anymore.

What’s the lesson here if I may ask? It’s simply for you to correct the mistakes your parents probably made, if they didn’t see this future, you should look around and tune in to this frequency of change and dynamism.

Many of us today are so comfortable with our career and intellectual comfort zone. If we’re not careful we would become out of tune with the trend.

I think wisdom today is for you to develop and show interest in the driving force of the future; This is the information age and anything that facilitates this trend should interest you.

It’s not about what you like or what appeals to you; it’s more of what you need to remain relevant.

Take on the cyber world today and understand its power, relevance and opportunities. It’s no longer letters, telegrams, telex and fax, its emails, chat rooms, video conferencing, you tubes, skype and mobile communication.

It’s about communication devices, GSMs, I pads, Tabs, applications and virtual offices. It’s about Microsoft word, Powerpoint, excel, Corel draw and the likes for example.

This is not about being geeky or tetchy; you need this to still be truly relevant and functional in Nigeria. Do you understand mobile money or cashless society in its entirety? What’s the implication for your life and finances?

Dear friend, stay in tune or you’ll be out of touch sooner than you think. Stay in tune.

Enjoy your day.