Of the trio, which is really the it for you? Put differently, are you most concerned about your yesterday or your today or your tomorrow? Would you rather your life ended on the high of yesterday or the low of today or the mixed bag of tomorrow? How do you prefer to be remembered: by your yesterday or today or tomorrow?
Let’s break the questions down some more. Take men such as Messrs Olusegun Obasanjo, Barack Obama and Muhammadu Buhari, for example. Is there any way that their today or tomorrow would ever be better than their yesterday? Remember, the three leaders had completed the two presidential terms allowed by the constitution of their countries. So, the question now is: can they ever in their land become something higher or greater than they had been?
If they can’t, as indeed they can’t, everything being equal, shall we then be right to conclude that their yesterday remains better than a combo of their today and tomorrow? While we are at that, and drawing from the foregoing, can we say that Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu currently serving his second and last term as governor of his native state of Lagos shall never have a higher and, therefore, better position in the national commercial capital territory? Is yesterday, in some contexts, completely invincible? Or, can today or tomorrow be said to hold total pride-of-place bragging rights?
Unbeknown to too many, none of these three seasons of life is better than the others or the best of all. Yesterday might be good, but you cannot wish away its untold minuses. Yesterday is history, meaning you cannot add to it; it’s done and dusted. The worst disadvantage of yesterday is that it is concluded, gone, forever; never to be retrieved.
You only prefer yesterday and dwell in/on/upon it when you know it is the best of what you shall ever be. For instance, poor families who used to be wealthy or such as used to wield enormous powers and influence but who today struggle to eke out a living shall always recount their old testament escapades since they have nothing new. These examples exist to guide or forewarn others but who cares? How many of us know that our sweet today might forever be all the sweetness our life tastes?
The lesson that yesterday teaches dovetails with how you deploy your today: your fame, your influence, your money, your position, your stage. To add or subtract value? To bless or to curse? Are you galaxying up your world or playing to the gallery?
As for today, it’s its suddenness and spasmodic nature for me. You cannot count beyond 24 before today melts into thin air. Today is too short and too fast and if you like, too limited, to accommodate all the aspirations planned for it. And, today is deceitful: you get carried away by its allure or depressed by its frustrations not knowing its successor has another thing coming.
Be very careful with today. Whatever it throws up (at or for you), never think that is the end. Today is never the end. Today is only the parent and grandparent of tomorrow.
After leaving the stage for tomorrow, today quickly takes its place in history as yesterday. It lives in perpetual regret or satisfaction, depending on how it played the game when it was its time. You whose tomorrow yesterday is still your today, this is your chance. Make hay while the sun shines.
Because tomorrow comes surely, faster than you think. Who can withstand the uncanny unpredictability of this future? Much like the wind, you never know how tomorrow pans out, whence it blows and thenceforward in which direction? Tomorrow can appoint or disappoint; can make or break; can pour sand into any garri as we say in Nigeria or light up the party; tomorrow can promote or demote; can even fail to show up.
Tomorrow can make a Gov. Bola Ahmed Tinubu of yesterday whose federal funds were withheld at the centre for months on end the chief cornerstone of that very centre. Whoever thought such possible in the wee 2000s while the Abuja/Lagos eyeball-to-eyeball show of strength lasted? But the yesterday that no one saw coming is the tomorrow we enjoy today. I hope and pray that President Tinubu himself realises that he shall live through a yesterday made up of the tomorrow of his today.
Who doesn’t understand such simple geometry of life? Every man and every woman and every child lives long enough to experience the reward of their selfishness or selflessness. Princes and princesses today walk barefoot all over the kingdom that once was because their parents and grandparents (kings and queens) misused their essence. They never knew that change shall transform monarchy to democracy and children of those they kept poor for centuries shall become governor, president; hallelujah somebody!
In the deep south of Nigeria, an individual once recounted in private how the occupier of a certain office hated him throughout his tenure. Today, that same individual sits in that same office. Now, I ask him, because I know he’s reading this, are you any different from that predecessor of yours? Or, are we to conclude that, in the DNA of that particular office, hate is the ingrained mannerism?
God looks at it all and spares a knowing smile. Man learns nothing; not from yesterday, not from today, let alone from tomorrow which looks too distant. Yet, you can be different. As much as lies in your hands, you can make assurance double sure that tomorrow doesn’t shake you when your today becomes yesterday.
This is how to. Please eschew what I call the abc of evil: anger, bitterness, and corruption -plus all other forms thereof. You cannot be in charge and at the same time be envious or resentful of or selfish towards the same people you lead. I mean, who does that?
The truth is that if you are careful enough to keep a clean slate, you shall have nothing to fear when your today hands over to tomorrow and recedes to assume the permanent backseat that yesterday is. Never be afraid of tomorrow. Don’t be in bondage over yesterday and today. Simply, always, do only what you’d be comfortable if done by another.
As for the debate of which is number one among yesterday, today and tomorrow, all you need is to be careful. Yes, be careful and even beyond. On face value, tomorrow seems the one that everyone worships in hope and fear. Alas, doing so is foolish, and in vain.
Yesterday might be your best season if you fix today and honour tomorrow by doing your best always. Show that you know and love God by treating people well. Openly and privately despise dishonour and hypocrisy and ingratitude and injustice and sundry versions of ungodliness. And, never forget that today might forever be your only golden opportunity to ensure that you are permanently safe/saved when yesterday and tomorrow eventually sit together as posterity to deliver judgement.
God bless Nigeria!
Rivers State information commissioner: What’s gwan?
I know that tough times demand tough strategies. I know also that these are tough times in Rivers, the deep south state of Nigeria, nearly being suffocated by selfish politics. What I don’t know is whether the state has a Ministry of Information and a Commissioner manning it.
Because every time those of us who don’t come from or who don’t live in the state but who truly love it hear or read news therefrom, it is always the governor we hear or see. He needs help, please. In information management, overtalking, which is what the governor is doing, has many disadvantages.
Pride can set in. As well, overtalking can alienate even your supporters. Above all, it allows a growing tendency to make mistakes.
If by the governor, who’s left in that state to correct it? While one regrets the imbroglio in Rivers, one would love to see a different approach, going forward. We all know this is politics and this is Nigeria.
But, should we continue overplaying our hands? Don’t Rivers people deserve some decorum? And, isn’t it time we left some doors and window for post-reconciliation quick healing?
Salvation: Final summary
The vexed debate about salvation not being eternal is unnecessary. Look at it through the prism of earthly parentage.
When a father rejects a child or vice versa, does that alter the DNA? Meaning, not even God or Jesus can withdraw the salvation of a believer -the way I understand it.
Anyone in Christ is already in heaven, and forever. John 3:16 shuts all opposition up and out when it rules that once you believe you have eternal life.
That’s that, but merchants can continue deceiving those who allow them. Which reminds me, the idea of works or money being a (determining) factor in salvation is deceit taken through the roof.
So, if God needed any additional criterion for man to be saved, why did Jesus die? Also, here on earth, do I need to offer my parent(s) bribe or gift for my school fees to be paid?
Both questions are a masterstroke, even if I say so myself. What you need for salvation (which by the way is eternal) is to believe that Jesus Christ came; that He died for you, was buried, resurrected, ascended and lives in you. Furthermore, only man (not God) is affected by and minds the works or conduct of a believer. And, no amount of money you give or don’t give in or to church moves God!
Mass is ended. Please, go in peace!