THE PEACE CONTEST: The effectiveness of a persons life hinges on the peace level of such life. Any life that is not at peace will self destruct. Life is a contest for peace. All a man encounters is a ploy to steal his peace. The single reason why most countries of the world especially in the Arab region hardly make progress is because the foundation of peace has been destroyed. A good look at Afghanistan, Syria will give you a very good example. And most countries in Africa have also had their peace destroyed, countries like Nigeria, Sudan e.t.c, thereby making progress a mirage. But I have looked at all these nations and even people that are not making progress, certain elements seems to be traceable to them which I would like to address today. They might seem very familiar, but the fact that they are familiar makes them even more dangerous:

DEBTS: A lot of people talk about bad and good debts, but to tell you the truth, those are just mere nomenclatures, debt is debt. The reason why a lot of people still play with these nomenclatures is because luck has not run out on them. Many African nations have watched their economies sink because of debts gone bad. The quickest way to forego your future and destroy the brightness of the next generation is to get heavily indebted. Many people would know Willie Nelson, one of the most decorated musicians of all times? The one single thing that brought him down was indebtedness. At a point, he was about 17 million dollars indebted to Internal Revenue Service. In 1990, he had all of his properties and bank accounts seized by the IRS to pay towards his debts. He was also forced to produce two new albums, with 100% of the profits from each going directly to the IRS to pay off the rest of what he owed them. It is possible to live debt free! You better begin to think differently about your debts now and make conscious steps to clear all, else your peace and that of the next generation is at stake! You can not be indebted and be at peace at the same time.

UNFORGIVENESS: Since the Korean war ended in a truce in 1953, both North and South Korea remain deeply hostile, refusing to forgive themselves. In life, you must not always win in all circumstances but letting certain people win some times could become your biggest victory. Forgiveness is a non negotiable component if you do not want to murder the peace in your life. You can never get through life unscratched. Many people might not be as careful as you. Some will hurt you intentionally but you must understand that not letting humans be humans is my definition for insanity. Un forgiveness will drain you more than it will help you. Make up your mind that you will always forgive even though it will not always happen overnight. Your peace is more important than the offence.

PROCRASTINATION : On January 11, 1994, the UN Headquarters got a fax that gave a very concrete clue to the disaster that was due in Rwanda. Assuming there was a very quick response, may be the Rwanda Genocide would have been averted but nothing was done about it until there was an uncontrollable national disaster. Have you not ignored a ''cricking'' sound in your car and felt ''okay, it's"nothing, I will do it later'' only for you to spend a very huge amount of cash fixing what has become a huge damage? Whatsoever you ignore, grows in size and that is why we tend to have so many terrible situations in our lives. We must cultivate the culture of nipping things in the bud if we don't want our peace to be paralysed.

THINK - TIME: If you do not have a think time, the instances in your life will always be blown out of proportion. Your think time is where you analyse all the different issues in your life, to see which ones would require which materials or resources to handle. Have you tried sitting down with all the issues in your life? America has a think time which they call The Situation Room. It was created in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy. This is where America sits down with it's issues and that of the whole world. You must also learn to sit down with your issues and consciously put them into perspective, they might not be as bad as you think. Never you trade your peace for any reason because the quality of your life can never rise above your peace level.

This little piece is my gift to you. I just hope you have been blessed by it.