My Personal Development Tips

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Before we begin here is some serious disclaimer:

I am not a lawyer or law enforcement official. I share this piece for information purposes only. I am trained and experienced school counselor though. I have on many occasions observed what the impact of “being at loggerheads with the law” does to the people involved and their families. 

In that spirit, I have listed a simple habits or actions we can practice to live better with the law and enjoy our piece of mind.

We need laws to ensure order and stability in our communities and countries we live in. The famous Greek Teacher & Philosopher, Aristotle, agrees;

“At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst” 

Without laws there will be chaos where only the fittest survive.

That being said, people are often at logger heads with the law. As you probably know being at loggerheads with the law can be costing on our peace of mind and on our wallets in legal fees and fines.

It also brings in needless attention to ourselves.

The problem with the law arises when we break the law. And let me hasten to say anyone can break the law at any time sometime unknowingly. I believe some people have gone to jail for crimes they never committed. Some have gone to jail for laws they never knew existed. In my country, the tax law cannot be confronted in any court of law or listened to by a competent high court judge let alone the Chief Justice. The law is above the law. It is above the constitution. If the taxman says you owe $800 million, then you owe $800 million. In other words you are guilty before they prove you innocent. In that case, you wish you don’t cross paths with tax man as you have no avenue to prove yourself innocent. With a law like that you can easily go to jail or lose everything you have. I once watched a video in which Sir Richard Branson was interviewed and said at some point him and others were charged using a medieval law that prohibited the mention of the word venereal disease. So any person can easily be at logger heads with the law unintentionally. I too can be at loggerheads with the law unintentionally.

Right.

To minimize finding ourselves fighting with the law, we can practice to live better with the law.

This is ten ways how we can do it.

1. Observe the laws of the land (however lesser they may be)

 The words of Roman Emperor & Stoic Philosopher, Marcus Aurelius() capture the sense of the tip above;

“A man should be upright, not be kept upright.”

This is common sense. Why I am even saying it? Well I have had conversations with friends and parents who have had their lives turned upside down just because they couldn’t accede to the law. A friend of a friend nearly spent some time in a jail cell for failing to stop at a roadblock. After some negotiating, he escaped with a hefty fine. The catch was he had to pay the fine in 14 days or else face re-arrest and get held up in jail pending trial. The fine which he had to pay in 14 days became a serious headache for him as he was laid off recently. And I could discern he was troubled to the point of extreme anxiety. After some struggle raising funds, he eventually paid. Minor as the incident may have appeared to be, it left him in debts he couldn’t afford to pay, tired and with a disturbed family.

I need to give another disclaimer here; I am not saying we should agree with any law that is passed. If we consider any law to be unjust, or in violation of the constitution of the land, we can challenge it at the courts or mobilize people against it.

Next..

2. Pay your taxes fully

If you want peace of mind and to live better- just pay your taxes.  It is also a good thing to do.

The tax man is like a mosquito. If a mosquito just buzzes next to one’s ear, one immediately lose sleep.

Once the tax man maketh a courtesy call, one immediately lose their piece of mind. So the best thing is to pay your taxes fully to keep your piece of mind.

3. Pay alimony towards maintenance of your children

 The alimony law is very necessary; it is our responsibility to pay alimony towards the innocent we bring into this world. But the law can be ruthless to those who transgress it.

If we know we have child we brought into this world- we just have to man up and take care of them. If not we are inviting the wrath of child support law. In normal countries, the offence doesn’t expire with time.

4. Be careful of the company you keep

Jim Rohn, the American Entrepreneur & author is credited with having said; “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with”. If you hang with criminals and you are not a criminal, the chances are you will be arrested with them. One gentleman liked hanging at a joint where illegal street card games where played. He wasn’t a player. One day the police pounced, he was arrested and charged together with the crew. Because of the incident, he is failing background checks conducted by potential employers. And he is not happy about it.

5. Minimize exposure to debt

 In some countries one can be jailed for failing to pay a debt. In almost all countries one can lose assets towards the debt. Owners of debt can be very ruthless in their pursuit of their money. There is a saying that:

“The only man who sticks closer to you in adversity than a friend is a creditor”.

Even when you are down on your luck, as long as you owe them, creditors will keep you unwanted company.

One famous Roman slave & Latin writer, Pubililius Syrus, famously said;

“Debt is the slavery of the free”.

You can’t have decent sleep with a sheriff calling you throughout the whole night.

Whilst we need to finance our lives, it will be diligent if minimized our exposure to such and avoid coming face-to-face with the law.

Besides never being at peace in one’s mind and life, debt is a parasite (the word used by MJ Demarco) that we need to careful of in our dealings with financial institutions.

6. Invest in a lawyer for your defense during tough times

 A lawyer is the ultimate layer of defense against your troubles and enemies. But it will help our lawyers serve us well if we avoided situations that our enemies may take advantage of or any other situation that may lend us in trouble with the law.

There is a famous slogan which says “Don’t call me, call my lawyer”, thus have a lawyer so that they can instead call him/her and leave you alone.

7. Understand contracts you enter into

Contracts are signed everyday everywhere in the world. A substantial number of these contracts are signed by some parties who don’t bother to read them.  It will save a few tears later if we took time to read or take the document to a lawyer for interpretation. There are many tales of people who got sued simply because they didn’t understand what they got into in the first place.

8. Don’t make commitments you can’t deliver on

In today’s litigious society, one need to be careful of what one promises to people particularly if we know we are unlikely to deliver on the promise. Even if the promise is verbal, we can still be sued by people claiming legitimate expectation.

We shouldn’t make commitments to others by way of promising them if we can’t deliver on those commitments.

9. Beware of the power of spoken word

Words have power. They have the power to build. They can have the power to destroy. And also they can bring you into an unhealthy contact with the law. Negative words such as insults can land one in trouble by way of law suits, verbal abuse or even domestic abuse depending in the context.

Hence what we say, and how we say it is very important. I believe stimulating words have the power to build rather than drive us on edge of conflict with the law.

10. Be responsible and accountable for things happening in your life

Finally we must responsible and accountable for things we do and those happening in our lives. Admitting responsibility is the first step towards taking corrective action. Taking action on the matter is holding oneself accountable for things happening in our lives. There are people who would admit responsibility and still go on to make the same mistake again and again. They are responsible but lack accountability as they see no reason to take corrective action on the matter at hand.

If we take responsibility and then account, we keep the arms of the law away from us.

Thank you for reading this article. We are a new blog and as such we value your comments and feedback.

How possible is it that we can live our lives on our terms?

It is possible. But before I say how is it possible, let’s look at reality on the ground. I must agree that we can never live life absolutely on our terms.

Why not absolutely?

Government controls us and what we do in many ways. We are expected to pay taxes even if we don’t want the wars they finance.

Our families have some form of control over us or the mere reason they are family has a bearing on what we do or want to do.

Our neighbours influence us on which schools to send our children to or which TV model to buy.

Society through its norms, traditions, religions etc has a way of controlling us.

Marketers through their tricky psychology are manipulating us to buy things we don’t need more ever than before.

Banks are dangling the money carrot with all forms of debt.

BUT relative to the reasons above, we can live life on our terms.

This is how we can do it in three ways.

Photo by Miguel Bruna on Unsplash

1. Believe in yourself no matter what

Blaise Pascal, French Physicist & Mathematician said these profound words;

“I bring you the gift of those four words: I believe in you”

The French man believes in you and in us. Do you believe in yourself?

People believe in people who believe in themselves. You take control of your circumstances if you first take control of yourself. The first step in the game of control is belief in oneself. When you believe in yourself, you are able to counter anyone who wants to take control of you or your circumstances. Say the four words flipped over – I believe in myself.

When people believe in themselves, they acknowledge to themselves that they will achieve their wants or dreams regardless of obstacles on the way- and live life on their terms.

2. Own your personal choices

It is your life anywhere so it isn’t surprising that you must own your personal choices. The choices we make, make us. And the choices others make for us can make us if we allow them. One anonymous author whose words of wisdom go un-credited, had this to say;

“No one has power over you unless you give it to them, you are in control of your life and your choices decide your own fate”.

3. Verify information

Information is power. It is the power that can be used to take control of your mind. There is a saying (though I don’t know who said it) that “Those who wield information wield the sword of the 21^st century”.

There is so much lying these days that it is difficult to pick the truth from lies, half lies or half-truths. Information is generated at warp speeds and that makes it difficult to make sense of it. That being said, we can’t just become slaves to information; we need to take charge of what we want to believe in or not believe in. The first step in that direction is to verify information.

The man of the moment, Marcus Aurelius (121 -180 AD), Roman Emperor & Stoic Philosopher captures the issue of information at a different time in history, at the early stages of the first millennia.

“Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth”

4. Sometimes Say No to people

It is tough to have to leave your stuff and work on what is not yours. As we only have 24 hours a day. But some people don’t seem to see it that way; they feel you have all the time to do their stuff. Today we have a bonanza of wisdom from anonymous authors, here is one of them had to say.

“I refuse to please others at the expense of my emotional well-being. Even if it means saying no to people who are used to hearing yes.”

Say no and live life on your terms.

5. Take Care of your Health

We have only one body. The body is not only physiological but also houses our mind –the most powerful tool we have at our disposal (if natured well and employed correctly). This one body that has to carry us throughout our lives. Once it gets damaged we can’t move into another body. It is therefore imperative that we invest more resources and time caring for it. What we can do immediately is – ignore food marketers and stop throwing junk in the name of food into our bodies (easier said than done but it can be done). If we can service our bodies more than we service our cars, we can take control of our bodies from aspirin addiction.

Disclaimer: Don’t take me seriously here, I am not a physician or dietician. My advise though correct is for your information only. So ALWAYS consult appropriate medical personnel regarding your health issues.

Now you know. You have only one body take control of and live life on your terms.

I leave you with this quote by Martial (40 – 104 AD), Roman Poet to muse over.

“Life is not merely being alive, but being well”.

Thank you for reading.

We are a new blog and as such we value your comments and feedback.

Failure is something we have to expect and learn from its consequences once it is with us. In fact we fail a lot of the time – and it happens whilst we are not even aware we are failing. We notice or acknowledge failure when we have failed at something as big as business, marriage or career choice. A single factor or combination of many may cause us to fail. In this post I will touch only on one thing that is nudging us toward failure a lot of the time.

Here is the one thing you must do to constantly fail and fail fast – that is blindly chase after every passing opportunity.

“Blindly chase after every passing opportunity” approach to life is driven by “everybody is doing it mentality”. The validation is simple and straight – everybody is doing it.  There was one university which offered great part-time programs and they still do – many jumped into the bandwagon and enrolled. How many graduated? Very very very few. An investment scam offering great returns on money invested appeared out of nowhere and appeared to be global. Many people I know went in – and made some tidy money for about two or three months (possible baiting period) and suddenly owners who appeared to be headquartered in Europe vanished into thin air with all the investments people had put in.

“Blindly chase after every passing opportunity” is a globally embraced mentality.

We never pause to evaluate opportunities if they are fit for us or if they are legit.

Now here it’s me.

A little over decade ago, I went into a pub business. Owning a pub was the in-demand and some status opportunity (more like in the dotcom days) that everyone else was going after. My decision was informed by “everybody is doing it” mentality. I never evaluated the opportunity against my personal circumstances I just waded in. Few days after opening, being a sin business, the pub attracted clients with questionable characters. They would fight and break windows most of the time. On Saturdays they would refuse to leave the pub even after municipally gazetted closing time thus effectively keeping me and employees hostages. Hot tempered as I was then, I couldn’t beat my clients and anywhere if I tried some of them would have reduced me to pulp. The business was also taking the time I had allocated for my personal life. I arrived home at 12 midnight every day and in the morning at 0700 I had to be at my day job. With time, I gradually got stressed and my health deteriorated due to lack of sleep. Constant fines by cops and dressing down by land-lord (a hot head) didn’t help my situation. I closed within 6 months despite the business being profitable.

To add salt to injury, this pub opportunity came hot on heels after another “everybody is doing it” opportunity – selling perfumes – which I failed at miserably. Reason for the failure. Typical of “everybody is doing it opportunity “, there were too many players owing zero-barrier to entry.

Though this article is written with a tone that sounds negative, it is actually not meant to discourage you and others from being brave, proactive or seizing opportunities but to say let’s evaluate opportunities coming our way.

I will leave you with this quote by Marcus Aurelius (121 -180 AD), Roman Emperor & Stoic Philosopher to ponder over.

“The object of life is not to be on the side of the masses, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane”.

Thank you for reading.

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