OSAZEE AND DAYO HIS SON

There on upon a time, there was a farmer by the name of Osazee who relied heavily on his sons to help with planting, cultivation, and especially to bring in the harvest. But Osazee had only one son named Dayo, strong, strapping fellow, of whom his father was very proud.

One day, as father and son were walking to the fields to begin the harvest, they were so caught up in their conversation that Dayo didn't notice where he was stepping, and in a flash he had fallen and broken his leg.

"Oh, no!" his father cried, "This is terrible!" And, in truth, in those days a broken leg WAS a grievous injury, one that could even result in death if left untreated. But soon the doctor came and set the leg and assured both men that it would heal just fine.

Osazee was, of course, relieved. Yet he still faced a dilemma: How to bring in the harvest without Dayo’s help. Despite his relief that Dayo would live and be healthy, a dreary air of gloom and despair settled on him. He'd just have to do the best he could, maybe find others to help, but the specter of losing his harvest loomed bleakly before him and his heart was heavy. Osazee was thoroughly convinced that Dayo accident was a disastrous misfortune.

The next day, as Osazee prepared to go to the fields and get done what he could manage alone, he heard a far-off rumble that he soon recognized as the sound of hundreds of hoof beats. A bit startled, he delayed his departure and waited to see what was happening. Soon he got his answer, as a massive army led by a fierce-looking warlord thundered into his dooryard. "All able-bodied men come forward!" the warlord's lieutenant called out. "You are hereby pressed into service and will come with us now!"

Osazee bowed and explained that he had only one son and that he was unfit for the army as he had broken his leg just the day before. The warrior chief scowled and sent a man into the house to see for himself if Osazee’s story were true. When he was satisfied, he simply nodded to his lieutenant who quietly raised his hand, and the horde of men and horses disappeared over the hill as quickly as they had arrived.

Such a blessing! Osazee shouted, as he embraced his son. "How wonderful it is that your leg is broken and you are not to be taken from me!" 

To do things in the way you want to do them, you will have to acquire the ability to think the way you want to think. This is the first step toward getting rich. And to think what you want to think is to think TRUTH, regardless of appearances.

Every individual has the natural and inherent power to think what he wants to think, but it requires far more effort to do so than it does to think the thoughts which are suggested by appearances.

To think according to appearances is easy; to think truth regardless of appearances is laborious and requires the expenditure of more power than any other work we are called upon to perform.

There is no labor from which most people shrink as they do from that of sustained and consecutive thought. It is the hardest work in the world. This is especially true when truth is contrary to appearances.

So what was the TRUTH of Osazee’s situation? Was Dayo accident a terrible thing or a wonderful thing?

 Here is a quotation that fits this story from The sixth president of the United States, John Quincy Adams, wrote this:

"let us consider an alternative style of thinking, which we can call 'creative thinking.' It is playfully instructive to note that the word 'reactive' and the word 'creative' are made up of exactly the same letters. The only difference between the two is that you 'C' [see] differently." 

Sometimes we can get ourselves into the habit of seeing things in a negative way, a way that doesn't serve us. But we DO always have the CHOICE of how we see. And sometimes, as with Osazee’s we need something to come along and kind of smack into us to jar us into seeing and thinking a different better, more positive, more creative, more USEFUL  way, don't we?

Here is what happened to me, I was born in old ancient Benin. A town where everyone aspires to try something new but in a far away land. My quest took me to many countries but let say I would later spend my adult life in Canada. Years past by and events demanded that I come home briefly with a few other business partners. To cut the long story short, a man whose business was already thriving came back home to a country where he was born. But the so many uncertainties and realities of living in Nigeria would soon hit me. At the end, I was faced with choice. To back to Canada where I had a life that was fun, ready and accommodating or to remain in a country where I knew nobody but a few folks looking to take advantage of my innocence and lack of understanding of how things really go down. We chose the later because I knew that is what everyone would avoid. I saw the opportunities that existed rather than the miss-opportunities. Now, I own three businesses with each looking better than when I first started out in Canada. The truth is many friends including family advised me against taking such a drastic decision. Where they saw corruption I saw a way out, where they saw failures, I saw opportunities, where the saw competition, I saw population etc. 

But still, there IS that choice to be creative rather than reactive, to CHOOSE another way of looking at the situation. Creative mind is always available to us, but as Mr. Wattles notes, sometimes it's REALLY hard work "the hardest work in the world." And yet, in my experience at least, that choice is the surest route to truth rather than mere appearances.

Wisdom doesn't just show up in a nice, neat package labeled "Wisdom." It gets delivered through experience and through our decisions about how to view our experience, what value and meaning we CHOOSE to assign to events.

So, while it IS painful, I choose to see this major life transition as the gift it truly is. Thomas Edison awoke one morning to find his laboratory and his life's work had been destroyed in a fire. And he looked at the ashes and said that he was glad. All his mistakes had been wiped out and he now had the opportunity to begin again more intelligently. 

We all have that opportunity. Every day, in every moment. And if we have chosen unwisely in the past, the great gift is that we can choose again right now. And the truth is, when appearances seem to be that our current experience is "bad," we must KEEP choosing over and over, in every moment to see past those appearances so that we don't miss the doors that are opening to us even as others that we have outgrown our need for are closing. It's not a one-shot deal where you tie up all the loose ends quickly and neatly and then move on, but an ongoing process of discovery, challenge, and growth. 

We're all in the process somewhere; we truly ARE all in this together. And by our choices from moment to moment we determine whether we just spin round and round, seeming to bump up against the same challenges and potential lessons again and again, or accept them and move forward, spiral upward to greater things, upward to the greater good for ourselves and for all.

When something good goes wrong, most of us would say in the shock of the moment and before we were able to absorb that shock: "Oh, no! That's terrible!. But I like you to remember its not bad until we call it so.

It's NOTHING at all 'til WE call it.