THE IP MAG

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SELF TOLERANCE

Hi, I'm Sam, In all my years of thinking of myself and despite how highly I've thought of myself, I have never considered myself to be a perfect human. I don't shine constant light on my flaws and as a result I can't mention them and by flaws I mean the things I can't change about myself, I agree that every other thing can be worked on, no matter how long it takes. I've always thought that the two scariest things for me in a relationship is getting cheated on and being tolerated. I understand that you are not always in love with your partner every single day of the relationship and/or marriage and as valid as feelings can be, it is also fleeting and a solid lasting relationship cannot be built on feelings alone. So I sit to think about the moments that you're " not in love " with your partner, what exactly is that period called? The period where it feels like their flaws outshine the best parts of them no matter how much you try to shi...

NOT THE FINISH LINE

Hi, I'm Sam, I don’t think I will be the first to raise my hands when the question “ who’s athletic here?” Is thrown in a room I happen to find myself in but in the same vein, with more explanations given, I won’t be the last to raise my hands either. I occasionally exercise but the constant mode of exercise I partake in is strolling. I try to achieve at least 10k steps a day. Some days I don’t get to my target and some days I go way above my goal, it all depends on the kind of day I’m having. One mode of exercise or sporting activity that I’m not sure anyone is really going to find me partake in is field tracks. I don’t particularly think I enjoy running but it’s something everyone has got to learn to not be bad at considering the part of the world we live in. But one thing I do enjoy with watching people or Olympians partake in that sport is the fact that there is a finish line to be reached. No matter what type of field track that is going on, the finish line is som...

SHIFT TO STABLE

Hi, I'm Sam, I think it’s safe to say now that I’ve spent my late twenties having realizations and somehow finding summaries to my lifestyle growing up. To some degree I can describe in one or few words the kind of son, brother, cousin or friend I’ve been from a toddler till this point in my life. I’ve had the honor of having different people occupying different positions in my life tell me about me from their point of view of from the view of someone else close to me that they’ve paid rapt attention to. Sometimes I find it easy to agree to the description of me and sometimes I’m intrigued in both good and bad ways and sometimes I fight and argue their summarization. But one thing that has never changed and even though I never realized this then was that all of them were very correct to a certain degree and more than fifty percent correct, I was just blind to the parts I didn’t see and agree with and the parts I agreed to didn’t really make up a very large percentage o...

EVERYTHING'S NOT NORMAL, AND THAT'S NORMAL

Hi, I'm Sam , We have been conditioned to think from a Me perspective and that can really be the only way because we think from what we know when it's about us. We can only make assumptions when it's about someone else because even if they tell us, it might not be true and when it is true it might not be the whole truth and when it's the whole truth it might not make sense because in so many scenarios, their lived experiences makes the whole truth make sense which means that the fact we haven't lived their experiences, it does make sense that their whole truth doesn't make sense to anyone who is not them. The world has a way of toughening everyone up because no matter what we're going through, everything keeps moving at their individual pace. It's easy to think that because you're going through a lot, others aren't but you seem to forget that everyone just gets good as masking their reality just the same way you are. Because you can...

UNFORTUNATE ROUTINE

Hi, I'm Sam, We never forget experiences and one of the things I find very difficult to forget is my interactions with people. This goes both ways though, the way I act towards people and the way they act towards me. The memory sticks whether it was good or bad. In some of the bad cases, I try to make excuses for others that maybe they're not having a good day or maybe someone else has hurt them to act a certain way towards me in a manner that I do not deserve. I have even gone as far as trying to put the blame on myself trying to query my tone in the questions or words I said or my facial expression, just anything to not acknowledge that the way the person acted towards me was not on them but somehow on me. In recent years, people's interactions with me has somehow been similar. It's almost as if I can anticipate the milestones and with each action or reaction, I take a mental note of what stage in our interaction the person is and I can go ahead to fore...

365 DAYS

Hi, I'm Sam , I asked my best friend for ideas on how to live and he said "Enjoy Everyday and Every moment" and now I am trying to find a way to put that into everyday for the next 365 days. I told him the advice sounds so simple and straightforward and for the first few moments after he sent that message I tried not to overthink it but how will I create a content calendar for myself for the next 365 days without breaking it down to make sense and use it to plan ahead. In that planning and analyzing, there is every chance that I might begin to overthink and end up feeling overwhelmed that I make a mess of a simple advice given with the purest of intentions and expected to be carried out in the simplest way possible. Sometimes the problem is not with what we have to do but how we decide to approach what we have to do. Our individual lives and experiences aid in figuring out how to approach what we have to do. You might decide to jump into it thinking so much ...

BEFORE I DO

Hi, I'm Sam , I've always wondered what angle to think about marriages and weddings. I love it for others but sometimes people say everything changes when you get married and they still say people don't change even when you marry them and this is always in a case of a character flaw, so then what really changes after wedding and in marriage? It's a good thing to love someone so deeply that you'd love to take it a step further but I don't completely subscribe to that mentality because we still witness people go through the long and stressful process of wedding planning just to take a step further with someone they do not completely love and someone they would end up tolerating and stepping out on in the marriage and I'm really curious to know what their thought about that really is because I have tried and maybe the experiences I've come to live or hear of hasn't done a fine job in letting me imagine and explain scenarios that makes sense...

GENUINELY LOVED

Hi, I'm Sam, Don't get it twisted that love is a beautiful thing. Some feelings are better felt and expressed than described. As complete as the English dictionary might seem, it is possible to lack words to describe some feelings at the initial stage but as some point down the line I begin to use scenarios and examples to describe certain emotions and to me that is way better than using one word which has its meaning etched in the pages of a dictionary. The biggest trick my mind has consistently played on me is to make me questions every love gesture I receive. I mean it does make sense to question certain gestures and audit it irrespective of who it's coming from but my mind questions the legit and illegitimate ones and then goes a step further to take actions that will jeopardize the legit gestures from legit avenues. At some point the feeling of being unworthy of certain expressions becomes the least of my problems because i find myself constantly fighting...

IT'S AN EVERYDAY THING

Hi, I'm Sam, I like to believe that for me life became easy and simple to live after i internalized the harsh truth that certain things will always be an everyday thing. This was a harsh truth because some of these things are not things that could be considered fun. Some of them could be considered fun for a while and then the reality hits that it's just for a while, then the fun starts to dry out little by little. People often misunderstand me when I say that one of my major irks in people is when they complain a lot about things that can be considered their reality for the time being. Some say that it means that I subscribe to the idea that people should suffer in silence but on the contrary, my stance is often that they shouldn't suffer at all or at least try to reduce the suffering in any way they can. For instance, someone in a terrible relationship but refuses to get out of It but constantly makes it everyone's problem by constantly complaining about i...

LOYALTY TO MYSELF

Hi, I'm Sam , It feels so good to know, admit to myself and finally say that I do not feel any bit of urge to keep performing for an audience that is not even paying attention and I would still not perform even if they were. Someone said that everyone is completely aware of what they're doing, they may not be honest about their intentions to others but within themselves they know exactly why they do what they do, they just hope that the other person is not smart enough to figure it out or they hope the other person is not interested in doing anything about it. Just like a talking stage, I really do believe everyone takes records of their interaction with people and they use the record to ultimately decide how to act toward each person. That way they're informed as to what part of themselves they bring to certain people and what parts of themselves they need to strip or hide to properly exist around certain people. This is a skill I think i like, I try to often ...

THE FEAR OUTWEIGHS THE DESIRE

Hi, I'm Sam , I was 16 when I started wishing I could drive, before that I was just there to enjoy rides but what I enjoyed the most was the opportunity to be driven without much thought to where we were going to. At some point my dad seriously considered changing my name because he felt like the name had an effect on me. For better clarification, my igbo name is "Chisom" which translates to "God follows me", so my dad was convinced that the name was the reason i wanted to follow everyone everywhere instead of just letting God do the following. To think I really enjoyed being driven around but I didn't like the idea that my movement also meant that someone else had movement, so I thought it was a huge disturbance. Despite the fact the person was doing his job, It still didn't sit right with me that I had to drag someone around and it didn't help that my movement were not very important. The thoughts of driving started to cree...

SHAMELESS

Hi, I'm Sam , Some say you can't shame the shameless, so sometimes I ask myself, are certain people shameless or they have just learned to be unusually honest about themselves and their situation. They don't admit those " shameful " things to be at the center of a pity party but it's their way of just saying what is instead of trying to paint things to not appear as they are. I also do not think that those who refuse to share certain things are being dishonest, I just cannot expect the same things from everybody. The shameless can also be seen as people who overshare and I can see them as people who are honest about their situation but it really depends on who is looking at it and what angle the person is watching from. I struggle to identify a mistake in anything I do with intentions irrespective of what side the intention falls. I know that calling certain things a mistake make a somewhat good defense but I have also tried my best to be honest a...

EXPERIENCES MAY DIFFER

Hi, I'm Sam, I think that at some point in life, it easy to identify things that work for you, things you can try out and things you don't even need to bother yourself about figuring out or trying to will it. It is possible that we find out these things very early and what category they fall under but we often times lie to ourselves maybe ignorantly or in a way to try to be adventurous to test and if possible push our limits. When I get an idea of a new thing either by reading it, watching it or even thinking it, I always try to call myself to order by reminding myself that experiences often differ irrespective of how identical I may try to replicate whatever it is. In every replication, there is always a mistake that either leads to a new design or a failed attempt which still further buttresses my point. 8 decades ago, a young Aunty Nneka, a beautiful young lady in some part of igbo land probably didn't have any future plans different from what she was used ...

LET'S SHARE THE GRACE

Hi, I'm Sam, One of the many ways I know that I truly love someone or group of people is my intense desire to share anything I have no matter the quantity with them. As much as sharing can be considered to be a selfish act, I like to see it as a bonding act because in the moment that you decide to give away some, if not all of what you have in your possession, you're saying a lot to the other person without using your words and you will very much be understood even though some might decide to misunderstand you but deep down they understand your intentions. I don't only show love by sharing physical things, it's deeper when I can share intangible things like my love, emotions, thoughts etc which creates a deeper connection because I am able to transfer something I cannot touch, taking it or duplicating it from within and doing my absolute best to give it to someone else without reducing the potency and to have the other person experience it in full, in addit...

NOT ABOUT ME

Hi, I'm Sam , I consider it extremely important to remind myself that not everything is about me and no one thinks about me as much as I do. With that in mind, I have to try as much as I can to remove myself from so many scenarios that I think has so much to do with me but actually has nothing to do with me no matter how much I try to convince myself that it does. Thinking that something has a lot to do with me when it doesn't isn't about having a main character syndrome, I believe it comes from trying to be in control and trying to fix what probably isn't broken. If I can make it about me then I can work on the list I have given myself in an attempt to make things better and be better than I think it is in the present. Sometimes I blame this on being someone who absorbs energy. If I think the situation is about me then I can channel my energy into making it better so that I don't sit idle waiting for it to fix itself. But in so many scenarios, I've...

IT'S ME, HI!

Hi, I'm Sam, I didn't learn how to take accountability for the right reason. When things go the wrong way as a result of my actions or decisions, I will always be the first to acknowledge that I am the root cause and not the person who had to react to what I did. Someone else might see it as me being the bigger person to realize what had happened and take responsibility and that is completely what it is now but it didn't start of that way. In the beginning of my "accountability", I simply took accountability so that people would just shut up or simply just say nice things to encourage me because I've done the other thing they would've done which was to point out where and where I did wrong to result to the present situation. It will only take someone who has a really hard time reading the room to still try to point out my wrongs while I'm actively blaming myself while trying to take accountability for my actions. If the person can read th...

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