Happiness

It is the ability to understand or perceive what a friend or another person is going through from his point of view. It is a way of putting ourselves in other people's shoes. It could also be defined as the desire to help and care for others in need. Different types of empathy has been identified. These include: (a) Cognitive empathy; (b) Emotional or affective empathy; (c) Somatic empathy; (d) Spiritual empathy.  Synonymous words include:compassion, sympathy etc. The antonyms is self centeredness. Self centered individuals are unable to understand others thoughts, feelings and emotions. They may not care as they are psycopaths in nature. Stages or features of empathy to really understand others are: (1) Ability to accurately reconstruct the opinions or viewpoints and reasons of others; (2) The viewpoints or reasons must be based on premises, assumptions or idea of the other party; (3) One must admit that the other party may be right and you listening to him or her may be wrong (as...

A personal belief or judgment that is not based on proof or certainty. It however means that there are so called 'facts' that are make-belief that we hold on to tenaciously and could be obstructing out progress or freedom. How do those baseless beliefs created or formed in the first place and what can we do to be emancipated? (1) Public opinion : a great number of public opinion has been found to be cooked up stories and often time politically inspired or sponsored to fulfill goal(s) best know to the sponsor. These types is hard to dodge, and can only be avoided by reading articles, surveys, magazines from the particular profession in which this public opinion talked about or by speaking with expert experts in these fields. (2) Fake Men of God: And many false prophets shall arise and shall deceive many (Matthew 24 : 11 KJV). This portion of the scriptures clearly warns us of the danger in not being careful on who we trust as a man of God. The main weakness we have that prevent...

The last time we read that what symbolizes light to the mirror in the case of human reflection is right thinking. Right thinking and critical thinking are synonymous. Right thinking elder said, is the art of sorting the truth from false, fact from fiction. A truth seeking activity or venture. It is one of the characteristics of thinking well. Other features of thinking well include: (a) creativity (b) imagination (c) intellectual sympathy. These are all features exhibited by the original thinker. Every concept, belief, school of thought, or conviction started as an idea. An idea is unproven fact. It is also called premises or assumption when they awiats factual validation.  Facts are ideas, premises or assumptions that have been analyzed either mathematically, statistically, historically scientifically (or experimentally), culturally, over time and found valid. Not all ideas go through all these analytical stages. Most skips the scientifical stage, unless they are to be used by the...

It is the calm, lengthy, intent consideration of a situation. An introspection of a phenomenon or life. It is self contemplation or self examination. We can understand this word better by an analogy with a school of thought in engineering. Essentially we have only two questions in engineering: (1) will it work? (2) how long will it work? The first question grows from the bossom of applied science while the consideration of the second question give birth to standards. One of the merits of standards is safety. Any material that fails during field application might not have undergone appropriate laboratory test or was subjected to loads other than the one it was designed for. Hence its failure pose great safety risk and hence the reason why they are subjected to test. Hence whatever cannot be measured or examined cannot be managed or controlled. Just as materials that cannot withstand certain engineering application are eliminated after test so also in life we need to examine the result w...

A synonymous word for gratitude is appreciation. We need to cultivate a deeper sense of appreciation when somebody does something for us. When someone known or unknown render help that saved us from unpalatable situation we need to say thank you. It represent a compound word in a way, whose base word is attitude, the prefixes are the first letters of the two words namely G = Greater, R = Repeat. So if you want somebody to repeat an act of kindness to you or to soeone else in a greater way, you express it by gratitude. Why are some people ingrates? (1) Most of them are so used to others doing things for them what they can do for themselves therefore don't acknowledge the value of effort and hard labour; (2) Some feel their benefactor needs to do more to meet their requirement or the picture they hold about the type of help they expected from them, therefore are a little bit disappointed; (3) A few of them don't know how or have the skill or cultivated the habit of appreciation f...

Obstacles exists to any worthwhile pursuit or goal. They are resistances that if not in existence, attainment of goal(s) becomes easy or possible. Resistance may be from persons or group of people who benefits or exploits the present status of the person in need of your help, it may be from people who think they should also receive help from you but are out of your budgeted resources, it may be from the person himself! We study and learn from history. Those who don't learn from it are bound to repeat it. One of the globally recognized history book (which is also religious) you and I can easily lay our hands on is the holy bible. So kindly permit me to use one event documented therein as an example. Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel is come unto me: and I have seen the oppresion wherewith the Egyptians oppress them (Exodus 3:9 KJV). Israelites were in Egypt under forced labour and their cry were registered in heaven before God. From this verse we can see that ...

Help is simply the act of rendering assistance to someone in need. It is rendering support or doing for someone what he cannot do to get out of a predicament.  It is not the giving of an assistance that will not completely solve the problem in the long term. Long term solution may also have a short term palliative. But any help that will not proffer a complete long term solution to a need is not a help, the elder told me. What happens or what is the fate of the man in the interim, before the long term help materialize? I asked the elder. I think you are talking about lack of basic supplies like food or shelter, the elder responded. True there are some imminent and urgent help that people need in order to stay afloat in life's storm. But most of them are as a result of long term view in strategic thinking, goal setting, plans, and actions by the individual in question. But let's leave the cause of such issue or quandary. Let's focus on how to solve or alleviate the affect or...

It is the act of binding oneself to a course of actions. It's an allegiance. A dedication to one's actions or beliefs. One of the fundamental attributes of a successful individual. Ability to walk his talks. Dedication to a pattern of life when it is convenient and when it is not comfortable. This attributes guarantees every other virtues. Without it, a man becomes unstable in all he does. But why are some people very good at loyalty, while others seems to to fade away in this regard? (1) Family background: if you grow up watching your parent change their beliefs system like chameleon, there is a High chances that you will not take loyalty seriously  (2) Poverty: it is easy to remain loyal when you are not starving, when you have a shelter over your head. An individual who exhaust his will chasing financial freedom may find it hard to stay true to previous resolution or allegiance. (3) Habit: how you do anything is how you do everything. A man who choose to be critically unpred...

Honor is a tangible symbol signifying approval or distinction. One of the motives of effort behind all mans' labour is what he tends to gain as reward when he hits targets or achieve his goals. Reward system can be tangible or intangible. Example of intangible reward is the honor. Intangibles as goals behind motives or actions has steered nations to war, made inventions, built great technology and has caused a lot of blessings or havoc to mankind. Often, intangibles has greater influence on man's motive than the tangibles. It fuels a surprising surge of energy even when man seems to be exhausted. A novelist once wrote that: I write to earn the respect of those I highly respect. An elder told me that in every man there is a baby boy that thirsts for praise. Therefore make sure you remind the hardworking boy in you the benefits (tangible or intangible) you tend to gain when you hit your goal target and he will carry you through unbearable circumstansis, elder reiterates. Picture ...

It is the act of surrendering power to another person or authority or it is an act of giving up control to somebody else or authority. When you obey people's command and dictates, you are submissive to them. People submit because: (1) they respect the person they submits to; (2) they depend on the one they submits to for provision(s) ; (3) they are seeking mentorship; (4) cultural or social norm; (5) they have negative intentions such as [a] gather some pieces of vital information; [b] harm the fellow they respect though falsely especially when the dominant figure has completely rely and trust in those that are submissive; [c] use them as a link to get connection to higher authority or individual; [d] subtly influence the person whom they are submissive to. Therfore, if you have anyone who adores you, it's simply because of the stated reasons above. However, if you cannot lay your hands on any of the positive attributes you have developed over time, it is high time you became v...