One way to improve the quality of a relationship is to increase the quantity of time spent on it.
One way to reduce the quality of a relationship is to reduce the quantity of time spent on it.
In the end, time is the only quality remembered in relationships.
You are time. Be there.
– Osasu Oviawe
If you can do whatever it takes, then no cost is too high for you to pay, and no action too heavy for you to bear.
It sounds liberating, but it is a trap.
The value in virtues is in the experiences they shield you from: experiences whose cost cripples you and whose memories drown you with regret.
– Osasu Oviawe
There is no greater joy than to give the one you love all of you.
I am joyful.
– Osasu Oviawe
Everything will come, not at once, but everything will come together.
Until then, smile and embrace each arrival.
– Osasu Oviawe
“Culture eats strategy for breakfast” because, unlike strategy, it is not limited by brainstorming or articulate writing. Word of mouth is enough.
While strategy is constricted by the tip of the pen, word of mouth rides on loose tongues.
Word of mouth is only limited by the imagination of the mouth’s owner, and imagination is never in short supply.
A strategy that wins must be embedded in what people like to talk about. People like to talk about stories. Strategy must align with the stories people like to tell. There’s no sweeter story than stories about people.
Winning strategies are always gossip-worthy people stories, not growth, low-cost, differentiation, or execution stories.
– Osasu Oviawe
Knowing when to listen to your body and when to ignore it is the difference between personal excellence and personal harm.
In no domain is this seen better than in sports.
A domain where the body needs to be pushed to its breaking point, but not to actually break it. Because while reaching the breaking point stretches and strengthens the body, breaking it strains and weakens it.
The difference is subtle, but it is noticeable and trainable.
It is not the body that first says stop. It is the mind. So the trick is to push the body beyond the mind’s screams until its chatter stops. Then it frees up space for you to listen only to the body, and its feedback to stop is a much gentler tone that is difficult to miss.
Another domain where it can be observed is in reading.
I was reading a book the other day, and on the first paragraph, my mind was already screaming about all the other things I should be doing, including resting. I smiled to acknowledge it but kept on reading, and I was grateful for it, because I learned in the next few minutes something I had struggled to put into words for years.
But a few hours in, I started feeling sleepy. I again tried to fight it, believing it was another chatter from the mind, but this was a gentler nudge. The words were getting blurry, and I was drifting in and out of sentences. I gave in to the lure of slumber from the body, and by the time I woke up, I was so much sharper than I was when I started reading.
In reading, when the mind tells you to take a break, it does not ever re-energize your return. But when the body tells you to take a break, it refreshes you to an energy level higher than the start of your reading.
The body knows the breaking point, and it tells you. You can only miss it if the mind’s chatter keeps on going without end. Focus the mind on the goal, and it will have less time for chatter. Without a goal, the chatterbox is the greatest enabler of harm.
– Osasu Oviawe
I pray you experience love, even if it breaks your heart; I pray you experience it.
Nothing else comes close to understanding our reason for being than to love and be loved.
– Osasu Oviawe
If you have no choice, that is your choice.
If you have a choice, that is your choice.
If you have many choices, you are disabled by choice.
If you have few choices, you are enabled by choice.
Choice is as personal as the soul and, like the soul, can be traded away by the undiscerning.
– Osasu Oviawe
Filter your actions through long-term consequences.
Look at where those who took the same actions long before you are now.
Decide if that is where you want to be.
Ignore the lure to believe you’re different.
Consequences may delay, but they arrive.
Discern consequences, then take action.
– Osasu Oviawe
The true artist pours a part of herself into every piece, valuing just one: the one she’s on.
Which is why the most valued work of an artist is the one left unfinished.
And for an artist, no work is ever really finished.
– Osasu Oviawe
