It is more than a saying that each individual is
born with the potential to change his or her generation: it is a fact.
It is also a fact that over 90% of humanity barely
uses up to 2% of their potential. The rest 10% only uses about 9% of their potential,
with perhaps the exceptional few. As species, we have the most complex living
organ in the universe: our brain. This three pound tissue has the capacity to
perform more calculations than any supercomputer in the world. With this small
tissue we have been able to invent: automobiles, aeroplanes, spaceships, computer,
world wide web, etc. We have broken barriers in sciences and arts, cured
sicknesses that were previously thought incurable. Man has literally achieved
the impossible with this tiny tool. And you know the sad thing about all this?
All this achievements I had previously mentioned,
all those amazing inventions; they were invented and achieved by only a handful
of people throughout history. People we can count using our fingers and toes.
Why is this? I often ask myself. Why is it that, out
of the countless billions of people that have walked this earth, each with the
potential to change their generation and the world forever, only a handful of
people have actually applied their potential? Each with the same amazing tool—the
Brain. What is the cause of the lapse in humanity? Imagine for a second the
countless dreams: inventions and achievements, both in arts and science that
would have totally changed the world that have been lost. Dreams that never
came true, things that were never invented, books that were never written, poems
that were ever written, and pictures that were never painted. Why I ask myself?
Why is it that the grave is continually loaded with more and more potentials
that were never manifested, than our offices?
When I meditated upon these questions, and looked a
little closer at the mirror of life, drawing from the experiences of both the successful
and the unsuccessful I found many causes of this disease: a disease that has committed
more crimes that Malaria or HIV or Ebola. Out of this many causes I shall only
highlight only three: three that if corrected will slay the head of the dragon.
I shall highlight them from the least important, to the most important.
1.
Procrastination. The word was gotten from the Latin
word Procastinare, which means “defer till the morning.” Oxford dictionary
defines it as, “to delay or postpone action”. While it may seem far-fetched,
and at first sight un-concerning to our discuss, I must emphasize that this is
actually one of the most infectious symptom of that disease, especially in this
our time. The best way to explain this symptom will be to propose an example of
a worst case scenario and a best case scenario of young lad who wishes one day
to become the most influential writer of his time.
Let us name that young lad, for our artistic
pleasure: Harry. For the worst case scenario let us propose that: Harry passes
from grade school into high school, and unfortunately for Harry his parents are
killed in an accident and he’s stuck with his uncle a drunkard and has no financial
means of continuing his education to higher institution. Because of this, our
beloved Mr Harry, forgets all about his writing and decides to run his uncle’s
bar full time in order to take care of his younger ones. He forgets all about
his writing due to the trauma he suffered from the loss of his parents and the
new responsibility life has now saddled him with. And let our best case scenario
be: Harry passes from grade school into high school, and from high school into
higher institution. His parents are wealthy and healthy, and happily married.
Harry does not want for anything, all he has to do is turn his potential into
reality. But there are distractions that Harry faces. He has a 3D tv and the
latest Xbox, he has access to movies even before they are released publicly, he
also has friends who are detrimental to his dreams. He has to attend parties
three times in a week, and each time he comes back home drunk, there are also
the drugs and lots of pre-marital sex that has a high possibility of making him
a teenage dad, and his parents dew to the multi-national companies they run are
not always around to check Mr Harry. So once again our dear Mr Harry does not
write, he never becomes who he dreams about, he continues in this habit until
life takes him.
Now what are we to learn from both scenarios? You
see the fact is that life will always present us with distractions, whether its
tragedy or comedy there are always things that would come our way that would
constantly try to make us to “defer till tomorrow” our dreams and aspirations.
The Mr Harry in the worst case scenario procrastinated, he “deferred till
tomorrow” what he would/should have done every day. Although life had hit him
hard and he had no way of financing his education, at that high school stage he
already knew how to read and write, and each day no matter how busy he got he
could make out an hour out of twenty four hours in a day to write something.
And if he continued like that for five years that would be one thousand eight
hundred and twenty five hours, or seventy six days. Imagine how much he would
have achieved, he could have finished writing a book within then. But probably
each day he came back from work he told himself how poor and wretched he was,
and when an idea struck him he told himself he was too tired to write. “Let me
just rest for a few hours and I promise myself I’ll write,” but he never did:
he slept till the following morning. When he woke up the following day he
continued the same way: lining up excuses upon excuses, telling himself how
better tomorrow would be but failing to work today for that better tomorrow. And
just like that he becomes thirty, forty, and then he becomes eighty and before
you know it we are all saying “may his soul rest in peace.”
The same thing applies to the best case Harry who
has everything in the world, but life still presents him with excuses: parties,
Xbox, pre-marital sex, drugs, cultism, movies etc. And just like the other
Harry he lines up excuses after excuses, postponing his dreaming of being a writer,
“differing till tomorrow” things he should have done today. And like his other
counterpart soon he becomes aged, and we all sing the song, “may his soul rest
in peace.”
Solution: Do today what you will do tomorrow. For
although while there is health and wealth, we hope to today to see another
tomorrow, let us not forget: life is unpredictable.
2.
Fate/ Destiny. I
shall be brefer in explanation for this symptom, as I believe every single
human being is familiar with it. Destiny or fate are not strange words, great
men and low men, both past and present have always used it. In our literature
it is present, in the community it is present, it is also present in every
religion in the planet. Destiny. Fate.
You walk by a church or a mosque and you hear
someone say, “You are destined to be a lawyer, God himself has decided it,” or “Allah
has given each and every one of us a path, which is our destiny and we must
follow it.” Even at home you hear parents telling their children they are
destined to be this or that. I must tell you that this struggle did not start
today. Ancient men in ancient times, since the beginning have often wondered if
there was a pre-destined part for man to follow, a part “the gods/ or nature
had already chosen for them.” And many believe there was a path, that every man
is born to fulfil a purpose. And that believe has been passed down for many
generations to this day. Since I promise not to stay long in this symptom let
me simply tell us the truth.
There is no such thing as destiny or fate or a
pre-destined path. Each of us is made or unmade by the choices we make every
day. No one is born to be a lawyer: one way or the other that person chose to
be a lawyer. Choice is the only factor in life, and many deceive themselves each
day by telling themselves it is destiny. Many are afraid to take responsibility
for their actions, to stand up and fight for a better life, they rather prefer
to hide behind the guise of destiny and fate. You’ll often hear them say, “that’s
how life is”, or “it is the work of the devil”, or “if not that my friend”.
They are afraid to take responsibility for their actions. Even if you are
influenced by somebody or a group of people to do something, YOU made that
DECISION. You could have said no, but you chose to say yes. You always have a
choice. The gods did not come down and tell you to cheat on you exams, or rob
the grocery store near your house. The gods did not tell you to propose to that
girl in your faculty, the gods did not force or tell you to eat food today. You
CHOSE to, YOU made that DECISION.
Solution: Let us take a quote from James Allen. He
said, “Each of us is where we are by the law of our being. The thought which
have built into our character have brought us there. We are made or unmade by
ourselves.” I think that has summed it all. Accept responsibility for your
actions and learn to face the consequences of the choices you have made and
stop blaming others for the condition you are presently in: YOU MADE THE
CHOICES THAT LEAD YOU THERE.
3.
Never Give Up: Hold On To That Dream. Life hits us. Life
hits us hard and fast. We never see the tragedies coming; we were never
prepared when they showed up. Like a tsunami that was never predicted
situations hits on our foundation, breaking us into pieces. Destroying those
things in our hearts we thought were indestructible, those things that made us
who we are, those things that we hope to be some day.
Death sweeps through the family taking our loved
ones, we fail and try again and fail and try again, we pray to God and we have
no answer, we call on friends but no one is there. Following this, like snails
we fold into our shells, we lose faith on our dreams and aspirations because of
people and things that seemed to lose faith on us. When we smile, we do not
truly smile, and when we laugh the life is not there—we become shadows of
ourselves—ghosts of our previous self. We slowly sink in to that river of grim,
we become depressed and content with our present situation. That drive to
better ourselves and the society dies out and our humanity slowly fades away.
We give into our most bestial desires, and death and sadness becomes our
shadows.
No doubt one way or the other the picture is just painted
above might have been you sometime or even presently. This I tell you is the
greatest thief our potential, this symptom has put a lot of dreams and
aspirations in the grave. There is a simple fact: life does not care. And most
people who fail to realise this pity themselves when life proves this theorem
to them. The symptom “Never Give Up,” in reverse “Give Up” can be put in
another word: Diligence. Diligence means: persistent effort. In other words
continuous labour. In other for you to succeed in life this law is inevitable:
you must be diligent in whatever you do. Don’t get me wrong, life will always
try to paint the picture I painted about above in your life. You may fail and
fail until everyone and even you cease to believe you can succeed, an accident
may happen to you that might change your life forever, but all these things
does not change anything. You can achieve whatever goal you set for yourself as
long as you believe, as long as you hold onto it and Never Give up no matter
the situation you are in. As long as you are diligent in pursuing that goal.
Humanity is probably in this present stage of her development
because many gave up on their dreams. When the trials of life came and hit them
hard, they failed to stand up like soldiers and fight back, preferring rather
to die than to give up on that dream that is more precious than gold. They
pitied themselves and let their dreams and aspirations be controlled by
external forces. So today whoever you are, wherever you may be reading this article,
I am pleading with you to hold on to that dream. I am begging you to not give
up on those aspirations. Humanity needs you. I need you. That dream may be the
solution to many of the countless problems the entire planet is facing today,
that dream may be what nine billion people need. Just keep placing one foot in
front of the other, and I assure it may take you forever but one day you’ll get
there. I assure you, I have proven this law and found it to be true. When I was
in high school I used to trek a lot. Sometimes 15kms other times more, no
matter how far my destination was, or how tired I was after school I knew one
thing: as long as I kept throwing one foot in front of the other I would
definitely reach home. The same principle applies to life; all you have to do
is keep going.
Last Words: Martin Luther King Jr., once said, “If
you can’t fly, then run, if you can’t run,
then walk, if you can’t walk, then crawl, but whatever you do, you have
to keep moving forward.” That sums it all up. Dear brother or sister, I need
you to turn your dreams and aspirations to reality. I need you not to give up
no matter how hard life hits you. I need you to stand up and fight! NEVER GIVE UP! HOLD ONTO THAT DREAM!
Prof
Ezyclems.
Please if you have been blessed by this article,
share on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. Remain blessed and hold onto that
dream.
