Just Sharing My Thoughts

Sometimes you prepare a nice meal and you don’t even know how nice it is until people taste it and give you comments about it. That’s the way writing a book is. People who write very well would tell you that writing a book is like preparing a meal. You must make it delicious if you want people to enjoy it. And that would include all the ingredients and recipe that would make the food (which is now a book) taste great. I count myself worthy and humble to share my ideas, knowledge and understanding of critical issues in the world which many people are unclear about. I put my time into understanding any subject matter and distil the right knowledge into people’s minds, knowing fully well that information into your mind is like food into your body. 

If you eat wrong food, it can cause problem in your body. Also, if you digest wrong information, it can cause problem in your life. So, I make sure I take out all the bullshit and leave alone what is relevant and would be beneficial to people’s lives in my write ups. Truthfully, we grow in knowledge and there’s no time in history that anyone has become an island of knowledge. We all learn and grow everyday. And things keep changing from time to time and moment to moment. That being said, it doesn’t affect the fundamental truths. Truths don’t change, even though every other thing does. There’s no update that can outdate the truth. The reason being that truth exists outside time. 

As a matter of fact, the only factor that tests the validity of truth is time. So, the more the time passes, the more the truth is unveiled, not changed. Time cannot change the truth, it would rather unveil it more. Perhaps, you might have experienced that for yourself. Some things that you didn’t know when you’re younger, you know them now. Probably, not because somebody told you, but because you’ve grown enough with the help of time to understand that. Time has revealed the truth to you. And the same thing happens with what we do. You may not be clear about some things going on now. Give it some time. The truth would come out. No one can hide the truth and no one can defend the truth. By that I mean, you can’t fight for the truth. You can only fight for yourself, thinking you are fighting for the truth. Because truth is already justified. No one fights for it. 

One important thing you also want to know about the truth is that time will reveal the truth about yourself. If there are some things that you don’t know about yourself now, give it time, you’ll know them. What about some people who are pretending to you now? give it time, you’ll know them better. That’s why you don’t want to rush into any relationship. If and only if we would allow time to unveil the truth, we would struggle less and not be bothered by anything. If you are doing the right or wrong thing now, the truth would tell with time. Truth works with time. And time reveals the truth. I encourage you to leverage on this power of nature; this omnipotent force of truth that would always manifest itself and reveal things to the world. It would unveil you to the world. You don’t need to struggle to make yourself known. You don’t need to shout and make noise to get things done. The truth with time would do all that for you and you’ll surely have a good story to share. Do check my other articles on this blog. I salute you!

21 Benefits of Sleep

How many hours do you sleep every night? Do you think that affects your health and productivity in a day, whether you do it more or less? Read on to learn important benefits of sleep. We all know sleep is vital for our health and it’s what we cannot do without. As a matter of fact, an average person cannot go beyond 11 consecutive days of no sleep. Just by the end of fourth day, the person is already hallucinating and the brain is about to shut down. But why is sleep that important? We would know from what it does to our health and body. Sleep has health, emotional, physical and mental benefits to us. Here are 21 of them. 

1. Sleep improves wakefulness and alertness: Good sleeping time would mean good waking time. If you sleep well, you will wake up well and be at alert. This is important for everything that you do when you are awake. 

2. Sleep reduces stress and anxiety: When you sleep, the stress hormones levels in the body come down and that makes stress and anxiety to be reduced while awake. 

3. Sleep fights depression and improves happiness: When you have time to sleep, you don’t have time to think negative thoughts. When you are awake, the heavy weight of negative thoughts is lessened and you can think of better ways of to solve any problem you go through and becoming happier. 

4. Sleep decreases recklessness and impulsivity: Getting enough sleep for the day keeps you calm. You are not impulsive and grumpy. Your emotions are poised and balanced. 

5. Sleep increases productivity: For sure, this is one thing that is certain. The better you sleep, the better you’re productive. When you improve the quality of your sleep, you will improve the quality of your life. You’ll have strength and agility. 

6. Sleep improves communication: It’s difficult to communicate with someone who’s short of sleep, feeling drowsy and tired. But when you have enough time to sleep, your brain and circulatory system are working at optimal level. 

7. Sleep improves memory and learning: If you wonder how you learn that language, or how you learn how to ride a bicycle, it is because of sleep. While you sleep, your daily activities and practice are perfected and memories are consolidated. That’s why sometimes, when you are learning something new, you dream about it. The dream is an evidence of how sleep improves your memory and learning. 

8. Sleep causes better reaction time: Your reaction time is measured by how responsive you are to instant situations. It also indicates how fast and well you can take action in emergency situations. Sleep improves your reaction time and keeps you ready for emergencies. 

9. Sleep causes better decision making: When you sleep well, you will think well. You will get from your memory all the thoughts and information needed to make the right decision. 

10. Sleep makes one physically fit; You’re physically fit when you sleep well. You’re able to stretch your legs and arms, and move your body as you roll over your bed, and stand to your feet. 

11. Sleep flourishes the skin: Sleep keeps your skin fresh and warm. The wounded parts also get healed while you sleep. 

12. Sleep builds the muscle: Your muscles receive adequate nutrients and oxygen when you sleep. And that makes them grow and healthy. 

13. Sleep makes the body grow; Sleep increases the level of growth hormone in the body. Growth hormone causes bone growth and cell division all over the body. 

14. Sleep regulates the body weight: When you sleep, your body metabolizes the nutrients that you get from food and use it for energy. This balances the body weight and makes you stay off food. 

15. Sleep boosts sex drive: While you have good sleep at night, just before you wake up, there’s a surge in testosterone secretion in your body which causes morning erection (morning wood) that is seen in men. This increases your sex drive and makes you enjoy morning sex with your spouse. 

16. Sleep boosts the body immunity: Studies have shown that sleep boosts the body’s immune system. There’s increased level of activity of the immune cells, secretion of antibodies and fight against foreign agents, during sleep. 

17. Sleep reduces diabetes: There’s low level of insulin secretion during sleep which causes the blood glucose level to be regulated and prevent diabetes. 

18. Sleep reduces or stop migraines and headaches: there’s increased blood flow to the brain during sleep which reduces the amount of waste products and chemical substances that cause pain in the brain. And also reduces the tension between the blood vessel walls. 

19. Sleep improves heart health: The blood pressure, heart rate and other hemodynamic parameters are regulated during sleep and the heart pumps out blood well. 

20. Sleep fights cancer: There’s deactivation and suppression of cancerous cells during sleep by the immune cells. While some body systems are less active during sleep, systems like immune system are very active during sleep and fish out all the foreign and abnormal agents in the body. 

21. Sleep reduces accidents: As humans sleep one-third to one-quarter of their lifespan, that reduces the tendency of being on the road most of the time, which makes accidents less certain to occur. Perhaps, the more you sleep, the less you face risks and have accidents. 

In conclusion, while you don’t want to oversleep, you also don’t want to undersleep, because none is good for the body. If you sleep too much, you may be tired, fatigue and feel exhausted. If you sleep too little, you may also feel tired, grumpy and narcoleptic. Normal level is just right. Depending on your age, sex, physique and other factors, that would determine how much sleep you would need. But on average, between 6-8 hours is good for adults and 7-9 hours is good for children.

The Means of Money

The subject of money is a familiar one. And money, as simple as it sounds, has different meanings to different people, especially with their perceptions and mindsets. However, apart from the general knowledge about money and how it's used, including- buying food in the market, paying bills, buying luxuries, and purchasing investments, there are couple of other things that must be understood about money, especially in practical aspect. The origin of money made us to understand that money is a medium of exchange as well as a means. In other words, it is an item that is used to get things done. If you want to communicate with people at distance, you need a phone. To get a phone, you need money. So, to achieve the end which is communication, you need money which is a means to get a phone. Consider another scenario, if you want to become a doctor or an engineer. You need to go to school. To go to school, you need to pay school fees. So, to achieve the end which is becoming a doctor or an engineer, you need money. 

In all of the transactions that we’ve made with money, one thing is exemplified, means. Money is a means. Now, let’s consider another perspective to this phrase, the means of money. What is the means of money? Let’s define what a means is. A means is something that acts to produce a particular effect or achieve an end. So, when we talk about the means of money, we’re talking about how we use money to get things done. This gives a broader perspective to how money is used and can be used to achieve our goals. You would be shocked that up until now, we’ve still not known all that money can do for us. Apart from the common functions of money that I mentioned earlier, there are still more about money. 

The means of money make us understand the inherent power money has to get things done. This may not be all things, but at least, most things. And in fact, money does influence all things. The first means of money is to satisfy our desires. Every one of us has desires. And we always crave for our desires to be achieved. Money is a means to satisfy our desires. If you’ve been longing to buy that nice dress, or go for that beautiful vacation, or give some helping hand to people who are in need, here is the means of getting those things done- money. Money satisfies your desires. People who have money are happy, because they know, it satisfies their desires. Having our desires satisfied is one of the things that makes us happy in life. Have you noticed the times when your desires were satisfied how you felt? I’m sure that’s the feeling you would always want to have. So, people who say money doesn’t make you happy are just giving excuse for not having money. Because there’s a happiness you feel when you have money, not to talk of when you use it, and then, in the right way. Money would make you happy a million times. Someone said if money doesn’t make you happy, you can try poverty. But we know one is better than the other. And one makes you happier than the other. 

The second means of money is that it makes you fulfill your dreams and purpose. Do you know how many people who have died unfulfilled? Do you know how many dreams and visions that have been buried inside the grave? A lot of people don’t think in the direction of using money to fulfill their purpose. Yes, they can have some goals and objectives, and have money to achieve them. But all these don’t mean fulfillment. Though, achievements can contribute to fulfillment, they are not fulfillment. When you always think in line of your purpose, you’ll know that money is highly instrumental to achieving it. Imagine someone whose purpose is to build a resident for orphans and take care of them, but doesn’t have money. How is he going to get it done? If he solicits for help, it would still be to raise money and get things done. Money is vital to fulfilling purpose and dreams in life. 

The third means of money is that it makes you happy. Forget about people who don’t know what they are talking about- saying money doesn’t make you happy. Money makes you happy, 100%. How? I will show you. First, let’s understand what being happy is and what it’s not. Being happy means you enjoy something, you experience joy or pleasure. You have a feeling of high-spirit, pleasure and contentment. Tell me which of these things money doesn’t do for you? Most things that don’t make people happy in the world today are related to money. So that if you have money, you know you’ll be happy most of the time, if not all the time. 

Being happy is not what you force yourself to do, as some people have fanaticized it. They would say even if you are not happy, you have to force yourself to be happy. And I wonder if that is happiness or forcefulness. You don’t force happiness. It’s a natural feeling that comes from contentment and pleasure of having what you want. You can’t be in a state when you don’t have what you want or not satisfied with what is going on around you and say you are happy. You are not happy. You’re only pretending it. So, money makes you happy. You can use money to buy contentment. You can use money to buy pleasure. In fact, you can use money to buy a good life. It is your understanding about money and how you use it that makes it work its best for you. Don’t worry about the naysayers who downplay the value and importance of money. This is not that one should be mad or desperate about money, but to understand the value of it, and know how important it is in making you live a happy life. 

People who have lived in poverty would tell you that it is never a good experience. It is not what you would pray for your enemy. Poverty is anti-nature. There’s nothing good about poverty. It’s only human beings that have inculcated this negative nature into themselves. Nature doesn’t support it. All what you would see in nature is abundance and blessings. There is more than enough to go around. There’s abundant space, air, water, land, plants, animals, and resources, and all these, for the wellbeing of mankind. But man has decided in his own mind to justify poverty and lack, and say money would not make him happy. Like I mentioned earlier, if you know what money can get for you, you’ll never say money doesn’t make you happy. Rather, you would say, lack of money doesn’t make you happy. Money is a value that represents other values in the world. So, we can as well measure the values that you have in this life with money. People who have high value in this world, for sure, have money, because money is a value. It draws on other values and drawn by other values. 

Even though, it’s not only money that makes you happy, but for sure, money top the list. In a 2010 study, they found out that there are six things that contribute to happiness and money has influence on most of them. Here are those six things- 1. Being grateful 2. Doing what you love 3. Being optimistic 4. Practicing acts of kindness 5. Relishing in how lucky you are, and 6. Using your strengths. Money makes you to be grateful. Think of people who you are grateful to, maybe they helped you financially or materially. If there’s no money, they wouldn’t be able to offer that assistance which made you to be grateful. You can also be grateful for your life. In this case, it may not be totally dependent on money, but money contributes to it. Because, if you are in a miserable situation, it might be hard for you to be grateful, even if you want to. 

Again, you do what you love comfortably when you know you don’t have money problem. Somebody who is still looking for how to survive may not care if they are doing what they love or not. In fact, most of the time, they do what they hate, just for the sake of getting money. Because they know they have bills to pay and other financial pressure on them. So, for you to do what you love, you know your money problem has been settled. What about being optimistic and practicing acts of kindness? Of course, money goes a long way to achieve these things. People are more optimistic in wealthy nations than poor nations. Even though, optimism is more of a mindset and perception, money is no joke when it comes to its influence on our minds and how we think. We know money increases our acts of kindness. Money makes us more generous and friendly. A person who doesn’t have money is easy to anger and jealousy, and could easily offend other people. Now, you know why money answers to all things. Even though, it would not do all things, but it sure has influence on all things. 

Let’s consider another means of money. Money makes us love easily. Love is good when there’s money. I know many would say- “separate love from money, they are two different things”. Yes! But come on, both of us know that you can’t express love without money. You know among the people whom you love are people who have blessed you with money and have done something related to money for you. Though you didn’t love them just because of money, but money makes the love come more alive. One thing you want to know about love is giving. There’s no love without giving. And when I say giving, I mean giving something valuable, something that other people can cherish and appreciate. When you love someone, you can give them your time, energy, resources and money. Since, love can’t be expressed without giving, you can give money. When you give money, the person will love you more. Because you’ve expressed your love. You see how love and money are related. You can’t just claim you love someone without giving something of value like money to them. I’m sure they would question your love. Again, not because love is about money. But because love is about giving. And one of the valuable things that you can give people in this world is money. So, you rather go get good money if you want to love more and let people appreciate or value your love. If you want to learn more how to make money (with no bullshits), check my other articles on this blog. 

In conclusion, the means of money opens us more to the value money has and how it is instrumental to helping us to get things done and live a happy life. Cheers!

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Suggested Articles: 

1) 7 Ways to Crystallize Your Ideas:  https://sopiensofgod.blogspot.com/2021/02/7-ways-to-crystallize-your-ideas.html

2) 15 Reasons Why You Must Have Your Own Book: https://sopiensofgod.blogspot.com/2020/09/15-reasons-why-you-must-have-your-own.html

3) Why You Must Document Your Life: https://sopiensofgod.blogspot.com/2020/11/youve-got-to-document-your-life.html

7 Ways To Crystallize Your Ideas

Perhaps you’ve struggled in the past with achieving your goals. You’ve written down what you want to do, your plans and all the lofty ideas that came to your mind. But all seems to no avail. Up until now, you’ve not achieved anything with them, and you wonder if success or greatness is truly for you or it’s just a nightmare. You hear of other people’s success stories and they motivate you to take action, but not long enough, you die in the process. Alas, all these could be frustrating and depressing. I understand. But how do you actually crystallize your ideas and make them overcome the opposing forces? What exactly is the secret that makes anyone achieve their goals despite the opposition? What do the successful people know that the unsuccessful don’t? Don't go anywhere, I'll explain that in this article. 

I believe the beginning of solving any problem is asking the right questions. Just like the beginning of curing any disease is diagnosing it so that you can give the right treatment. It would be much easier to solve a problem if the cause is known and that would be through asking the right questions. 

To crystallize your ideas, there are some truths that you must know. Research has shown that more than 80% of what drives us into action is psychological and just less than 20% is physical. In other words, if your mind is set on achieving goals, your body would automatically follow. Forget about the fact that you don’t have the physical capacity to do some certain things. If your mind is set enough, you would be shocked at what your body can do. 

Just a simple scenario, imagine you are walking on a street, and all of a sudden, a fierce lion came from a corner and roared at you, ready to consume you. What would you do? I’m sure you wouldn’t have time to think about that. You would move at a speed that you could have only imagined. Even if you have pains in your body, you wouldn’t feel anything until you escaped the scene. Now, what happened? Where did you get the strength? If you are like most people, you would say your body. But people who understand more know that it’s the mind that does the job. 

All these while, your body has been there and it has not achieved that level of feat. But the moment something that would challenge your mind came up, you suddenly received the strength to run at a pace that you could have only imagined. That’s the same thing that happens with achieving your goals. Your ideas are potential feats that you need some level of motivation to ginger your mind to achieve them. This is not a question of capacity. It is a question of knowledge. It is what you know that determines how much you achieve in life. One thing that always differentiate the rich from the poor is knowledge. It is also what differentiate high achievers from low achievers. So, the question is- how much do you know? And that’s what will differentiate you from the rest, and make you achieve your long-awaited goals. Here are 7 things you must know if you want to crystallize your ideas. 

1. Know what you want; I can’t emphasize this long enough, you must know what you want and be sure about it. There are many people who still don’t know what they want. Their ideas are vague and unspecific. They would tell you general things that you’ve always been hearing from others. Nothing new. And that’s because they don’t really know what they want. They just feel they should want something that others want. They don’t know why they want it. They are not convinced or internally persuaded of the genuinety of their want. And that’s why people can easily talk them out of it because they don’t know. It’s just a game of guesswork and bandwagon. With that, they’re not going to achieve anything tangible. So, you must know what you want. 

2. Know where you are: One important thing you must know for yourself is where you are. You must do a thorough and critical assessment of where you are right now, without bullshitting yourself or putting yourself on a baseless hope. You’ve got to know your current status. Where are you right now? What are the things that you still need to learn and improve on? What are the areas that you need to develop yourself more? These are questions that you must genuinely answer for yourself. It doesn’t make complete sense to just know where you want to be without knowing where you are now. Because that would create a gap that would be difficult for you to bridge and attain your desired goals. 

3. Know who you are; This has to do with your identity. As statistics has shown that many people still have identity crises. They either undervalue or overvalue themselves. But there must be balance in everything. You must know who you are more than what anyone could ever tell you. The only person that should know more things about you is you. Because no other person spends more time with you than you. So, you must take time to discover yourself and solve the identity challenge. Knowing who you are is not all those religious bullshits that people just say general things that everybody is familiar with. But coming to full awareness of yourself. Understanding your uniqueness in this world and what is your exact role here that differentiate you from others. With close to 8 billion people we have in the world today, none of us has a duplicated purpose. It means nobody is like you and would ever be like you. So, everybody has different purpose and vision in life. So, dedicate time into discovering yourself. Know your gifts, talents, strengths, weaknesses, personality, temperament, mindsets, beliefs, ideologies, idiosyncrasies, attitudes and so on. The amazing thing is that you can never know too much of yourself. There would always be something new to know about yourself. And that’s what you must know. I challenge you to discover who you are. It’s going to be one of the greatest discoveries of your life. 

4. Know what you have; What do you have? You may tell me, “Oh I don’t have anything?” “Not even money”. But I want to tell you that you have something. And not just few things, but many things and in fact, unimaginable things. Just imagine the way your brain has over 85 billion nerve cells that compute different functions that your brain performs. And science has shown us that there’s no limit to how much functions and ideas that our brain can execute. You have more than what you think. I’m not one of those people who will hype and puff you up with all unlimited abilities crap. But I know you have some unique abilities that can benefit the world. You have unique personalities, character, ideas, gifts, strengths,that will automatically catapult you to greatness if you use them. When you know what you have, your perception about what you can do will change. And that would boost your confidence on achieving your goals. Don’t rest on your laurels or sleep on your dreams. Wake up and begin to maximize all that you have to your advantage. No one would do that for you except you. Go ahead and do it. 

5. Know the “Whys”: Why do you want to achieve your goals? Why is fulfilling your purpose important to you? Some of your whys could sound obvious. But you want to go deeper than just the superficial that everybody talks about. You just don’t want to be on the surface and live a surface life. You want to be intentional and directional. People value people who work with vision and purpose. They support people who know what they are doing and why they are doing it. Think for a moment about things that you are doing right now. Have you asked yourself that obvious question? Why are you doing it? Don’t just give superficial answer. Go more than what any person could think, and find real value in what you are doing. Although, you don’t need to convince everyone of what you are doing. If you know what you are doing, the result would soon show. And knowing the why of what you do would make all the difference. That would help you in putting your attention and valuable time into it, which would give you more desirable result. 

6. Plan: Many people have not understood the power of planning yet. They just think it is for serious things. Maybe you want to do business, or do an event/occasion. That’s when you need a plan. But nothing is farther from the truth. Planning is a simple way to organize your life. Have you seen the difference between an organized room and a disorganized one before. Everybody loves to stay in an organized room. Everything is in order. If you are looking for something, you know instantly where you can find it. If something is missing, you can easily find it and in fact, if there’s a mess, it can easily be cleaned up. But none of these could be possible or rather difficult with a disorganized room. It would suck from you extra time and energy, if not extra expenses. Your life must be organized if you want to enjoy it and also allow other people to value it. People have no respect for people who are disorganized. And that’s seen from their personality and character. They don’t know what they are doing. They would tell you something now, and tell you another thing minutes after. They are not just stable and organized. For such people, what they need is to calm down and settle their mind. Let them withdraw from activities and begin to organize themselves. They should have time to plan their life. What exactly do they want and how do they want to achieve it. Planning will sort out your life, even in the midst of chaos and uncertainties. Make sure you do it. 

7. Take action: Having planned, it’s now time to take action. Don’t sleep on all that you’ve learnt. Having knowledge is just the beginning. Taking action is the most important thing. Because the knowledge that you have without action is as good as not having it. You are not different from those who don’t have that knowledge. But the evidence that you know something is in the result. So, always follow your knowledge with action. Perhaps, you’ve found out many things about yourself and where you are. Now, it’s time for action. Look at your environment and see the change you need to start making now. What problem do you want to solve. What need do you want to meet. Start working on it. 

From all these seven things, you will realize that what you need to know forms the bulk of the information and give you the mental capacity and readiness to crystallize your ideas. Ideas are intangible resources. So, you need intangible element like knowledge to execute them, followed by your action. The sky is the limit to what you can achieve with your lofty ideas. Go ahead and achieve them.

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Suggested Articles: 

1) 15 Reasons Why You Must Have Your Own Book: https://sopiensofgod.blogspot.com/2020/09/15-reasons-why-you-must-have-your-own.html

2) Why You Must Document Your Life: https://sopiensofgod.blogspot.com/2020/11/youve-got-to-document-your-life.html

15 Things You Didn't Know About COVID-19 Vaccine

1. The vaccine is given in 2 doses. The first dose helps your body recognize the virus and gets your immune system ready. The second strengthens that immune response, which makes your body more prepared to fight the infection. 

2. The vaccine begin to work effectively 12 days after inoculation. Before this time, people can still develop and spread COVID-19. 

3. The vaccine, which is specific to a strain of corona virus called COVID-19 is safe and effective. It boosts the immune system response to the virus and suppress it. 

4. People who are elderly and those who are clinically vulnerable are top on the priority list of those who will be given the vaccine. 

5. Pregnancy doesn’t affect taking of the vaccine, except there are contraindications. 

6. You can still get pregnant after vaccination. The vaccine cannot give you or your baby COVID-19. 

7. If you are allergic to the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine, or any of the ingredients used for the vaccine, do not continue with the second dose as this may cause more serious complications. 

8. The approved COVID-19 vaccines do not contain any animal products or egg. 

9. The vaccine could express some mild side effects when taken; some of which are- soreness in the arm where the needle went in, feeling tired or fatigue, having headache, feeling achy, feeling sick, and so on. These side effects should not last longer than a week. Otherwise, medical attention should be consulted. 

10. The vaccine went through series of clinical trials and safety checks before it’s approved. 

11. The vaccine is in liquid form, given as an injection in the upper arm. 

12. There’s still possibility of getting infected after the 2 doses of the vaccine, but the illness is most likely going to be mild and nonlethal. 

13. People who have had COVID-19 infection might only need one dose of the vaccine. This is not certain, depending on medical assessment.  

14. The vaccine doesn’t cause the normal COVID-19 infection but prepares the body’s immune system against future infection of the virus. 

15. The vaccine could also protect against the new strain of COVID-19. Although, more research are still going into that. 

References 

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/coronavirus-vaccination/coronavirus-vaccine/

https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/covid-19-vaccines