Okpam,

I greeted you in Idoma language of Benue State, saying “My friend”.

Our tent is pitched with football today; there are different ways of referring to time on the pitch. The actual game lasts 90 minutes, while a few minutes are added as injury time based on the referee’s assessment of the summed-up time when the game pauses. However, there might be Extra time during games that a qualifying team needs to emerge. I am discussing this concerning other areas of our lives, hoping that football will teach us something helpful for our daily lives.

The actual time is the 90 minutes in which the squad shows their deftness at winning the other team. Once a team proves its mettle before the game ends, the game ends, while both the winning and the losing teams leave the pitch. It must be noted that winning with a goal is akin to a Yoruba proverb which warns that someone with a single wick must not play by the waters (eniti o ni ogbu’na kan o gbodo sere leti omi).

We all have an actual time in life, an actual time in the office, and an actual time in virtually all we do. During this period, we have the opportunity to strive to make the best impression and achieve the optimum result.

Injury time is minimal; it might not be up to 5 minutes. Many teams wake up during injury time trying to score the goals that they have been unable to score ab initio. Only a few teams are lucky enough to score a goal at this point. There are times when a team could be lucky to win at this final moment of a game, but it is not usually advisable to wait until this precarious moment.

The drift of today’s gist is for us to wake up in time to attain feats rather than waiting till the final moment to seek a change that one’s employer or family might not accept, and an appraisal. Many people want to make last-minute impressions, make reassuring promises on the verge of elections, and many more. May is here; kindly optimise the actual time of the year before halftime.

We don’t need to waste a lot of time while maximising the limited time to achieve the impossible.