America, Happy Independence Day Anniversary!!!

America, our dear God’s own country!

A nation that never claims to be perfect or Utopian in nature or scope. Very much like every other society in the world, it has its own problems. One thing is universally clear and accepted about this interesting nation though. The United States is the only nation on earth where you can be anything you wish to be, good or bad. It’s the greatest enabling environment where dreams, no matter how strange or gigantic and irrespective of the racial, religious or geographical origins of the dreamers, can be realized by dint of hard work, commitment and determination.

America, Happy Independence Day Anniversary!!! 

On The Single Biggest Reason Why Startups Succeed.

“Timing accounted for 42 percent of the difference between success and failure. Team and execution came in second, and the idea, the differentiability of the idea (the uniqueness of the idea) came in third.” – William "Bill" Gross co-founded Pacific Investment Management. According to Forbes, his net worth is 2.3 billion USD (2015).

 

 

 

The Hunger to Become Somebody.

Many, including some fans of Aerosmith, don’t know the history and the motivation behind the song, “Dream On”. It was written in 1969 by Steve Tyler, long before the formation of Aerosmith. Always dreaming of the day he would make it big in the music industry, Tyler wrote the song as a personal affirmation that success was a matter of time for him.

As he and the Aerosmith’s band mates continued to tour and toil in the early 1970s, Tyler never lost his sheer determination to succeed and (in his own words) “the hunger to become somebody…” The “hunger” ultimately drove the songwriter/lead singer to suggest to his band mates, the re-release of the song, “Dream On” in 1976.  The song rose instantly to number 6 and became the band’s first major single and the biggest hit so far. Steve Tyler has since become “somebody” in the music industry and the rest is now history.

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Happy New Year!!!

Chris Rock as a Drop-out.

“I dropped out in the tenth grade to work at 'Red Lobsters'. And trust me…to drop out in the tenth grade is the dumbest thing to do. You might as well drop out in the second grade. In fact, the guy who drops out in the second grade is more qualified to do a job than the one that drops out in the tenth grade. This is because the person that drops out in the second grade will have eight years of more experience than the guy that wastes time waiting all those years to drop out.” – Chris Rock.

The Lesson Here is that it's DUMB to drop out of school. For every drop-out like Chris Rock that became a celebrity, millions of other drop-outs are languishing in illiteracy, ignorance and dead-end jobs.

I Miss My Girl.

My father used to say; “To a parent, a child will always be a child, no matter how much the child has grown.”



Back then, when Ifeoluwa (above) was in  Queens' College, a high school with boarding facility, I was stressing on how she would cope with all those strict  school prefects and “senior” students because of her very young age and fragile frame.

As a college undergraduate (below) my fear was how she would “survive” in the midst of the much older, “street-wise” students on campus.



Now the young lady is all grown and matured with established personal principles…

Shouldn’t a parent calm down and relax? Not me!

Since she relocated to Washington DC last weekend (see the following pictures) to start a new life as a graduate student, I can’t help feeling “somehow” because…I miss my girl…and a lot more than I did during her past academic pursuits.



From left (above) Titilola (my wonderful wife) Me and my girl, Ifeoluwa.



From right (above) Ifeoluwa, Ebunoluwa (a.ka. last born) and Titilola (the proud mom).

 

 

 

Lost in America

For a mean, miserable second,
his red, sunken eyes glared
with a fire-spitting focus.

There I was,
held spellbound
by the anguish of a man
who had seen better days.

Lost in America,
His tale of woes, in painful recant,
could break dams of emotions
and a floodgate of tears.

His Adam’s apple ran riot
with fiery words rolling out
from a mouth in constant commotion.

Lost in America,
was this once thoroughbred African
in the crushing grip of self-bondage,
running from pillar to post
in the harsh, cold winter
and the scorching heat of summer.

Finding no fleece of gold
or a pasture of green
on his wild goose chase
for the American dream,
he was prepared to eat crow
for checking out of the Motherland.
But he’d rather be lost in America
than return home, a failure.