Margaret Ntifo's Blog

Laura Dekker: A Force To Be Reckoned with

I have been following the incredibly inspiring story of Laura Dekker, the 16-year old girl who travelled solo around the world making her the youngest-ever solo circumnavigator, although Guinness book has refused to certify this record in an attempt to stop young person’s putting themselves at risk by trying to break ‘dangerous’ records.

Laura doesn’t seem bothered with the fame or money; clothes and luxury apparently means nothing to Laura.  All she wants is to live her dream on her boat, a dream that stems for her heart and soul.

Laura’s story is one of tremendous self-will-power and determination, a quest for freedom, stoicism, independence, discipline, and a certain zest to uphold her inner wishes regardless of whether the world understand and accepts it or not. I can align with that.

Faced with several court cases from as young as 13 when she announced her intentions to sail around the world, Laura battled with Government organizations concerned about her safety and won. These authorities tried to use the court system to deter her from making the trip and complained that at her age her place should be in the classroom instead. Miss Dekker is “seriously thinking about not returning to the Netherlands” because of the controversy in Holland surrounding her voyage.

It is not surprising that Laura has become rather wary of authorities who claim to be acting in ones best interest. Who wouldn’t be?

Laura was born on a boat on 20^th September 1995, and spent the first four years of her life at sea. After her parent’s divorce in 2002, she went to live with her Dad and has lived on a boat most of her life. Naturally, this kind of existence is not the norm hence the Dutch authorities difficulties to accept Laura’s plans of sailing the world at her age. What they failed to appreciate was how normal and important this was to Laura.

Under the guise of ‘working in her best interest’ they tried to shape her up into a ‘normal’ teenager. On the contrary, Laura is understandably not interested in what the ‘normal’ sixteen year old focusses on. Instead, she is content to cope with weeks of solitude, ocean storms, threat of whales and pirates. She says, “For me it’s really normal.”

For me, I can only marvel at how a person as young as she is can have so much of her wits about her. Here’s some special girl. I am so happy for her that she met her goal of circumnavigating the world despite all the negativity from the authorities, and others.

1217 days and still counting!

I just communicated with a fine lady whose divorce lasted less than 61 days. 61 days! I felt inclined to count the days mine has been pending and was rather shocked that it’s now been 1217 days and I am still counting. There’s always been a reason to adjourn it, be it a technicality or an ‘Academic Exercise’, last one being ‘the judge was ill’! Fancy that! It’s been a complete and utter madness. But what do you do when the other party is so autistic and envious that all they want to do is destroy you? Yes, you can agree with all their delusional demands or…

Well, it shouldn’t be long now. Everything that has a beginning has an end. ‘This too shall pass’ so I continue to wait patiently.

On a lighter note, I have been wondering what I will do when it finally comes to an end? Many think a divorce party sounds corny, but despite how it may sound I really want the chance to celebrate its' end and the beginning of my new life. I have always regarded my divorce more of a fresh new start than the end of an era. I accept that it is a bit of both, like the difference between half-full and half-empty.

Now that I find myself focusing on the end I feel this lightness of heart and quickening of spirit. I honestly can’t wait. It’s been extremely stressful and what is more frustrating is how long it has taken. Still, I guess we must learn to lay in wait for a good thing.

So, how am I going to mark the occasion? I’ll start a brainstorm list of ideas.

1. A well-deserved holiday with my children, maybe to the States, Bahamas or Coconut Grove Resort in Ghana? They absolutely loved it there!
2. The divorce party?
3. A quiet dinner? – Hmm, not my cup of tea. Doesn’t sound much like a celebration
4. Train for a marathon and run it to mark the occasion?
5. A boudoir décor?
6. Release 1217+ helium balloons to mark the number of wasted days

One thing for me, it is not going to be a time for mourning, been there, done that. It is going to be a time for celebration.

There are some people dead against the idea of celebrating a the end of a marriage, people who think that: “Of course there may be a relief in shedding a horribly violent husband or an alcoholic wife, but that doesn’t take away from the underlying misery — the disappointment in seeing the end of a loving act of creation.”

And in reference to the subject of a divorce party, they say “Could there be anything more shallow and trivial?”

There can only be “underlying misery” if you let it and why is a divorce party any trivial and shallow than a wedding party, or a baby shower? All these are celebrations to mark an important life-transition. It’s the meaning you give to them that counts. We are happy to mark ALL life-transitions with a memorable celebration – birth, Holy Communion, marriage, birthdays etc. Why not divorce? It’s about time we stopped attaching so much negativity to divorce. The stigma will be there, only if we continue to give it a negative meaning. Most divorcees feel differently nowadays.

For me, I will continue to add to my list of how I am going to celebrate the end of being attached, or associated to this jerk!

Destiny & Our Higher Purpose of Life

We all have a certain vision or plan of how our lives might unfold. Even the people who do not set daily goals have some sort of image of how they want their lives to run. These are mostly based on our life experiences, values; those of our parents, the people around us and the society we live in.

What we come to learn is: “Very often not getting our dream gives us our destiny.” Not having our lives run the path we envisage can give us a higher purpose. Often we don’t always realize the goals we set. This can make us frustrated, disappointed, and sometimes resentful.

It helps to look for an empowering meaning whenever something happens that is not necessarily according to our vision, to ask ourselves - how can I use this to serve higher purpose, to make me a better person?

I for one, never ever expected to be divorced, ever. My community still looks upon divorce with a little stigma, which I now proudly wear! It went against my community values, my Christian values and what have you. But divorced I am actually praying that I will soon be! In fact, my biggest frustration recently has been how long trying to get my divorce has been. What an irony that I cannot wait to be divorced.

Very often in life when we really look back on our lives, the worst adversarial situations have been our best learning points, if we only we are willing to trust that it happened for a reason. This reminds me of a poignant piece I found extremely comforting in 2005 the late Steve Jobs’ commencement speech at Stanford University. He said– “you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life”.

Steve Jobs at the very least knew what he was talking about.

Some experiences are too painful that we probably never want it to happen again but we must be willing to trust that these experiences serve us. Once we are willing to trust and have faith, to look for answers and actively pursue them, we will come to realize that every human experience supports us, even the painful ones. Yes, even the painful ones!

Instead of living in fear of pain we can choose to live with certainty that - No matter happens we will benefit from every experience and situation. When we adopt this approach in life, we will look for benefits and therefore we will find them.

Back in 1997, I went through a most painful experience. Following an affair my ex had, I faced a lot of rejection and abandonment from my ex. I wasn’t strong then to walk away. Life was still shaping me up and pruning me. The worst of that rejection was being told without mincing words that I was a ‘liability’, that I was dragging him back, that I didn’t earn enough money to enable him live the life he wanted! Phew.

Fancy being reduced to M.O.N.E.Y! My only excuse is at the time I was a new mother for goodness sake. A new mother who had fallen pregnant in my final year of an advanced diploma I was pursuing after my first degree. This meant that I couldn’t start any serious job hunting with a nice pot-belly. I mean, who was going to employ this new graduate about to drop. So I made do with my sales job that I had had during college. I’d also had complications in this pregnancy at eighteen weeks when I went into early labour due to degeneration of uterine fibroids. So with all these complications and a commission-based sales job, is it any wonder that my income dropped significantly? Suffice to say, I continued to work as soon as I was discharged from hospital.

So, to be rejected at this time when a woman’s hormones are all over the place, and reduced to being likened to M.O.N.E.Y was the pits and I felt like cringing into a corner, which I did! It took years to get my confidence back and crawl away from that corner. Years of pain during which I had to question my worth and value! If your own husband of only 3 years rejects you, not just in favour of another woman, but relegates your worth in favour of M.O.N.E.Y, is it any wonder that somewhere along the years, when I finally got my self-worth back intact, I determined that, “Never again! Never again will I be valued alongside M.O.N.E.Y. Heavens, I am a trillion-fold far more priceless and beyond compare!”

I decided to study M.O.N.E.Y to understand how it could have that power to be used against me! To acquire enough M.O.N.E.Y such that no man will ever have that power over me, ever!

Don’t get me wrong, M.O.N.E.Y was not everything. In fact, there are far more valuable things in my life now apart from M.O.N.E.Y, such as my children, my life, my family, my health, my intelligence, my courage, and a lot more. But M.O.N.E.Y does sure buy a few handbags.

Fast forward a few years on, I realized that my life path changed that day he told me he wanted a separation not only to continue his affair with another woman, but also because I didn’t earn enough money. Mind you, that was the only time he wanted to leave me!

At the time, I begged him to stay, I begged him that we could work this through. Of course, I knew that he wasn’t thinking straight, that he was delusional. I mean, which man in his right mind would want to leave me? And he never ever did again. He never wanted to leave me again, even when I begged him to years later.

For you know what, I finally became the woman he always wanted to be with for life. I am proud of that. But he had lost that chance. Looking back he lost that chance that day in July 1997. The ensuing years were just a bonus to give him a chance to redeem himself, but unfortunately he was never man-enough to do so. I often said to him, “Ye ma wo hene, na wo andi a, kyeame bo wo”. Meaning: ‘Given the opportunity to be a king, if you do not live up to it, you will not get the chance to even be the king’s spokesperson or linguist.’

At the time, the vision of my life did not include being left after only three years of marriage, and I found it hard to handle. But that experience proceeded to change the course of my life. Gradually, I came to realize and accept that in fact being left, or divorced is no big deal. That I could grow from that experience to become more.

Don't you think that finally becoming a major investor, with an enviable portfolio of properties and other investments IS more than the cringing girl who feared being abandoned. Ironically I was the one to finally leave him, and for two years he continued to beg me to have him back. The interesting thing is at the same time he was trying to convince me to have him back he was fighting a losing legal battle for half of my investment empire. Some stupid solicitor must’ve advised him that he could do so in English Law.

Ha! For what shall it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Sadly, he didn’t only lose me, he lost his own children and does not even realized how dispossessed he is. How sad!

On the other hand, through these painful experiences I have been empowered to find meaning in my life, to seek and find my higher purpose, and to not rest until I have found it. I used to think that my property portfolio was the legacy I was building up to leave for my beautiful children. I now realise that it is my entire life that would serve them as a better legacy. How wonderful, how wonderful!

 

The Field of Dreams

I recently watched this rare great movie, a rather old one, “The Field of Dreams” is an American classic combining themes of family, fantasy, faith, reconciliation, destiny, disappointment and redemption. The one theme I’d like to focus on today is its metaphoric depiction of how by losing our dream we come to ‘find our higher purpose in life’.

The main plot is about Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner), a novice corn farmer who becomes convinced by a mysterious voice that he is supposed to construct a baseball diamond in his corn field... 'If you build it, he will come'.

Later in the movie Kevin Costner seeks out an old man, Dr. Archibald ‘Moonlight’ Graham played by Burt Lancaster. This fictional character in the movie is actually based on a true life person by the same name, and except for a little artistic license with the dates it pretty much tells a true story.

'Doc' Graham used to be a baseball player as a young man who had worked extremely hard to get into the majors of the game. His whole life’s dream had been to play professional baseball and he did everything to try and realize his dream, his passion.

Finally, he made it to the big league and the whole season went by without his being able to play. At the end of the season, in the eighth inning the coach finally selected him to play. He was so happy he couldn’t believe it. He ran onto the field waiting his turn to bat, waiting for someone to hit the ball to him, but nothing happened.

Graham played the bottom of the ninth in right field but never came to bat. That game turned out to be his only appearance in the major leagues. His turn to bat never came and the next year, without giving him another chance they sent him back to the minor league. By this time, he just couldn’t take it anymore so he quit, and went on to pursue and complete a medical degree in the University of Minnesota, got his license and began practicing medicine in Chisholm, Minnesota.

He said to Kevin Costner of his one-time appearance in the major league, “You know we just don’t recognize the most significant moments of our lives while they’re happening. Back then I thought, well, there’ll be other days. I didn’t realize that that was the only day.”

Kevin Costner thought about what an incredible devastating pain it must have been for ‘Doc’ Graham to have been that close to his dream and not touch it. He said to Doc, “Fifty years ago, for five minutes you came within... y-you came this close to your dream. It would KILL some men to get so close to their dream and not touch it. God, they'd consider it a tragedy.”

But Moonlight Graham gracefully replies, “Son, if I'd only gotten to be a doctor for five minutes... now that would have been a tragedy.”

Playing baseball for 5 minutes was not a tragedy! Playing baseball for only 5 minutes was not devastating. What would have been a disaster, what would have been a tragedy is if he’d been a doctor for only 5 minutes. You see, if 'Doc' Graham had hit that baseball; that would’ve been the bigger disaster. Because then he never would’ve come to live in Chisholm, he never would’ve become a doctor and he never would’ve got the chance to save lives as he did… Now, that would’ve been a bigger tragedy.

In other words, not getting his dream of playing baseball enabled ‘Moonlight’ Graham to realize his destiny of becoming a doctor and serving the people of Chisholm for fifty years.

The true-life Graham served from 1915 to 1959, and was the doctor for the Chisholm schools. The Graham Scholarship Fund, established in his honor, provides financial assistance to two Chisholm High School graduating seniors each year. The award is given to one boy and one girl, $500 to each. For many years while practicing medicine, 'Doc' Graham made arrangements to have used eyeglasses sent to his Chisholm office. On Saturdays, in his own time, he would have the children of the Iron Range miners, from Grand Rapids to Virginia, come to his office, have the their eyes checked and then fit them with the proper set of glasses, all free of charge.

Graham died in Chisholm in 1965. He is buried in Rochester, Minnesota.

In the movie, 'Doc' Graham goes on to say, “Well, you know I... I never got to bat in the major leagues. I would have liked to have had that chance. Just once! To stare down a big league pitcher. To stare him down, and just as he goes into his windup, wink. Make him think you know something he doesn't. That's what I wish for. Chance to squint at a sky so blue that it hurts your eyes just to look at it! To feel the tingling in your arm as you connect with the ball. To run the bases - stretch a double into a triple, and flop face-first into third, wrap your arms around the bag. That's my wish, Ray Kinsella. That's my wish. And is there enough magic out there in the moonlight to make this dream come true?”

On hearing this Kevin Costner arranges for 'Moonlight' Graham to have one last chance at experiencing his dream of playing baseball. He brings him to the field that he had built and organizes a game with famous baseball players such as “Shoeless Joe Jackson”. Finally, 'Moonlight' is going to get a second chance to play professional baseball, to realize his dream.

As he steps onto the field he feels young again. But just as they begin to play, just at that opportune moment there came a loud scream from the stand. 

Kevin Costner’s daughter had been knocked off the stand by accident and she falls and hits her head and starts turning blue. Realizing the danger his daughter was in, Kevin Costner starts yelling, “We need a doctor, we need a doctor”. 'Doc' Graham hears the desperate call for a doctor just when he is about to swing the bat. He is about to finally realize everything he had dreamed of in his life, and he says,” I’m a doctor!”

He starts running full blast to save the child but then he stops to look down at the foul line in front of him; the line that divides the field of dreams from the other world - and he realizes that if he crosses this line he can never go back. He can never live his dream again. He does not hesitate anymore, as he steps across the line to save the child’s life.

Once again, ‘Moonlight’ Graham loses his dream, but lives to fulfill his destiny. The moral here is very simple. Inside each one of us are dreams and desires that we have for ourselves, for our lives, those things that we feel are important in our lives. But there is also our destiny, the call for us to go beyond our desires to become something greater, something more! To give of ourselves in ways that we have never given before that would give us the greatest sense of fulfillment to complete our life purpose. The sum total of our lives so far has prepared us for this moment. Let us seek to find the meaning in every experience, however painful, however much it doesn’t go according to the plan or vision we have of our lives.

Dr Archibald ‘Moonlight’ Graham saved lives. Let us live to save lives starting today, starting with our own life. Wow! Phew!

Now, do you wonder why I loved this movie so? Mind you, I am still working hard to get my son to watch it. He run away once he saw how old the film was, how faded and jaded the colours were. But I am still working on him! On that note, I did try to get them to watch loads of Meryl Streep’s movies and he point blank refused to watch “Kramer versus Kramer”. He screamed to his sisters, “Run! This film is so old that Meryl Streep is young!” Lol!

Santrofi Anoma, and the Poisoned Chalice

The fable of the Santrofi  Anoma in Akan folklore has been on my mind recently. Santrofi  Anoma is a mythical bird, which is regarded to be both a blessing and a curse. As the saying goes,

“Santrofi Anoma, wo kye no a, wo akye mmusuo; wo gyae no a, wagyae serade.”

Meaning: To capture this bird, the Santrofi Anoma is to take on curses, yet to let it go is to let go of untold blessing.

Therein lies the dilemma of the Santrofi bird (Anoma). It is a blessing for its transforming beauty and power of its gift of song that is irresistible to humans.  Yet Santrofi is also a curse for its mysterious treasures of the mind imbued with an irritating and irrepressible urge to expose the truth regardless, hence causing rift among humans. 

It is said that the hunter who comes across this bird in the forest is faced with a great dilemma; for to leave Santrofi back in the forest is to leave behind a rare treasure (blessings); while to capture and bring it home is to bring upset to your household, hence the curse.

I have always thought that Santrofi Anoma in Akan folklore can be likened to the Poisoned Chalice in English.

The term "poisoned chalice" is applied to a thing or situation which appears to be good when it is received or experienced by someone, but then becomes or is found to be bad.

William Shakespeare uses the expression, poisoned chalice in Act I Scene VII of Macbeth, in the opening soliloquy of the scene when Macbeth is considering the ramifications of the murder he is plotting. (Yes, I still love my English literature.)

The poisoned chalice depicts the image of someone trying to kill another while offering them hospitality.

I cannot help but think that some husbands and partners eventually become a Santrofi Anoma – they have somehow become a curse, yet once were seemingly a blessing.

They have also become the poisoned chalice, slowly killing you under the guise of loving you.

Hmm, this was always my dilemma – should I enjoy the rare beauty and gift of song of my Santrofi, or must I let this seemingly rare treasure go?

I guess you know what decision I finally made, and boy am I glad! Real treasure or True blessings never come in disguise. Like a wolf in sheep clothing. If it looks like a dog, and barks like a dog even just sometimes, girl, it IS a dog.

Footnote: Yesterday I blogged about letting go of something else, not my ex. I was intentionally rather vague about what that was for a number of reasons. As much as I try to be as open and candid as possible on this blog, reason dictates that I be more reticent on this subject for the time being.

I will eventually be more expressive about what that big thing I let go yesterday was, at the right time. I just wanted to mention in this footnote that, whatever I let go yesterday wasn’t my ex. As you well know I let him go ages ago. Does sound like I am really purging my life recently? Probably!

Letting Go and Letting God

I have always believed in the idea of letting go. Letting go of things, of the past, some friends, and a whole lot more baggage that may be holding us back. This is a hidden key to having much more in our lives, to health and happiness.

Yet, I for one have always found the practice of letting go a most difficult one. I’m a hoarder. I hold on to things, unnecessary things. Just this morning, I was clearing out a filing cabinet and I even had receipts and statements from as far back as 1991 that I still hesitated to add to the rubbish pile. For God’s sake, that was twenty years ago.

I hold on to friends. Some long-standing friends I am so happy to still have in my life but clearly there are some that I must let go. But do I? I convince myself that I have moved on from such people but eventually I have the urge to give them one last call. I tell myself it is because I love people and I hate to give up relationships. Is it any wonder that I over stayed my marriage?

Ah, but I digress. I was talking about letting go in general. This week in particular, I am dealing with letting go of a huge part of my life to date. The idea is to feel lighter; to breathe and thereby lighten my load. This part of my life is something I really, really worked hard for, something I dreamed of for years, which then took more years to put together; something that has really, really blessed my life, energized me and given me a reason to live. However, ironically this same thing has become a thorn in my flesh in the past few years and has prevented me moving on with my life. Like a poisoned chalice!

Letting go is not always easy. The future is unknown. The past, however miserable is a known event and at the very least we know how to navigate it. It is our comfort zone. The future versus the past - “Better the devil you know than the angel you don’t.”

Life is about growth. Letting go of some things are scary and takes boldness and courage. However, looking back, the biggest things I have let go off in the past have led to exponential growth for me. Unparalleled growth! One of this was when I gave up my J.O.B in 2004 to start in business. That was a bold step against all odds. I didn’t know what the future held and I was leaving a ‘secured’ position with a regular income for the unknown. It took me two years prior to finally make that unilateral decision to take that plunge. But I made it; and I have never looked back.

So now it is time to make another bold move, to have faith that all is well, and will be well! I don’t want a mediocre life. I want to live life to its’ utmost and be able to say YES with a zest at the finishing line.

This reminds me of the famous saying often attributed to Goethe:

"Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back; Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favour all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way.

Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now."

So, here I come again. I let go, and let God!

Happy Birthday Nana

My baby is seventeen today!

A couple of days ago she had the opportunity to remind me that she is no longer a baby, and I replied that she will always be MY baby, to which she replied, ‘I will never again fit into a pushchair’.

Exactly seventeen years ago, I was in my very first labour. It was supposed to be a planned caesarian but this one decided to come a few days early, eventually saving me from an unnecessary surgery. A normal labour at the time meant I could leave the hospital a day or two after birth but I ended up spending four days in hospital because this baby was simply too content with life. She simply slept ALL the time and wouldn’t even wake up for a feed, which interestingly was a cause for concern for everyone including the nursing team who needed to ensure that she had fed before seeing us off home. I had to stay in hospital day after day and this baby wouldn’t even open her eyes even to feed.

We must’ve forced something down her reluctant throat because eventually we left the hospital on 15^th January. I’ll never forget the feeling of coming back home with this bundle of joy that neither my husband nor I had a clue what to do with. I do remember our joy though, as we huddled together in our small one bed-room flat and made a promise to do whatever it takes to ‘make her happy’. Clearly, if going through this divorce and its issues is anything to go by, we have obviously reneged on our promise.

Nana, I like to think though that I have done my very best to keep that promise to you. It was a joint promise but in our own single ways we may be able to keep that promise.

Nana, you are everything I want in a daughter. You have come into your own as a young woman. What I really love about you is your aura of calmness you exude around you. Looking back, you have always been cool, calm and collected since the day you were born. I remember getting you ready at six weeks old for one of the tens of photo sessions I organized for you as a baby, getting you all ready and driving all the way to the studio only to find that you had a different agenda. You simply wouldn’t open your eyes for the photo session because you were yet again fast asleep by then. The photographer had pity on me and was happy to wait up-to thirty minutes to delay the session in the hope that you will wake up for your photos. But you continued to sleep through. In the end, we decided to still take those photos with you asleep. Those photos so remind me of your essence as a baby.

Whatever the world throws at you, please do not lose this cool. Some people, including me might hasten to encourage you to become otherwise but that will not be you so keep your core calmness for therein lies your strength. You came into this world content, not needing anything, not even a feed. And everyone was running around you frantic, but you were you, and that is what I have to always remember. YOU are just as God created you.

You have never caused me any concern as other parents have experienced, or indeed I have with your own siblings. In fact, I am still waiting for your teenage defiance, which I somehow know will never come. I truly enjoy the relationship we have developed, the bond that is so evident, and the mutual love we share. You often need more hugs than I am ready to stop to give in my fast-paced life. I constantly need to remind myself to stop and notice the moment, but you don’t need to because you are in the moment.

I love you so,

Happy Birthday to my Pumpkin, my Nana!   

A Word on Money Wealth & Prosperity

As many of you would have noticed, the focus of this blog has changed since its inception in August 2006, and the name somehow does not now fully reflect on its current theme and focus.

I however decided to still maintain the name ‘Money Wealth & Prosperity’ for a number of reasons:

1. I like the name
2. This is where it all started – My quest for Money Wealth & Prosperity.
3. I believe in the words ‘Money Wealth & Prosperity’
4. I think it is a good focus to have as women – to empower us and to give us enough financial independence to enable us stand on our own two feet should the need ever arise in our lives.

I no longer offer any wealth coaching and haven’t done for years. The reason being that a few months into starting the coaching I quickly realized that what I had done was create a J.O.B., which was in direct contradiction to how I wanted to create wealth, or believed real wealth creation to be. I loved interacting with women who wanted to make a difference but found it tedious working with some women who had the do-it-for-me mentality. Much worse, was the realization that I had created a system whereby I was trading time for money (the J.O.B mentality again) and this was taking valuable time away from my personal investing. So I decided to devote more time to investing.

I’ve had no regrets on that score. The minute I gave that up, things moved at an exponential rate.

I decided to keep the blog going as a podium of sharing information that might be helpful and useful , not to mention that I enjoyed writing. Fast forward a few years on, life took a different turn again and I embarked on this horrible divorce, which to date is still ongoing. At the start, I didn’t blog for over a year and just kept things going with little nuggets of sagacity that struck a chord with me. Then I somehow got my strength back last year after reading Eat, Pray, Love, and blogged again briefly, and then back to the silence.

As candid and as outspoken as I’ve tried to be, it has been difficult to strike the balance between what to share and what not to. I have tried to err on the side of …

At this stage, I will just keep this blog going as a personal blog. My natural default mode is to share anything and everything that I have found useful in life right down from JMLs Twista Microfibre mops through investing in property to how to find prosperity.

So, I will keep the name ‘Money Wealth & Prosperity’ and hope that in time the real meaning will be more apparent.

On this note, I wish you more Money Wealth & Prosperity!

Lose A Dream, Find Your Destiny...

"Sometimes in Life, not getting your dream gives you your destiny!"

Tony Robbins

First They Came...

On the subject of apathy, impassivity, the state of being indifferent, or complacency, some people feel that they do not have to confront a challenge especially when they view that challenge to be someone else’s problem.

Should we stand aside and allow injustice, oppression or unfairness to occur simply because it is happening to someone else, hence irrelevant to us? Do we all have a collective responsibility, or obligation to act, or speak up to benefit each other and society at large? At the very core are we not all connected?

Perhaps Martin Niemoller says it best in this statement;

First they came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Communist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Jew.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up, because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up, because I was not a Catholic.

Then they came for the Protestants, and I didn’t speak up, because I was not a Protestant.

Then they came for me. By that time there was no one left to speak up for me.

By Rev. Martin Niemoller, 1945