Important Financial Strategies for a better 2019

We’ve talked about mental strategies for the past two days and instead of going on and on, let’s explore another direction, shall we? However note that we will certainly get back to the mental strategies. Finances are  another really huge deal and the earlier in the year we talk about it, the better.

 

1. 1. Don’t borrow. I know, I know-you have a million good reasons to justify all the money you keep borrowing but common, you really don’t have to. Learn to cut your coat according to your size. Know what you worked for and budget in line with what you worked for. Loan and just generally borrowing is a trap. Don’t sink into this trap knowingly or otherwise. The second part to this is if you borrow, PAY BACK! Borrowing and not paying back is a form of theft because you have just denied someone the pleasure of their hard-earned money. To summarise a friend’s words from his status a few days ago, “don’t exploit relationships and access”. By the way, those credit cards, I know how tempting they are but don’t fall for the trap, please. The interest rates are enough to keep you in check. As much as possible, keep only one credit card and ensure you pay back in full always before the due dates. Even better, maintain a negative balance if possible. I know there’s a lot of advice against that because of your credit score but better safe than sorry, my dears.
   2. Save. Save, save and save. This year, don’t eat with all your fingers, common. Don’t be a slave to your cash but let your cash work for you. Before you get your income, you should have an estimated idea of how much you will be getting. Use your expected pay amount to draw up your budget. It’s one thing to draw up a budget and another thing to follow the budget. Hunnie, be kind to yourself. Be disciplined. Of course you won’t master the art of saving at once if you are just starting out and that’s why you have to start right now. You can start with saving at least 10%. It’s a good starting point but shouldn’t be your ultimate destination.
   3. Invest. Do you know what’s wise? Saving. Do you know what’s foolish? Just saving. So you have 20 thousand naira saved and it’s just sitting there in your bank? Or you have ‘just’ $250 in your account and it’s sitting there giving you 0.01cent interest at the end of every month? Common! Saving is smart but here’s what saving at the bank does ultimately; it gives the bank your money to trade with. Err… how do I break this down? Basically, your money doesn’t just sit in the bank to sit in the bank. You know what? keep your fingers crossed for when we do our soon coming book review. After you have saved enough to a certain amount, start exploring investment options. Sweetheart, don’t invest in what you lack knowledge about. You have worked hard, you have disciplined yourself and saved, don’t throw all that money away with terrible investment decisions. Investment is an arm of your bank, talk to one of the investment bankers in your bank! Guaranteed, they probably won’t always give you the best advise because some of them are not completely knowledgeable in that direction themselves but here’s the picture. Consider yourself a baby who needs all these adults to help you learn to crawl and walk. Sure, someday you will walk and even run just as some day you will know so much about investment. However as of now, let someone teach you to crawl and take your first few babysteps first. You can never be too young nor too old to invest.
   4. Don’t fall for pyramid schemes. I wish I wasn’t speaking from personal experience on this one. Pyramid schemes are  scams. They are not a kind of investment and ultimately don’t have a great end. If you don’t have documents and numbers to back up your investment, please don’t do it
   5. Side hustle. Get a side hustle. Don’t let your 9-5s be your only source of income. Your side hustle could be maximising other skills that you have such as web development, graphic design and others. You can easily be a freelancer doing something you love while still maintaining your day time job. In actual fact, we live in times when many people’s sidehustle eventually become their main hustle.
   6. Piggy Bank. This could have come under the save option but it didn’t for a reason. Saving is deliberate. You really want to save an actual percentage or amount for every paycheck. Piggy bank on the other hand is for all that extra change that you would usually toss aside or throw in a corner and forget about. Traditionally, piggy banks were quite cute little containers and mostly stored coins. Hunnie, wake up and smell the coffee. Piggy banks can do so much more for you than coins. Throw in bank notes that you do not need at the time and fight the temptation to break your piggybank open before the year runs out. I came across an helpful tip about piggybanks sometime ago; start putting in money in whatever your currency is from the number of days of the year and in a diminishing manner. This means for jan 1st-you put 365, jan 2-364, jan 3-363 etc. You can also do this weekly. week 1-#52, week 2-#51 and so on.

That’s it for our financial segment. Any questions? Any comments? Any debate? Any addition? The comment section is wide open. Looking forward to your feedback and I hope you enjoyed reading. By the way, I would love to read about your first investment experience.

See y’all tomorrow.  Please don’t forget to follow me, like the post and sharee :). Stop enjoying the good  stuff alone. The share links are just below.

Thank you darlings. Happy Sunday!! I love you!!!

Important Mental Strategies for a Better 2019 -Part 2

Why do we go on diet regimes? For many reasons, yeah? However we can all agree that one major reason we diet is to lose weight, either around a particular section of our body or from our whole body in general, right?

So also as there are many reasons for weight-gain, but we know primarily that junk food plays a huge role in that respect. Your mind is just like your body and the whole point of this mental strategy series is to ensure we are putting our minds on the right diet regime. It’s time to say no to feeding our minds so much junks, doing so much exhausting stuff and focus on the right content. In essence, this will be an obvious continuation from last post. Check it here if you missed it.

Here goes the following points:

5. Maintain Quality Relationships. From my previous post, the comments capitalised on this one and I believe it makes a very good starting point today. There are people and there are people, be choosy about who you associate with. If you are making all the effort in the world to maintain the right thoughts, I’m telling you that all the strategies in the world won’t help to build a great mental habit. This is because for every time you think you’re on the verge of mastering this positive thoughts thing, a negative  thinker or nay sayer who you allow into you personal space can come and pull it all down with just a few facts and statistics.

If their words do this to your confidence, it’s time to take a walk

Flee naysayers that show up with facts and figures to pull down every form of optimism and positive thinking you are clinging to. Instead of helping to build your spirit, they pull you down. This doesn’t have anything to do with an idle dreamer building castles in the air though. I mean, your friend had better seat you down and wake you up to reality if they notice you are a slothful person who spends all the time dreaming and no time doing. Don’t be an island and yet don’t associate with just anyone

6. Go For Sleep Overs. Even if you are an introvert. No, especially if you are an introvert.

It’s one thing to have coffee, lunch or night outs with friends but nothing beats sleep overs. Sleep overs are not common to the Nigerian culture but they are important to building relationships and should really become a thing. The western culture promotes this from when children are still really young. What do sleep overs do for your mental health?

They create an atmosphere of bonding, trust, relaxation and give you a chance to talk to somebody. I know this isn’t an obvious one but it works. If you don’t have anyone inviting you to a sleep over, plan one in your apartment and invite people. It’s fun, really. But hey, don’t go to a sleep over and spend 90% of the time on your mobile device or social media. Be present in the moment and have fun.

7. Be accountable. I’m telling you this is a life saver. It literally will save you from yourself on many days. Usually, I would say get yourself some accountability partners and that’s the order of the day but I’ve realised this can be somewhat  vague. It almost sounds like I’m saying just hang a cardboard on your neck and walk down a street asking for accountability partners. So here’s what I find it easier to say; “find you some friends with whom you share mutual values. friends with whom you can share your deepest and darkest thoughts” and like a friend of mine would say “they just get it”. You go to them with the million things you are feeling at a time and they know whether to scold, insult (yup!), motivate, encourage you or most importantly, just listen to you. Let them know everything going on with you, you will hardly ever find yourself stranded. The right friends cum accountability partners are a life long lasting solution. Now you don’t have to carry all that burden by yourself anymore.

8. Forgive repeatedly. I know this one isn’t easy but I tell you it’s worth it. Forgive and forget is a Biblical principle and that’s very important. We all know how daunting a task forgiveness can be especially when we never get that apology we are rightfully entitled to. I read a book about 2 years ago and it felt like a Eureka moment when I stumbled upon the Forgive repeatedly principle. The fact that you forgave a person once doesn’t mean you won’t remember it again.

So the deal is, when you remember that offense and the feeling of resentment is beginning to take over, take a deep breath and mutter or even speak out loud if possible and for better effect “I forgive you Jay for hurting me the way you did and I choose not to be bitter towards you”. It’s not that simple, it’s not a one time wave of a magical fairy wand but it works, I promise. You might have to do it a thousand times for one particular person before it completely becomes forgotten, but it’s so much better that dying from all that resentment.

This list is really going to take a while to get exhausted. It turns out there’s a lot that sabotages our mental health and it’s high time we took a stand against them. We can’t do the whole mental stress cycle this year, right?

See y’all tomorrow. Please do well to comment on any of the points above; either your experience, a lesson learned or other suggestions. Also, please follow me, like the post and sharee :). Stop enjoying the good  stuff alone. The share links are just below.

Thank you darlings. Have an amazing Saturday! I love you!

Important Mental Strategies For A Better 2019-Part 1

Sometimes life does seem exhausting, depressing and just tiring. I have observed that many times, we indeliberately set ourselves up for misery without even realising it.

The problem is if we don’t make a conscious decision to break-up with old mental habits and be deliberate about building and inculcating new ones, then we will never quit the mind-numbing exhausting cycle of misery. Here goes what we need to do:

1. Think only positive thoughts. You would think this one is obvious and straightforward, right? Then how come we keep falling for negative thoughts? I recently saw a video online of how Mr. Guilt was pestering a particular woman. She never seemed to do anything right. As a stay at home mom, Mr. Guilt guilt-tripped her for being lazy and apparently wasn’t satisfied when she worked full time either  because she didn’t have time for her family. Is there really a Mr. Guilt somewhere, somehow? Well actually, yes.

   

   However, our mind’s voice is the first guilt-tripper and king of negative thoughts we will ever encounter. Be deliberate about what you think. Be kind to yourself. Believe it or not, kindness is a skill and if you can’t be kind to yourself, how do you expect to be kind to others? Whenever those negative thoughts sneak up on you next, get thou up, find thee a  mirror and just tell yourself all the amazing things about you. 

2. Read books. Y’al, this can never be overrated and there’s a reason it comes after learning deliberate positive thoughts. What you feed your mind would ultimately be a determinant of your thoughts. Find a genre of books that work for you and read yourself to stupor. You don’t have to overdo it and you don’t have to do it compeititively. It’s all you. Find the kind of books that work for you but make sure they are books that nourish your mind.
3. Listen to Music: Not just music actually, good music. I speak from personal experience on this one but y’al music will do you so much good, I tell yah. However, here’s something to take into consideration: you can’t be mentally stressed or exhausted and listen to loud tasteless music just because. Look for songs that beyond being a combination of sweet melodies, speaks deeply to you and just generallt calms you. For some people, this could be mere instrumentals like the piano or violin. If that be you then so be it. Just make sure you aren’t listening to music for the sake of listening to music. 
4. Dance. If you just thought to yourself “for a moment there, I thought she was being serious but dance…?”; then you have a whole lot of relaxing to do. Life is long but short and life is short but long. Irony, huh? I know.  What do you do when you get stressed? Think some more and kill yourself with more stress? Common get up and dance. Now, let me clarify that I don’t necessarily mean going to parties and clubs, your room is the best dancefloor ‘evuurr’. You’ve got to trust me on this one. If my mirror had even one mouth, arrgghh… I’m glad it doesn’t. Dancing helps you to take your mind off stressful situations, relaxes you and the best plus to it is that it’s a form of exercise. Now you can dance like no one is watching because hunnie, no one is actually watching. It’s your room and you’re all alone 🙂

Please do well to leave comments on other strategies you know that works and be sure to check back tomorrow for a continuation.

Incase you missed the last post, it’s here.

Cheers to 2019! I love you. Thank you for reading.

HAPPY NEW… Time is Going!

Let’s imagine starting a new year is like being handed a brand new journal that contains 365pages for a non-leap year such as 2019 and you are required to document several happenings for each day. Now, before taking a deep dive into 2019’s journal, take a full minute to think back on 2018’s journal and just be true to yourself on how proud or otherwise you are about that journal.

Personally, I feel proud about some days and others, I really just want to rip the page off because I’m not so proud of them. Days I maximised, I want to wear them like a crown and show off how disciplined, diligent and focused a person I can be and days I binge-watched movies for 12 straight hours(ok, this happened one time but still…), I just want to pretend never happened.

So, back to you my dear. What pages of the 2018 memories-journal do you want to rip off so badly and what ones do you want to wear as a badge of honor? Think about it.

But guess what!? It’s a brand new year! Actually, not so brand new anymore. It’s Day 2 already and hunnie, TIME IS GOING. Whether you realise it or not, you have started writing. So, are you going to leave all these abundant pages you have been blessed with blank or are you going to rise up and be in charge and be deliberate?

Are you just going to hang around while life happens to you or are you going to be deliberate about life? Is 2019 going to be just like any other year you have had or are you determined to do it differently? It’s up to you, really. It’s all up to you. Get busy and get busy real fast.

For the next couple of days, I will be sharing a few points here and there that I hope would be helpful towards our having our best year ever.

Happy New Year.

I love you!

Thank you for sticking with me on this writing journey.

ARE YOU READY?

It’s way less than 24hours away and boy, am I excited. Okay, actually not reeaally. Sure I’m grateful for another new year and much more, I’m grateful for all the GOALs  I’m set to achieve and all the heights I’m set to attain.

Let’s talk about you. Have you written things down to achieve? plans? Goals? In Business Analysis terms, there’s this thing called MOSCOW which is a form of requirements  prioritisation. Simply put, it is the categorisation of things that need to be done by

• Must Haves
• Should Haves
• Could Haves
• Won’t Have

While I’m not trying to get my readers to all become Business Analysts, yet I would gladly use it to clarify the SMART goals analysis. So, what is SMART, you wonder? In brief, following the smart rule is keeping your penned down goals:

• Specific: ensure your goals aren’t all over the place. Be definite and exact, be specific.
• Measurable: Don’t just plan to lose weight; set a target weight you want to achieve. This way, you can always go back to your goals to check out how you’re doing on your weightloss journey.

• Achievable: don’t deceive yourself. Putting down goals such as wanting to read 1 book every day of the year and thereby read 365 books in the new year is really incredulous. It probably isn’t out of reach for someone who read 300books this year and is willing to beat that personal record. However, imagine someone who has been struggling to finish one book per month putting down 365 as his target number of books to read in 2019. Yeah, I just rolled my eyes too.
• Realistic: This is tied to Achievable. Don’t set goals that are not your business to set. Be reasonable. You have a full time job and a family to cater for and
• Time-Bound: So, you have all these countries you want to travel to and you dont have a time frame of how many days to spend in each? Somehow, you lose focus and because you dont have a definite plan, it becomes so very easy to lose direction and since you don’t have a time format, you fall out of place.

…an actual picture of the city, Moscow

Now where does the whole MOSCOW thing come in, you wonder in good natured curiosity and I would explain right about now. After following the SMART guideline, you can then do a MOSCOW analysis.

Any Business Analyst reading this would probably find this funny but relatable. After you have written down all thosse Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-Bound goals, it’s a good idea to write other things down as well.

So your must-haves will be those things that you want to achieve without a doubt; they are non negotiable nor are they optional. Your Should haves are those that are important but not completely necessary.

Your Could haves are simply often tagged the ‘nice to haves’. So basically, although they wouldn’t be highly prioritised,  if you complete all the Must Haves and Should Haves, it’s time to focus on your Could Haves. Your Won’t Haves are none of your business. Having them noted makes you stay guided to avoid a derail.

So, as you put down your goals, remember to be SMART about them and that going to MOSCOW could also help.

Again, thank you for reading. I wish you a remarkable 2019! May we all WIN!

I love you!

2019 is upon us, darlings.

“Will power!” retorted Arkad. “What nonsense. Do you think will power gives a man the strength to lift a burden the camel cannot carry, or to draw a load the oxen cannot budge? Will power is but the unflinching purpose to carry a task you set for yourself to fulfillment.

If I set for myself a task, be it ever so trifling, I shall see it through. How else shall I have confidence in myself to do important things?

Should I say to myself, ‘For a hundred days as I walk across the bridge into the city, I will pick from the road a pebble and cast it into the stream,’ I would do it.

If on the seventh day I passed by without remembering, I would not say to myself, Tomorrow I will cast two pebbles which will do as well.’ Instead, I would retrace my steps and cast the pebble.

Nor on the twentieth day would I say to myself, ‘Arkad, this is useless. What does it avail you to cast a pebble every day? Throw in a handful and be done with it.’ No, I would not say that nor do it.

When I set a task for myself, I complete it. Therefore, I am careful not to start difficult and impractical tasks, because I love leisure.”

-excerpt from The Richest Man In Babylon authored by George Samuel Clason’

Heart and mind fixed on making a post about goal-setting for 2019, I immediately fell more in love with the book I’m currently reading when I reached a certain page for it spoke to the core of the idea I was exactly looking to pass across; drawing up smart goals for the new year.

In the first place, let’s quickly talk about 2018. All those resolutions you wrote and were determined about, did you eventually get to them? Did you go to the gym at least 4 times every week like you determined or did you show up just that first week and then, good riddance?

All those books you wanted to read, how many of them did you really successfully think of? By the way, you said you were going to write your first 500-paged novel; how did that go?

2019 is right at our doorstep; and to be honest, we don’t need all that resolution stuff. Start here and start now. However, writing goals and just stuff you want to achieve in the new year is higly important and just to remind you of the popularised yet often ignored guidelines of goal-setting-SMART.

So, tomorrow which is the last day of this beautiful year, we will be talking about SMART and other general new year guidelines.

Like Arkand in the excerpt at the beginning of this post, we are looking to set tasks that we will complete and the way we can be sure of achieving this goals is ensuring we don’t start difficult and impractical tasks.

Ciao! Please like, comment and share 😉 .

Also, in case you missed the last post, please check it out here and drop your comments 🙂

Thank you!

Cheers

 

 

Thankful Thursday

“Thankful for life and everything;

Thankful for strength;

Thankful for wisdom; thankful for grace

Just really thankful for a rough rollercoaster amazinggggg 2018″

That was my response to a friend who asked me a simple question not so many hours ago and I realised how truly thankful I am. It really was a rollercoaster on my end.

For me, it’s been a year of leaps, hurdles, loneliness, risks, tears, challenges, pain, fear, loss, health palavers, confusion and what nots.

It’s also been a year of Love incomparable, Joy unspeakable, Peace unquantifiable, Favor unmeasurable, wins, smart decisions and so much I don’t have words to express.

Let me pick an isolated incident; one of a low moment and the other, ahigh moment of 2018 to talk about briefly.

So for the low moment, let me talk about the day I had just rounded up an appointment, which in my opinion went awful and I just wasn’t in the mood to walk 5 minutes to the bus station and wait for endless minutes for the bus, especially considering the weather (Everywhere, snow). I called a taxi company and asked that I needed a taxi immediately, stated my location and was told I could only get a taxi in 15minutes. No way am I waiting for a taxi for 15minutes and so, I began the walk of shame to the bus station. I was just arriving the bus station when I saw the bus zoom off and on my realisation that the next bus wasn’t for another 30minutes, an ocean of tears began to pour. I was just frustrated  from the awful meeting, to the unavailablity of a taxi, to missing the bus and having to wait in this horrible weather for all those minutes; it felt like everything was going wrong. I really did feel low.

For the high moment, I would say the moment I got my immediate previous job. I’m choosing this moment over some very personal, private moments :). I went for the job interview, quite nervous but hopeful. I was very well prepared but still, I was on edge. Somehow, the interview went so well that my interviewer was all “I really like you. You know what? I’m employing you, right here, right now”. I sat there for  a couple of minutes, had my offer prepared, signed all necessities and walked out of there with a job in my hands & with the dilemma of how to quit what was my current job at the time! A good dilemma, no? I really was excited and grateful to God for that.

You know as humans, it’s so easy to focus on all the things that went wrong with 2018 and forget those few things that actually went as perfectly as the word P.E.R.F.E.C.T.

So let’s all reflect over 2018 and hook-up in the comment section… What are you thankful for in 2018? What was that low moment? What was that high moment?

Happy New Year in Advance 😉

Dear David,

“25th December 2016-Girl murders boyfriend, stabs boyfriend’s mum and commits suicide“

The headline of the daily Campus bulletin read that fateful day.

Do you remember how we walked by the vendor, glanced at the article and just chatted away about weird killer girls and how they needed to be avoided?

Remember when later in the day after having Christmas breakfast together, we met a few of our classmates standing and having what appeared to be an intense conversation and the look of ridicule they gave us when we asked them what was going on?

They stared at us like we were aliens before Jack had mercy on our curiousity and told us Vivian, Kevin and Kevin’s mother were dead.

Remember how we stared at each other for what seemed like eternity in shock and then our epiphany that the headline from this morning was about them. It was confusing.

Vivian? murder Kelvin? stab Kevin’s mum and then the poor woman bleeding to death? Commiting suicide? Wonders!

All we recognised their relationship for was the love they kept showing to each other and winning ‘best couple’ year in, year out.

Didn’t we all call their relationship a match made in heaven? They loved each other so passionately and were everyone’s ‘#relationshipGoals’.

Then all those weeks of investigation after and the police’s report of Vivian’s extreme love and possession that became obsession, the dilemma Kevin faced in not being able to break up with her and how this was to be his final attempt but he never got to walk out of there with his mum who he had called to come get him.

Yet another strength abused!

David, since this is my last time of writing to you, let me in finality talk about Felix. Don’t you dare laugh at me, David! I know you must remember how crazy I was about Felix until I nicknamed him Tri’f which was in essence Foolishly Frugal Felix.

No one was a better financial planner and strategist than Felix. You were irritated from the get-go with him but we all liked him for a long time until we started to join you in the irritation circle. I mean, it was one of the reasons I was so taken by him; his money smartness.

Here’s the thing; he was so financially prudent that he would dress like a pauper 95% of the time and it just got annoying. He was ever so untidy, gathered coupons like he was born with them in his palms, wore one pair of dirty sneakers every freaking time and all those other foolish frugal things he did.

Why was Felix so frugal that he couldn’t take good care of himself? ça me dépasse

David, I think a summary of what I’ve been trying to write to you in total is; strengths can be abused and misused.

Don’t trust your strengths. Don’t sweeetheart.

Thank you for the lessons, David.

Cheers to more!

Merry Christmas!

Dear David,

How fancy is it to write to you again today.

I just thought we really needed to take out a few days to talk but I won’t go too far. Seeing Joy the other day sparked a series of bittersweet memories-mixed-emotions for me and that birthed the friendly necessity to do this.

I saw Michelle, remember her? The girl you secretly had a thing for and could always only confide in me about.

I argued with her that no other guy in our set could have been more of a family man than you and she chuckled as if I was some naive 3year old looking out for Santa. That was when she told me.

Guess what David?

Michel had a thing for you too!

I know right? Weird! Interesting….

That was in fact what caused my argument with her in the first place. She admitted that although she had liked you so terribly much and could notice you liking her from across the room all through college, she had to keep her distance when she saw how much of a family man you weren’t.

I argued but had to accept defeat when I remembered my encounter with Joy.

You were always that guy; …so busy loving everyone else that you forget to love yourself.

You will always be that guy. …so busy loving and saving the world that your family becomes but a mirage.

Michelle wasn’t wrong.

“By the way, even if I was going to overlook how much of a family man David wasn’t, how could I have overlooked the fact that he was such a brilliant and adorable big dreamer but never a doer; never an achiever”, Michelle seemed to bellow even though she still has that sweet small calming voice that drove you nuts about her.

I tried to catch my breath for a few seconds after she said that, I really wanted to come through for you with a very solid convincing argument backed up with facts, figures and samples.

…but not this time. Nothing came to my head in your defence. Absolute zilch!

Instead what hit me was a barrage of memories that proved her right. Even worse, she reminded me of how you bagged the prestigious ‘most likely to succeed’ award based on your winning of over 90% of the class’ votes in that category.

I was gobsmacked when she went further to say she was among the minority that didn’t vote you. She saw through all you dreams and plans. Smart girl.

You probably have even forgotten your own dreams.

“I would never be one of those people who just rises to a managerial position earning millions of dollars; that is an insult to my dreams and aspirations. Yes, I would earn millions and billions of dollars but much more, I will….“

Then you would go on, on and on for hours telling us all these big things that you were certainly going to do and we would drool just listening to you.

…but Michelle is right. You spend so much time dreaming that you forget to do and now you’re living an absolute contrast of your dreams.

David, it’s not too late.

Cheers!

Dear David,

I decided to write you because I said I would.

I saw your daughter, Joy, today in very dirty ugly flipflops and maybe that’s why my heart couldn’t stop the flip-flop it kept doing. I couldn’t imagine that your child would ever look so ragged and rugged until I suddenly remembered and it made all the sense in the world to me.

I remembered how we used to call you ‘KINDergarten Dave‘ in the University.

Even more, I remember why.

You were so kind that we couldn’t help comparing your heart to that of children whose selflesness and love can hardly be matched.

David, your daughter looked sad, hungry and just plain miserable.

I was sad.

I hear you manage one of those top 500 companies and so I wonder if your kindness situation became a full-blown problem. The irony, right? KINDergarten Dave

I mean, at first it was really sweet and the selflessness of your heart made us marvel.

…but slowly, we realised the situation. If you were simply kind to a fault, maybe we wouldn’t have been so troubled.

David, you were kind beyond a fault.

“I’m not hungry, I swear. You can eat all of it. I ate just before I left the house and merely held this as a snack” you would lie through your teeth to offer your last meal to someone and you would defensively say ‘must have needed it more than me’ if we tried to chide you.

It’s unfortunate we never saw through those lies until you almost died from that ulcer attack in our third year.

Imagine our confusion when you admitted to the doctor in our presence that you hadn’t eaten for 3 days straight. We stared at each other and we knew we all couldn’t have heard you wrong.

Hadn’t you just told us with your usual cheer just 10minutes before you screamed; before you got rushed to the hospital; that you ate a sumptuous bowl of thai food before you came for the group study?

To you, everyone around you was always hungrier or needier and so you gave.

David, you had a lot and gave a lot until you had nothing.

At first, it was super-admirable. It soon got too much and alarming. We tried to correct you and make you understand how your kindness was much appreciated but how you had to be ‘reasonable’; but you were a guy of your own mind when it came to giving.

Today I saw Joy and I remembered everything. It wasn’t a prophecy when we repeatedly warned you of how it could be an impact your life as a whole once you had a family. It was a fact

Today, I saw Joy and my heart bled.

Today, I saw Joy and I realised your kindness still blinds you to your own needs

Today, I saw Joy and it made all the sense in the world how a person’s greatest strengths could be their greatest weakness.

Cheers David! Cheers!!!