“So Jesus answered and said, “Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine?
“Were there not any found who returned to give glory to God except this foreigner?”
Luke 17:17-18 (NKJV)

Compliments of the season.

This should be the last piece on this blog for this year. And I want to talk about gratitude. It sure won’t interfere much with your merriment. But before I go on, I’d like to say THANK YOU to everyone who has made my blogging experience this year a fabulous one.

This is that time of year when people take stock and restock. You don’t need to be a boy-genius before you notice that crimes, atrocities and all forms of recklessness are on the increase during this period. In my opinion, I think this can be explained from the disparity that a lot of people notice from what they hoped at the beginning of the year that they would have achieved at the end of the year and what they actually have achieved at the end of the year. The difference is a very wide gulf. People, thus resort to all manners in a bid to close the gap. Books need to be closed and accounts must balance.

I, for one, think that the conclusions that people reach is borne out of myopic reasoning. The fact that you didn’t meet your goals by year-end doesn’t mean you won’t ever meet the goals. Time is continuous, the calendar is just there to break time into periods, period! The fact that a woman conceives this year doesn’t mean she necessarily must deliver the child this year. Her pregnancy doesn’t terminate at end of year.

Its only a matter of perspectives. If we look with the right eyes we will see that we are actually closer to our dreams than we thought. Its only when we look with the eye of gratitude that we appreciate the tiny steps we have taken.

Gratitude opens the door for abundance. It puts our perspective in order. One of the biggest miracles of Jesus in the Bible was that recorded in Matthew 15:32-38 where He fed over four thousand men with just seven loaves and few fishes. The Bible records that Jesus gave thanks and then the miraculous followed. We need to learn to give thanks for the baby-steps we take today because they are the forerunners of the giant leaps of tomorrow.

Sometime this year I was reading about stonecutting. Now, that’s one helluva job. It demands hard work, patience and persistence. Stones aren’t usually cut with just one hit of the mallet, that will rather be pebble crushing. Everyday, the stonecutter goes about the arduous labour of hitting the stone. For most part of the job, the eyes cannot see the progress made but a wise stonecutter knows he’s making progress, then one day and with one hit, the stone splits. If you were at the scene at the very moment the stone splits you might be tempted to think one hit did the job, no! The several hits before played their parts. The stonecutter doesn’t go home murmuring because the stone isn’t split yet, he’s grateful he has health to make progress with the work. You see, one day of complaint might rob him of his sweat and then he would abandon the work and he might just be one hit away from the split.

Permit me to share a story with you. It was my first year in the university. I had been invited by a friend to join one of the news boards in the faculty of law. I had always wanted to write so I accepted the invitation. I had a clear mental picture of my writing adventure. I wanted to have a column where I would discuss politics and a few other things. I had an article ready before my first meeting with the board people. There I met Sagay, the same popular humour merchant on twitter, he was one of the ogas then. After a brief discussion with the ogas I realised that they weren’t ready to give me a column. To start with, they needed me to do some “boy boy” jobs like buying cardboards from Sports market, keeping pins and pasting of other people’s articles. I didn’t want to have any of those, I just wanted to write my own articles! After a few weeks I called it quits.

I never got back to writing until my last year in the university. You know why? I despised the baby-steps. Today, I realise what fine writer I would have become if I had humbly taken those tutelage years. I have since found the truth in a Yoruba folk saying that ‘eni ti o le se bi alaru l’Oyingbo ko le se bi Adegboro l’oja oba’ meaning if you cannot endure as a cart pusher in the famed market of Oyingbo, you may never become Adegboro in the king’s market. The little steps matter,  and it is gratitude that sustains us during the days of those little, killing and seemingly insignificant days.

Most times in life, our preparation ground has no similitude with our throne of glory. Its just like a person who wants to become a surgeon, he must first learn to dissect mice and cadavers. No medical school will give you humans to dissect without you first dissecting mice.

If your perspective is right you’d be able to see that today is your mice-dissecting day, the big day is around the corner. Look back with gratitude and you’d realise its been a great year.

Happy new year in advance.

I am @seunalade