Just Thinking

Perfect. However you slice or dice it, the concept of perfection is relative. I doubt that many people share my idea of what perfection is or anyone’s idea of what perfection is for that matter but on some level, we all yearn for perfection - an ideal place or set of events or circumstances. We yearn, work, strive, grow and stretch to get some piece of that ideal for ourselves and the ones we love. Sometimes it appears we succeed, sometimes not. Yet we keep working, striving and stretching in the famed “rat race”. Today it occurred to me. What if perfection is elusive by design? What if this life, this world, this planet was designed to remain fraught with imperfection on purpose so that we hope and strive always for a more eternal ideal? Beauty. Is universal or maybe it is in the eyes of the beholder. This as well, all is relative. I could, for example, write a laundry list of the things that are wrong with my face, body, the length of my legs, the w...

I am going to start this post with an announcement. I have a stalker! 😕😕 I guess that means I am officially a celebrity right? Who knows, there may be paparazzi outside by bedroom window hoping to catch a glimpse of my fair face as I type this post. While we are on the subject,  what do you do when you have a stalker? Call the Police? Call your Pastor? O r go and wash your head at some shrine? Pray tell, as a part of me is panicking. Now unto the post itself. This post has been long in the making. I have been thinking a lot about authenticity as a trait and pathway to success.  You see, success in my opinion, is an ephemeral concept which does not always justify the effort which goes into its attainment. My personal pursuit of success has led to get two degrees ( I'm working on the third ), countless certifications and short courses (I'm a fan of LinkedIn Learning), roles across different industries and companies - 5 different companies in 12 years - and life ch...

Last night while "admiring" the spots on my face, I was struck with how impatience teaches us patience. Let me explain. I am light skinned and from time to time because of junk food, stress or hormonal changes, I break out (i.e. I get Pimples). Now, I absolutely hate those tiny imperfections on my otherwise gorgeous face but I know that picking at them will leave a little red blotch which will turn to a dark spot and then take forever to fade. But what do I do? I pick at them anyway, till they are bleeding and sore. After a day or so, I notice the dark spot and begin sending up silent prayers before my vanity mirror for the spots to fade. With a little patience, the pimple typically, would have dried up and disappeared on its own but impatience leaves me with spots and scars. Scars are mementos that hasty decisions leave on our lives.  We could glance at our lives and send up silent prayers wishing them away but we usually have a long wait ahead of us until t...

All my life, I have always thought more about being a woman than I thought about being Black/African. Up until not very long ago, when I thought about discrimination, gender, not race, came to mind. This is not to say I did not watch Roots as a child, but race issues previously felt distant and foreign. Before I go further, let me clarify, I am African, born and raised on the continent. Some people would call my complexion honey brown, but I am black by the general definition . The problem, however, is that when I considered equality, I did not consider the color of my skin as much of a problem as my possession of a uterus. I was used to being the only female or one of the few. 10% of my computer science class were females, in all the roles I held I was the only or first female on the team and so on. All this changed a couple of months ago when I had an interesting conversation with an Australian colleague.  We were at a work function doing one of those ice breaker exerc...

I will start this post my saying up until now, I never seriously considered myself a feminist and in a lot of ways I still don’t. I am however a strong believer in the “strengths of the sexes” and the different and wonderful ways we can leverage our strengths as men and women to build synergy and balanced social systems. Even at that, a lot of times I still think I could be a little too traditional but then again, I find that in life, it is all about balance. That said, I will move unto the meat of my post. The idea for this post literally popped into my head yesterday after a long day and I felt I had to write this down before I forgot about it. I doubt it will be a long post as the message is all in the title but allow me to elucidate. I hear and read a lot of what I call rants about female inequality in the work place (don’t burn me at the stake just yet), some very well founded and very true. It is actually a fact that women face a lot more blockers profes...

Forgive me Father for I have sinned. I have somehow gotten it into my head that I am superwoman no, superlady, wait, I think I prefer supergirl. Point is, I thought I was "super something" and I could save the world. I even made a cape! A lilac cape!! Lilac is different from pink, pink is too girly for me. I digress. Forgive me Father for I have sinned! I have been foolishly running around in my l ilac cape trying to save the world forgetting it was you who created the world. I wake up with a start, expletives rolling off my tongue as I realize yet again that I have overslept. I don't pause to say thank you, I don't take a moment to listen to things You might have to say to me. Instead I hop out of bed thinking my world needs me as I throw on my cape and off I go to be supermom, employee of the century, the coolest sister that ever lived, the most understanding spouse. Off I gooooo, whoooosh! Forgive me Father for I have sinned!! I have ...