The Bubble Gum Effect - Lincoln's theory

Ever noticed how the person you backbite starts avoiding you? The person you hate starts disliking you, the cat you insult stops coming when you call it and the first facial expression you make when you wake up in the morning ends up defining your day? Well I have come up with a theory for this. One I have false-confidently labeled “The Bubble Gum Effect”.

 Just like bubble gum, the world as we know seems to be interconnected and the effect shows in everything we do. It may change shape but it all volumes down to the fact that we are all made of atoms that combine to give us shape and function. 

Well I personally, am tired of it because it can be a real pain in the pajamas. For starters a lot of couples start having problems when they start spreading lies about each other. They become distant and grow cold. This is even before they discover the lies being spread. Yes guilt play a part in it but only after the seeds of distrust have been planted can it cause any real damage.

Theory #1

This is because we are made out of the same material. Curiosity! ….Ahem, I mean Soil!
Same Soil! Just like bubble gum, we are all made out of the same ingredients, and the more we stretch away from each other the weaker the link becomes. Sure you can bring the two edges back together but the gum will never go back to its previous shape.

For such a transformation to occur we would need the molder of the gum to destroy the old one remold it as he created it, which in most cases is never among the choices we consider to mend the hypothetical bubble gum relationship.

Theory #2

For anyone who has read the bible, you know that it teaches about the power of the tongue and how speech triggers effects that spread like a wild fire. But if that is the case then how do you explain the fact even our mere thoughts affect how people relate with us. Well the answer is simple:

Wait, what? That’s the wrong quote!

But the bubble gum effect comes with a lot of positives.

1)      It lets us know when someone is in trouble: Ever had a mini vision while doing something and immediately rebuked it? And on other side of the coin, ever been in serious trouble and it magically disappears without you even praying about it? Yep bubble gum effect.

2)      It lets us know when to pray: It’s always been advised, when you wake up in the middle of the night, say a quick prayer before going back to bed. On the flip side, say a prayer every morning as you start your day and hand all things to God.

3)      It lets us know the people we care about are hurting even before they say anything:  Most of the times a loved one is hurting it creates a ripple effect that spreads in every direction with the closest people feeling it first.

4)       It lets us know how to treat others: Believe it or not, all creatures have empathy encrypted in their DNA. If you doubt that maybe you should pay more attention to the real“Animal Planet”

And once again i lay my theory to rest, Knowing that the next time you stick a pellet into your mouth, you shall remember it defines you life.

Why Prayer Falls on Deaf Ears ( by @Daily_Encounter ) - My version

  2 years ago i subscribed to a website called Daily Encounter(Probably out of boredom)It kept sending me these emails that i didn't ever bother to read. However today as i was brushing through my mailbox (definitely out of boredom), i stumbled upon their email. So i decided to open in and "mark as spam". Little did i know what awaited me inside the email.

  *Warning: extreme dramatization ahead*

 

 

*Actually you marked it as spam*

 

 

*Oh well.. Let me just see who they are*

 

When Prayer Falls on Deaf Ears

"If we ask anything according to God's will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the request which we have asked from him."¹
*Oh great, another one of those emails..I should have guessed from ... wait that name looks familiar*

A Daily Encounter subscriber writes, "Being the doubting Thomas that I am, I feel that my prayers fall on deaf ears and my wife and I even argue about the effect of prayer today. If the power of prayer were effective today, I feel there would be less death, sickness, and turmoil. I struggle with it all."

*I pronounce you skipped!*

Certainly at times it can be difficult to understand why some prayers seem to get answered while others seem to never get answered. However, we also need to realize that sometimes God answers, "Yes" … sometimes "no" … sometimes, "wait a while." So, what makes the difference?

*.....*

First, pray in harmony with God's will. To get a "yes" answer to prayer, as today's Scripture points out, it is essential that all of our prayers are in harmony with God's will. When we pray accordingly, we have the assurance that God both hears and answers our prayers. To know how to pray in harmony with God's will, we need to know what God's Word, the Bible, teaches. Of this we can be certain, God will never answer a prayer that is opposed to his Word.
*Okay ha ha very funny God.. This joke ends now so I am closing my inbox now!*

*20 minutes later... *

Second, pray the right prayer. Realize that some prayers don't get answered because we aren't praying the right prayer; 

*Wait there is such a thing as..*

that is, we may be praying with wrong motives.

"Wrong motives?? Me ?? Okay I'm now deleting this... wait I see "God's word" i can't delete "God's Word"*

 As God's Word also points out: "You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures."²
*The truth hurts Lincoln, the truth hurts*
Third, pray..

*Wait whose voice was that?* 

.. about causes.

*....*

  Another wrong prayer is when we want and ask God to deliver us from the symptoms of problems while we are in denial about or are avoiding facing and praying about the cause/s of the problem. For example, if we have stomach ulcers, there is no point asking God to heal this problem if we don't face and deal with the cause of the ulcers. In most cases it's not what we eat that cause stomach ulcers, but rather what is "eating" us, which could be stress, guilt caused by unconfessed sin, an impaired relationship, or any of a hundred other causes—especially including super-charged repressed negative emotions. As John Powell has said, "When I repress my emotions, my stomach keeps score."

Fourth, Pray believing. Faith, too, is essential for effective prayer. As Jesus said, "All things, whatever you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive,"³ and "according to your faith will it be done to you."⁴
*Okay you have my attention, but God, things are different. Times have Changed!!--- A prayer? Hell No!..... *

*You say no but you are already reading it*
Suggested prayer: "Dear God, please give me a love for learning what Your Word, ..

*Your eyes are not even closed, look she has noticed you are prayin..*

 the Bible, teaches so that I will always know how to pray in harmony with Your will. Also help me to see anything that I may be contributing to the problems I am experiencing, and help me always to pray believing and with the right motives. Thank You for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully in Jesus's name, amen."

*....*

*....*

*Idiot, I'm still here*

*Maybe i need to do it with my eyes closed..but .. look..*

*:-}*

*:-D*

*....*   

                   "I have been asking you all this time to respond to me yet it was me who was rejecting your call, Now i know you care :-)"  

And that my dear reader is how I ended up blogging about my new Daily Encounter -- pun intended

 

Forget jugdemental innuendos ... Do your part and move on

    Criticism is good. It exposes the wrong in an action. However if criticism is going to stall the progress of action, then there is need to worry.
 Picture this : We have exhibit A; one Okwembas in scene A, a ditch. a deep, dark, conical ditch. Trapped in with a shattered spinal cord after stumbling in high on alcohol.

 At scene 2; the top of the ditch, lies a bush with spear grass soaring over a nearby fence. A dark mist glidding over the plantain.
   Two people waking in opposite directions hear Okwembas' call for help. One, a self-made millionare taking an evening walk and the other a news reporter with a reputable public image. They hear the man's moan and lock eyes as though in accusation. The billionare increases his pace sensing a trap. He repositions his iphone from his wrist to his pocket as a safety measure. The reporter responds with a frown and stops dead in her tracks, jumps the fence and on realizing the deep pain of the man, she sits down and takes her time to console him and ask of  him about his condition.The billionaire in shame returns and, throws in his dear iphone for the man to call for help. One person would say that the one who did the good deed of throwing you a phone to call for help deserves more glory. For he implemented one of his "possibly many intentions". While one would give the credit to the one who did the noble deed. She stopped to console and querry an injurered stranger on a dark night. She possibly had many other things to do but decided to stop and help him. She showed him many of her noble intentions to help him by consoling him. But the truth is it is only our mystical stranger Okwembas who can tell what he needed more. The reporter's could have sensed the stranger was in deep pain and needed hope of his survival and tried to get information to contact his family. Or she may have wanted a good news story.

 Either way the little time she consoled him gave Okwembas some hope  despite her intentions.The billionaire's act of throwing in his phone to let the stranger call for help was a more practical and Okwembas could have been sober enough to recall a person's phone number who could offer him help. Or maybe he recognised the reporter and didn't want her to make a good news story out of him. Either way, the phone he threw in despite his intentions gave Okwembas an option of survival.

    Unfortunately we never get to know who played the bigger role in Okwembas' survival. Because it shouldn't matter. They each played their part and moved on. Their possibly selfish intentions resulted in good. Which is not the case today. Many people sit around and wine about the intentions of people who lend a hand to the needy. When a company donates an ambulance to a hospital "It wanted to appear on news" one onlooker lets an insult roll off his tongue. But the people who are dieing somewhere on a road do not in the least care why the ambulance was donated. The insincere act of the company is going to save his life. Imagine the reporter had turned a blind eye to Okwembas. God knows if the billionaire would have stopped to drop his phone. Even if he had, what if Okwembas was too drunk to dial a number , too injured for medical help and had a message to pass on before his demise. The chain event leading to his rescue would have been broken.
   Not that the intentions of one do not matter. Of course they do, If one is offering you help to keep you indebted to them then the wise decision would be to refuse it. But if help is being given to people who are not concerned with the selfish interests, why criticize and demoralize the would-be  followers in suit. Some public figures or companies just decide to avoid charity because the ripple effects would cause more harm than good.
   I believe we should judge actions on their effects and leave their motives to God. For even the purest of minds, will get a clouded vision when emotions set in.

Take time to replenish your body's positive emotions

It's only natural for humans to have the desire to spread happiness wherever they go. It's what we were created to do. Fairly enough making it abnormal for one to cause suffering and pain everywhere they go. But it so happens that a good number of people forget the golden rule of giving..

      When someone first hears such a statement he or she may get offended as it is too broad in meaning, in this case it hints on one of the biggest reasons people get weighed down by simple things.
 First of all we start from the root, as hinted earlier on we were created with the desire to do good. Which is a good thing, but then each person has a pool of emotions beaming in his body. The normal state is for the good emotions such as hope, satisfaction, gratitude , inspiration, love, amusement and many more to outweigh the negative emotions such as fear, jealousy, guilt, anger, revenge, aggression, discouragement, hate, blame, doubt and many more. But we get caught up giving off too many of the positive emotions, suppressing the negative emotions which destabilizes our body's composure.
   The negative emotions keep piling as the positive ones are being shed off to others. This continues for a while until the body reaches a breaking point, most times the sign start showing. One negative emotion at a time breaks through and takes over you. Then two, then three until the balance is completely broken. 

At this moment, all the suppressed negative emotions fly out like bats from a dark cave, soaring upwards in union, as though in mockery of your defeat. And all you can do is glare in confusion,... the only one they leave behind as a souvenir.
 However, this all is an illusion, in reality the only negative emotion that broke free was confusion and it has blinded you creating all kinds of illusions. This is a very bad place to be in. So bad that a simple thing like missing a bus, or loosing a phone could be the last straw that breaks the donkeys back. Figuratively speaking, as light as a single straw is so is the weight of such a circumstance under normal situations, but the timing is all it takes to crash the donkey. However all this can be avoided with ease.
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Step 1. Know what makes you truly happy
It is one thing to know what makes people happy, and it is another to know what you think makes you happy.  But knowing what truly makes you happy is the one thing that comes naturally, most times you didn't learn it from someone, but you taught it to yourself. Its the one thing you never notice yourself doing, but others notice it. It may take time to find but when found you should never let any circumstance stop you from doing it occasionally.
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Step 2. Drop any grudges you have 
 Grudges take a lot of thought memory. To the point that merely seeing a person can ruin your whole day, which will come back to haunt you when your stock of positive emotion depletes.

Step 3.Take some time to resolve some of the arguments you had
One of the hardest things to do is be a good looser, one who admits  after loosing an argument, but debating who was truly wrong when you are alone can reduce the bulk of pride beaming in you.
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Step 4. A humble reply is always better than silence or an aggressive one
Many people choose to ignore negativity, which is good, but as it piles up it can easily break you down. Others choose to attack it head on with aggression in the opposite direction which can have dire consequences in the long run such as enmity
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And Finally, the biggest step in restoring your positive emotions is finding solace in God, it may not look much that time but when the confusion settles and the scales fall of your eyes, you will see he was always there for you.

Me vs. the proverbs: the absurd and outdated

Being a Virgo has certainly started to take its toll on me. I don’t really believe in star signs especially the ones sold to innocent people desperate for encouragement, but I do believe in the possibility of people born in a particular month sharing particular character traits. That’s what the world does. It gets God’s work and finds a way to make it a more “celestial” way to explain it to humans. Belonging to Virgo leaves me an active thinker, I always debate anything before it settles in my head, and sometimes it occurs deep in my subconscious without my consent, the English proverbs inclusive.

   
 Here is my problem, these proverbs are to be taken literally, and yet we live in a practical world, and secondly most of them were intended for minority groups, in minority situations, and lastly times change, some are just outdated.

       Curiosity killed the cat;

The proverb everyone has used once at least in their life. It is a warning for people not to poke into things that do not concern them. But really let’s think about it, how would you know what concerns you and what doesn’t if you are clueless about what is being discussed? And even worse, if you are clueless about what is being discussed behind your   back, how do you decide what concerns you and what dosen't? How sure are you the people discussing behind your back are not planning to kill you, would it hurt to ask the scary guy in the dark alley if he had any evil plans that night before passing by him? No! Would it hurt to ask the Grim Reaper what he’s doing in your car seat when driving down a dark road high on alcohol? No! So why would someone ask another person to stop asking questions about things that their brain doesn’t fathom?
     My theory: This proverb is not fully a fact; ironically it only applies to people who have lost their sense of curiosity. And all that time without practice has left them armatures at the art of asking questions. And the only time they try to ask them, they literally die from curiosity.

Case solved: Curiosity killed the wrong cat and I have the world’s greatest genius to prove my theory

    Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

For this experiment, you will need a lion, a jaguar and a leopard and a blue room. Yes blue is the color for dramatic effect. Then place them into the same room and drop in the fattest goat you can find, and see how much 3 enemies living together is a bad idea.

Case solved: keep your harmless enemies close, and your harmful friends closer.

      The pen is mightier than the sword

I’m done listening to literal meanings, I bet the exaggeration in our daily speech is the reason the world's  scientists have not yet found the key to its biggest mysteries, nuclear fusion inclusive. First of all we live in the era of facebook and emails.  Countries have literally gone to war over one president not accepting the other's request or a mere follow back, and now you tell me a pen is mightier than a sword. Go back to the blue room, hopefully the lion is still alive, bruised, but alive, on the ground is a pen and sword, let's see which one you pick. For your sake i really hope you do not pick the pen.

Case solved: the sword is mightier than the pen, but once in a while the pen will get lucky and cause more damage or prevent it.

      A picture is worth more than a thousand words

I wrote a special poem for this one;

STEVE: the idiot

Steve was leading a rebellion.

Marching day and night into oblivion.

Steve wanted to inspire his army,

Show them a picture of a stash of gold he did,

Steve died alone on the battlefield
      By Lincoln Nidoi

Case solved: a picture is worth more than ten words

      Necessity is the mother of invention.

The key to the madness in this proverb is in my previous blog post.

Case solved: Laziness is the mother of necessity and invention, they are siblings, (the father being boredom but he doesn’t like to be associated with his kids very much, so let’s leave him out of this)

     Good things come to those who wait

I see what this proverb implies but I just do not see how this applies to all situations. First of all you can wait for a phone call from the lottery team and your land lord calls instead, and the most likely probability is you can wait for your pen to turn into an airplane and you will die before seeing it happen.(for all those who have ever got bored in class with only a pen and creativity at their hands)

Case solved: good things will come to those who wait wisely

And finally the biggest lie of them all;

       Practice makes perfect

No one can ever be perfect. To prove this theory we are going to have to go in the opposite direction, let’s say you are practicing to write with both hands accurately, and the pen slips on one side forming a crescent , perfection would not mean never making this mistake again, perfection would be making the same mistake two more times, the first time (second time) being coincidence, the second time (third time) being perfection

Case closed: practice makes … (am still thinking about this one)

And so as you can see, a good number of the proverbs we use are either outdated, absurd or apppeal to the minority today, and thus “I will none of their usage, this day forth...”

PS: I am right on all counts and I have a 2,000 paged Oxford Dictionary plus a dead genius to prove it!