The Sunday Mail
Hunt for Greatness
Milton Kamwendo
The best way to start is by starting. simple! Some talk big and do not do. Some promise big, but do not do big actions. Some threaten massive things and then they just wait and do not get started. Nothing changes by just being looked at.
Do not suspend living because you are waiting for the best time, a better wind or more calm waters.
Work with what you see and what you have got. Face the brutal realities of your situation and do not close your eyes and stop seeing the vision. If you wait for perfect circumstances in this imperfect world order, you may forever be in limbo.
Declare that the wait is over and your future is here. You cannot keep waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting for Godot who may never come even if everything becomes calm.
There are books and then there are great books. A great books has to speak from an important original setting. Its not trapped in its original setting and, therefore, its lessons are timeless.
A great book is well-crafted and evokes something in you. It provokes excellent discussion and is inexhaustible.
This make the book an inexhaustible value of wisdom. No reading of it is the final reading, because each read is a new inward journey.
No discussion of a great book ever can run it dry. A great book lives through time-tested and has a special perspective that gives it legendary standing. “Waiting for Godot” is one such great book.
Samuel Beckett, in 1949, wrote the legendary, moving great book and allegory, “Waiting for Godot”.
You do not need to wait to read it before getting up and taking action.
However, reading it will give many moments of reflection. The book is about the unfulfilled and empty tragedy of waiting, in suspense, doing nothing progressive except waiting. Step off the waiting lane and step into the greatness lane by taking action. Looking busy is not the same as being busy. Results speak more eloquently than idle arguments. Filling your time with waiting pre-occupations and distraction is not doing. Pretending is not being.
In Beckett’s great book, even after the long wait, the suspense drama, the engaging and expectant conversations and activities that make up the intervening drama, Godot regrettably never shows up.
Do not multiply words, just amplify action. What you are waiting for is likely waiting for you. Your teacher is waiting for you to raise your hand and say I am ready. Your destiny is waiting for you to show up dressed for work.
“Waiting for Godot” opens with the two principal characters, Vladimir (Didi) and Estragon (Gogo) dutifully waiting for the arrival Godot. As you also wait, ask seriously for how long you have been waiting grounded in the same place doing the same old waiting games.
The plot closes with the two actors still painfully and dutifully waiting, disappointed but waiting hopefully. It is time to change this script. You are the silver bullet that you are waiting for.
Never believe anyone who promises you that a single event will change everything. Waiting for a silver bullet is a dangerous game of fantasy.
Stop looking to chance and hoping that time to bring any change, be the change yourself. Instead of being a time watcher, choose to become a clock builder.
The waiting script in any arena is a tired old deceptive fox that is regrettably repeated in countless instances with the same disappointing result.
The formula for success is nothing like waiting and waiting and waiting and doing nothing; waiting and expiring while waiting. Stop playing fruitless games, aimlessly waiting and thinking that the future will work itself. Stop all game of superstition and start working and doing something. Get up and start working. Dance to the music that is playing instead of waiting for the music that you think is ideal.
The party may end without you having danced with life. Life is a doing thing and not a waiting thing.
Challenge yourself to translate thought into action; plans into deeds and blue prints into concrete things. Challenge your limits and become a mover and shaker. It is better to move slowly, than to wait surely for everything to be perfect before you do something.
Begin Again
Whatever happened in the past, do not park there and get grounded in bitter vitriol. Do not lose your spark while parking and thinking that the whole world is waiting with you and for you.
There is nothing special about adversity. What is special is how you deal with it and what you do with your life. If need be, begin again but do not feel pity for yourself.
Do not wait for the people to forget that you once failed; build quickly on the ashes of failure and rewrite your story. Do not despair because your ego got wounded and bruised.
Put the ego on the back seat and let the mission drive you and what you do. Do not wait, get into action; begin again. Get started on the journey to reinventing your life. The past is past, and the future is waiting and beckoning.
Get counting
Put your days and age into perspective. Time is a friend when you use it well and it can be a terrible foe when mindlessly lost. Get started and start moving. While you wait, time is not waiting. Time is passing, moving fast and you better get moving also. Today is a great asset, ready for use and active deployment.
Today is the youngest that you will ever be. Excuses do not count and you do not afford the luxury of purposeless waiting.
What are you being while waiting? Who are you waiting to change before you change?
Do not surrender your life to fate and things that you cannot control. Who do you blame for not changing before you get up and do something?
Nothing will happen until you happen. Whatever you blame, you empower to control your life, joy or misery. You are not a victim.
Do not get into victim-thinking, victim-planning, victim-talking and victim-behaving. Get up and start shaping your life and doing what you must be doing and being what you must be.
Get traction
Traction is built through small steps. Do not despair because all you can take is a single, perhaps small little step.
Do not play for the big stage, just play big on the small stage. Take the small steps with passion and excellence because they will compound.
Big things are made up of small things. Every organism is made up of small lively and active cells. You may not see them but never under estimate them.
Every journey is made up of small steps. Every book is made out of single pages. Every story is made up of little scenes. Take the small steps because it is the small steps that make up the big whole.
You cannot keep waiting, doing nothing except waiting to get up some day, at some time after some event. The stream of life is ever moving.
It cannot be stopped and it cannot be pushed.
It is time to take action and to engage life seriously. This is not a dress rehearsal while you wait for the big moment.
This moment, is the big moment for your great showing. Be strategic, be purposeful and be active. You only gain momentum when you start moving and flex your muscle. There is something useful and purposeful that you can do today. Take the small step. Focus your energy and break the inertia.
Resurrect now
Whoever thought you were dead was wrong by a long shot. Whoever surmised that your fate was sealed and you were finished made a premature pronouncement. Whoever thought you were gone was not watching the door.
Resurrect like Lazarus. Rise again to a new life and get started building your life and mission. Nothing you see just happened. Someone had to get started. Someone had to take painful unrewarded and at times unrecorded steps.
You will never move anywhere standing in the same place. Prove your detractors wrong, because they were wrong. Prove the prophets of doom wrong by staying on course and moving forward.
Committed to your greatness.
Milton Kamwendo is a leading international transformational and motivational speaker, author, and executive coach. He is a cutting strategy, team-building and organisation development facilitator and consultant. His life purpose is to inspire and promote greatness. He can be reached at: [email protected] and Twitter: @MiltonKamwendo or WhatsApp at: 0772422634. His website is: www.miltonkamwendo.com.
