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YOU WERE NOT RAISED YOU WERE ERASED

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My parent raised me with severe corporal punishment, therefore I will discipline my child using corporal punishment.

The above phrase is what most African parents use as their justification for the use of corporal punishment on their children, student or ward. Some parents further argue that the use of corporal punishment on them has made them who they are today. I often ask the question “Who are you now? What has corporal punishment made you become? The answer I often get is that- corporal punishment has made me very disciplined and focused in life. Yet, you are not as successful as you’ve always wanted to be in life, you are not a trust worthy person. Wait… do you think the children raised without corporal punishment are ill-mannered? I bet not, because the societies that are against corporal punishment are the world leading countries with less violence. We need to understand that violence and discipline are two different things. When you decide to make it a norm then you have decided to accept violence such as killing, fighting, slaughtering, raping, bullying and all other forms of violence into the society.

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I laugh really hard when I meet monster parents and not disciplined parents. How can a mother cut her child’s skin or whip the child until he/she faint🤨. The joy that some parents have when they instill fear or pain on their children is alarming. As a parent there is a certain period when you can no longer instill fear on that child, the reverse becomes the case and then, how will that make you feel?

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A child who thinks he/she was raised properly with corporal punishment was not raised but erased, because, that child grew up in fear without been able to make certain decisions or give opinions that affects his/her life. A child is not irrelevant, we need to understand that children are also humans and are kept in the care of an adult to guide them positively not abuse them.

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Feel free to share this blog post with friends, family and acquaintances. Also, share your thought or opinion in the comment section below.

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MY EXPERIENCE FROM ‘COVID-19’

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What happens when life gets hard?

This is a question I have severally asked myself during this pandemic as It’s been more than two-months since key day activities that will get me closer to my personal & professional goals have been paused. This also has a negative effect on my psychological, financial, emotional and social wellbeing. There is nothing as devastating as seeing my plans for 2020 become unrealistic. For example, I had a trip planned out to visit my family in early April as well as developing key contact in Nigeria for my field research regarding child’s right in Nigeria. Sadly, the current pandemic has interrupted my plan, making me going back to the drawing board to reconstruct my plans for the 2020. I have no other reason than to accept that this has been one of the worst period of my years, which keeps me wondering if 2020 is going to start all over again (LOL).

Having said that, I believe it is wise to make the best we can out of bad situation. I have been able to learn several things from the pandemic and I would like to share key take-out this life changing event has taught me.

Positive take-out

  • Identifying my self-worth: During this pandemic situation, I have realized how much I can make of myself. I appreciate myself more as I am literally living without any form of physical social contact with people. Thanks to technology as it connects people from different part of the world through mobile phones, texting and video applications. I have learnt to believe more in myself and my capacity to handle difficult times.
  • Investing time in passion: I have an interest in photography and content creation. I try as much as possible to give time to this interest especially on my Instagram handlehttps://www.instagram.com/tobioyefeso/. However, meeting the demands of my interest clashes with my academic and career pursuit. Thanks to COVID-19, it is not entirely a period of crisis because I have been able to invest more time into building up my passion and creating contents as this post and some other posts on this blog. Hopefully, I should create time for this passion when the pandemic is over and life goes back on the fast lane.
  • Cherishing family and friends: Before the pandemic, I showed little concern about the welfare of those around me especially family and friends. I barely make and receive calls, work and school made it almost impossible to respond to text messages. For instance, I have family members in the United Kingdom and I have not seen the since I began my Postgrad program. The pandemic almost made me disregard the importance of family and friends. Again, the pandemic is a blessing (not in the natural sense of a blessing) because I have become very close to the wellbeing of my family and friends. The daily updates on death from the virus makes me appreciate that family is everything and can do little without them, since my family and friends gives me the support I need at this important time of my life.
  • Patience: It is a key take-out learnt in this time. Sometimes, all I need is a moment to relax and breath and let things happen at the appropriate time. Since I am only a human being with goals and plans for my life, I can barely identify when a time is appropriate. The pandemic has taught me to sit and do things calmly. For instance, I have been waiting for my confirmation letter for my primary data collection and waiting for job vacancies (LOL). Right now, all I have to do is to be calm and wait. Hoping that good fortune meets my hardwork.

Negative take-out

  • Depression: This almost messed me up during this period and the reason was built around fear and uncertainty. As a young lady, I have my life planned out with key milestones that would help me define success. There was a time I was very sick and in so much pain but I was scared to call an ambulance. The whole sickness, isolation, financial constraints, academic difficulties almost got me thinking about what exactly life is all about. All I believed and hoped for was God’s Intervention. Having said that, I had to stand up and fight against negative thoughts that will deter me from seeing a brighter future ahead.
  • Procrastination: This devils tool has made me delay in performing certain activities that are would improve my career and academic goal post COVID-19. In February I was meant to conclude on my research structure but I felt lazy about the process because I felt I could do it after my holiday in March. The pandemic came and took the world by surprise, which constrained me from making key progress on my research. Therefore, this pandemic has taught me to get done with things as quick as possible as time is limited.
  • Poor financial planning: I assume no one had a plan, especially a financial one to manage this pandemic. Like you, I was taking unawares and i wished I had more savings to suit my bills through the pandemic. This has taught me how important it is to save for the future. Going forward, I will factor in unforeseen circumstances in my savings and investments. I think you should too.
  • Health and Fitness: Everyone needs to be healthy in order to pursue their goals and carry out plans they have set for themselves. In my case, I wanted to do more exercise to stay fit physically and mentally. It has been difficult to follow my exercise routines in order to maintain proper body fitness. The reason is closely related to procrastination and my ability to strictly watch my diet. However, the place of physical exercise is important for me and you. All I can do is hope that my body weight does not increase but guess what, hope is never a strategy.

Having said all these, I presume life will not be the same for a lot of us but we need to get ready for post COVID-19.

Thanks for taking out time to learn from my experience. I would love it if you can share your experience from this pandemic in the comment section.

xoxo ;-).

Some path will be lonely, learn in time to walk alone

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“No one achieves great things by following the crowd. Have a spine. Strike your own path.” Robert Kiyosaki

“The one who follows the crowd will usually get no further than the crowd. The one who walks alone is likely to find themselves in places no one has ever been before.” Albert Einstein

There are times in life when we need a lot of people to walk with us, as human are social beings. Many decisions are being made that involves others, as life goes on, it is impedient that some paths are better walked alone. It will be lonely. There is a point in everyone’s life, the crowd cannot help in fulfilling, regardless of the number, they won’t just be enough.

There is a popular saying that “it is better to walk alone, than walk with a crowd in a wrong direction”. It is not literally walking with the crowd, it also includes advice from people and doing things as the norm requires. Some reasons why some paths will be lonely includes making a cogent decision about one’s life, low self-esteem, life disappointments, when passion and desire is being followed, once there is a question about the rightness or wrongness of decision of others, when there is a fault or wrong in the value shred by people.

Regardless of your circumstances, always remember that a lot of people are passing through the same phase or even worse phases that yours. I believe we owe ourselves the courage and determination to always overcome the bad times, I am of the opinion that it is never wrong to be alone during setbacks, as long as you discover yourself and become a better person.

Everything and everywhere that is worth discovering is where no person has been. Everything that is needed to be discovered is where no person has been. That is why you must set forth on this journey. You must say goodbye to what has been home.Majority that walks with the crowd,get lost in it.

WHY I DECIDED TO DO A Ph.D.

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Starting a Ph.D. was a dream come through for me. While growing up, I wasn’t too sure what I wanted to do career-wise but I knew I wanted to do things that seem impossible to the feeble mind.

I wanted to enage in mind boggling activities within the social sciences and understand how variable related into outcomes. In a few words, I wanted to engage in tasking activities and sicover peculiar facts based on research findings. I wanted to make positive impacts in peoples life through my intellectual power as many people believed I was very smart just wanted. But then, I wasn’t sure about how to go about it, I read lot of books and solved lots of puzzles, which made me believe there is always a way.

My dad wanted me to be an Accountant and my mum wanted me to be whatever I wanted to be. Sadly, I was terrible at mathematics, so I eneded up as an Art student. This did not deter my dad who trusted my path to Accounting was still nurtured. One day, my dad sat me down and asked a simply question, he said;

Dad: Tobi what career path have you chosen?

Me: Daddy I want to be a Lawyer

Dad: Why do you want to be a Lawyer?

Me: I want to help people (that was the only thing I had in mind as a teenager)

My parents supported me in the path I wanted but at the long run, my discipline was too broad (I’d talk about my degrees in another post). My parents decision towards my career seemed different but I learnt from their style of career informed parenting. I think forcing a child to pick an interest in a particular discipline (science or art) is poor considering that you may have not understood the passion and interest of the child. We can only understand the passion of our children by been readily available for them. We should not allow the modern caveats in our society make us impose a career on our children or leave our children to free will because we do not want to force a career on them. The fundamental responsibility of parent to children is guidance from experience and love. This will make us avoid subjective training in the career development of our children from an early age and help us develop their strengths and skills in what they find engaging and willing to invest their resources to add value to the world. Forgive me for digressing but I will talk more about this in a different post.

I had passion in children and it is always a misery when I see a child rights been violated and can’t do anything. This was a great motivation for me. Let me cut the long story short by highlighting 5 reasons why I decided to do a Ph.D.

1. I want to kill my curiosity in discovering new approaches

2. To become an expert in Child Rights

3. To demonstrate my intellectual potential and get enough confidence to analyze and solve societal problems

4. To offer a significant contribution to the existing knowledge of my research

5. Long-term career goals.

Let the Ph.D journey begin…

Do not forget to drop your comment and advise.

  4. Plagiarism!!! I learnt this in my second year as an undergraduate student in University of Lagos. Two of my lecturers…

I NEVER BELIEVED IN PATIENCE

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I am not a fool, therefore I can’t be patient. I always believed in quashing any form of attack, either done by mistake or not. Some people say I am too defensive but I tell them again ‘I am not a fool and nobody can override me’. Sadly, this saying by me has failed me several times and made me grasp that been patient does not mean I am a fool. This is a thought a lot of us have and we have never realized how bad that orientation is and the damages it does to us.

Recently, I reflected about been patient. I asked myself if it is necessary having issues with people because of my impatience. Sometimes, anger makes us react in a way we do not want but if we are patient, we can always control what we do and what we say. There is an adage that says ‘think before you talk’ either in a bad situation or during a heated conversation because the words we say are like broken eggs and cannot be taken back.

I have decided to always wait until I am calm before I make decisions. However, working at different places/companies and meeting different people in this world has made me to realize that it’s not everything I need to react to. Considering the fact that it stresses me out 🤨 *NOOOO… that stress of impatience ain’t worth it*

Tips to develop patience:

  1. Always practice thinking before talking
  2. Think about doing things that are important
  3. Always take a deep breath
  4. Learn how to be a good listener
  5. Learn to ignore

Ideas are welcomed. Kindly drop down your thoughts about been patient and how to develop patience.