MAJORS AND MINORS

 I read a quote a few days ago " People are slaves to the tyranny of the trivial". I had to read it twice, then screenshot it so I never forget. It's usually so easy –too easy in fact, for us to get so occupied with doing a lot of things that we forget to do the really important things. You find that you can end your day very tired from having done a lot of things but when you sit down to think about all you've done that day, you'll realize  that you had been busy doing absolutely nothing! This has happened to me too, and even very recently. I got home so tired that I had to ask myself "wetin you do sef wey you tire like this?" 

So how do you know that something is trivial? A thing that is trivial is something of little importance, and I'll add that it is something, an activity, that will matter little to none to the achievement of your goals. So you find, like I did that day, that you were running around the entire day yet everything you did had no extra value to your life so you ran around, expended your time and energy and got no value for it, you've majored on the minor. 

How do you know you've been majoring on the minor? You do that by self evaluation. First clearly define you priorities. What do you want to do with your life. Then you determine what activities can actually help you to attain those goals, then at the end of each day, you need to take time off to review the activities you did that day and how they were able to help you achieve those goals. Sometimes you find that you've spent the whole day in activities that have no real benefit to you. When you find that out, don't just sit on the information, learn from it and work with it, rearrange you activities so that you don't spend so much time doing things that are not valuable. At this point I'd like to emphasize the importance of having a schedule book. A schedule book is a book, preferably portable, that you write down your activities for each day and allot time to them. This helps you in two ways; it helps you manage your time and it helps you actually consider your activities so that you don't just cram unnecessary things into your day and end up getting nothing from it.  

Another way we put ourselves under the tyranny of the trivial is by overly placing our priorities on things which may in themselves not be bad but our obsession with these things becomes detrimental to other important parts of our lives. So you find yourself so focused on the goals you've set that you let everything else in your life fall apart; your relationships with people, your relationship with God, your health... everything just comes second place and in the end, when you've gotten what you've given up so much for, you find that it is not as fulfilling as you'd thought it would be. This is another reason why we should not neglect self evaluation; examine the methods you're using to attain your goals and ask yourself truthfully if it is worth the things that you're letting suffer. At this point, I'll highly suggest that you ask for help from someone else, someone has proven to have your interest at heart, place yourself accountable to them and submit to their authority so that they can call you to order when you're going astray. 

They say if you stand for nothing, you will fall for anything, but I add that you must make sure you're standing for the right things. These are lessons I'm learning and working on myself on. I hope you found this post, and my very scattered thoughts 🙈, helpful and that you really work towards removing yourself from the tyranny of trivialities. 

 

Love, 

Achenyo.