The Sunday Mail
IF your life was to be reduced into a story, told a thousand times, would it be worth hearing again and again.
If once is good enough, you are living in a shallow uninspiring way and not taking any bold action. You are likely not daring anything great, complaining everywhere and singing victim ballads.
That is to waste a life and squander opportunity. If your life was reduced into a book, would it be worth publishing or buying? If not, you are wasting pages and time, living cowardly with a shallow roof and not turning any new pages.
If your life was a movie, would you attract any audience or yours would be a wasted filming investment?
I am thinking hard about my life. I do not want it to be a boring talk show punctuated with shallow sprinkles of drama. I do not wish it to be a horror movie that will scare people or any empty comedy without a solid plot or punchy theme. I want it to be an action thriller. When I die, I want whoever is watching my life’s reality movie to be so glued to their seat that they will be crying for even more action.
I once heard that people have three principal fears. The first being the fear of death. The second is the fear of public speaking. The third is the fear of dying while giving a speech. The fear of death seems to be so universal and that is why many people dread the prospect of dying.
Others do nothing except worry about their death. Perhaps this is why in a place like Zimbabwe there are more people with a funeral policy than those with a life assurance plan or a business plan. For some the prospect or the discussion of death is a morbid subject that they would rather avoid.
I wish there was another way of getting out of this world that is not via death. Regrettably, it is the only way out as of now. All those that checked in at birth have to check out at death. That includes you and me. The real point is not whether you will die or not, but how you will die.
My funeral director friends would happily add that it is not that you will die that matters but who will bury you and how.
Used Up
If you will die, do not die while living but decide to live fully for now and die fully used up. Refuse to be a coward that commits suicide and hopes that will end it all. Suicide is never the solution to your problems nor insurance against pain.
Some people have died for petty reasons that if they knew what they could have become they would never have dared entertain a suicidal thought. Life is abundant and full. The mountainous and gigantic problems of today will tomorrow just be a little molehill.
No problem is so big that it cannot be solved. Your spirit is stronger than your body and your resolve to conquer is tougher than the toughest challenge you may face.
The tests of today will soon be a testimony of your greatness. Hard times come to harden you and shape you into a giant.
Use all the talent and potential that you have. Tap fully every muscle, idea and thought. Stretch and you will grow. Jump high and you may fly. Die so used up that you will leave here everything you brought into the world. I mean everything.
The worst form of selfishness is dying with your talent, story, books, songs, businesses, works, ideas and potential still bound up in you. The richest place in any city or village is the grave yard.
There lies great people that died uncelebrated because they never dared to step out of the shade and live fully. They hid from the sun and died without any tan, sunburn or adventure.
The joy and feat of life is not self preservation. Do not be so afraid that you never try anything. What if you fail? It is not a shame to fail. It is better to fail having attempted than to succeed in running away. If you like running so much, sign up for the next marathon but do not dare to run away from living, doing and attempting.
The joy of living is to be used up for some worthy purpose. To be a true and worthy vessel in the Master’s hand. To die so used up that in life you do not regret having passed through this way and in death you just fly on.
My mother’s pride was always her display cabinet. In it she kept her precious china plates and cups. To incur her wrath, you played near that glass cabinet and dared touch the precious preserved pieces.
Her special chinaware was waiting for special visitors that seldom came. It was waiting for the in-laws, that took long to come. Many people are living life with the display cabinet syndrome. All packed away and preserved that they finally end their lives un-used, un-chipped and wasted.
Refuse to let life pass you by while you are parked out of action and packed safely away. There will be no day like today, no time like this time, no opportunity like this one. Be an adventurer, take bold and massive action. Show up and get into the ring or dance floor. Life wants to dance with you.
Worked Up
We learn that for the righteous death is entering a world of rest. So, why preserve your energy?
Work! What will you do with eternal rest if you have been lazying and lounging around earth?
Work is not a curse but a blessing.
Too many people are dreaming of being promoted to a lazy life around the beach, doing nothing all day except holiday, and holiday and another holiday. Holidays for lazy people who are working at nothing are boring affairs. Resting when you are not tired is tiring.
Work every time that you are at work. Work is a great blessing. It is the channel of creation. It is our way of channelling our energies into some worthy projects and occupations. Worthy work will always be rewarded.
Work is a canvas to paint your dreams, passion and service. Those that are so desperate to harvest that they reap where they did not sow are just thieves.
Thought Up
The saddest thing one can do is to carry around a head for his time here on earth and fail to use that head for some useful thinking. When you die your brain must admit that it was used up to think up, strategise up, plan up and visualise up. To live and not to think is the worst of brain abuse. Any abuse is bad but brain abuse is worst.
Life is full, abundant and filled with bountiful possibilities. Live to the full. This day is the tomorrow that you so raved about yesterday. The work of today cannot be redeemed by the efforts of tomorrow.
If you will ever die, do not suspend living until then. Live until death stops you.
One day the artist Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni — famously just called Michelangelo — walked into his Renaissance contemporary Raphael Sanzio’s gallery.
There was a painting that Raphael was working on, which was not yet complete. The painting was small and quaint. Michelangelo, brash and opinionated, took a piece of chalk and wrote across the painting the words, “Enlarge!”
These same words should be written across everything you touch, think or do. Make it bigger and be bolder. Live life with a larger picture and do not confuse an anthill for the world, the floor for the ceiling.
Committed to your greatness.
Milton Kamwendo is a cutting-edge international transformational and inspirational speaker, author and coach. He is a strategy and innovation consultant and leadership coach. His life purpose is to inspire people to release the greatness trapped in them. He can be reached at [email protected] and on WhatsApp at 0772422634.
