Thursday, June 9, 2016

My Dad:No people have common destinies


Photo courtesy of Flickr
My dad used to tell me:Son,never in life should you be with people,be it in class,school,club,church,work place,in happiness or in sorrow-whatever the  common thing that brings you together from diverse sources and imagine the common circumstances or place you find yourselves together would exert some sort of common fate in your life.Life happens to people differently at different times.We all walk different journeys from different starting points in life and somehow each one of us has something particular we want out of life that however how similar it can  be to someone else,it can never be the exact one as that of the other  person.

Once you part ways others will be no more,some will be so ahead of you,your life might be too good to the embarrassment of those you were with,or you could be the one stuck somewhere far behind others.Whichever way,whichever the place you find yourself,there is something that it is only you  that has got it that others don't have such that at the end of the day,we are all far behind others yet far ahead of them at the same time.

How? You ask.

Well, when we rationalize it all,we are all  equal in one way or the other;that which we have someone lacks and admires it the same way you yearn for that which your neighbour has that you lack-so much a  better reason to love yourself,appreciate the little things we have,the small strides we have made in life and quit envying others and spending much time complaining about life and things we don't have.


Our appreciation of life;our ability to accommodate ourselves,love ourselves,respect ourselves and being able to place ourselves on fertile positions for growth and on the paths of opportunities lies in looking into ourselves rather than the world out there to discover the great things that we have that ought to make us happy and strong and appreciated and rejuvenated to rise up and conquer our fears,limitations,inhibiting circumstances,heartbreaks and uncertainties for a better now and tomorrow.

Even as I consider these lessons,I can't forget the fact that no man is an island.Over the years I spent with my dad in different circumstances of life,there is one thing he was passionate about and which he wanted me to learn too:the appreciation of the indispensable value of having people in our lives.For him,great investment was building a network of loyal and honest people around you and learning to treat everyone as an ally no matter how much you know them not to like you or how low or great they are in relation to you.He wanted to be at peace with everyone.

This means that even as acutely you become aware of your individuality such that sometimes you think of yourself and get to work to discover who you are and  towards empowering yourself,you can never seclude others from your life.You need people to grow.It means that you don't think about yourself or plan to outdo or eliminate others from the processes of becoming something in life but you get to think and plan with everyone in mind.

His reasoning was that at given moment when you get to rise to a better position in life,it means much more when goodness is attached to it when it is used for the good of others and yourself than of the achiever alone.
Be with others but don't feel cozy about being together.Get up and grow.Things never remain the same.We are never the same however much we might seem to be.Nothing can ever make our destinies be the same.We are meant to be different and we all are given the mandate to realize those differences for the common good of us all.

Whenever I seemed to be complaining about life,my father's command was always summarized:get up,discover your destiny,embrace it,go after it,and become a better son,a better man and a better friend.Then I was young and I wondered what he meant by 'become a better man'-I was just a little boy!
Now I am here and I'm still traveling that road to find out the definition of a better man because I want to be a better something;I want to be the  best person I can be.

No comments: