—-
Imagine yourself, 90 years old on a porch in a rocking chair looking back on your life. You got that image? Good, now let me tell you. Study shows that the biggest regrets from elderly people on their death bed is not what they did but what they didn’t do, the risks they never took, the things they never said and the life they never lived. How sad will it be to get to the end of your life and realise you never truly lived.
This is your life and nobody elses'. no matter how much the society, your parents, your friends or colleagues want you to live, just know that you run the show. When you shot your eyes and go to sleep at night, the entire world seizes to exist and when you wake up, it’s a new dawn. A time to start again. A time to re-do the things you did wrongly yesterday. A time to do the things you felt you didn’t do yesterday.
Now take your imagination back to that rocking chair and think about what your future self would say about the ideas you never developed, about the books you never read, about the friends you never made, about those you never helped.
Are you always trying to fit in? are you living your life solely to please others. If that’s the case, then you are not truly living. Greatness is not about always being cool with other people’s opinions. Greatness isn’t about trying to be like others or trying to please everyone. If you wana be great, then you have to do what great men do. They always stand out.
Ok I get it. You wana be great but you want it easy right? Greatness never comes easy. Infact, if it was indeed easy, you would see a lot of great men and a lot of successful people but you don’t. you see a lot of people with big mouths making excuses on facebook and other social media for their incapabilities, trying to get cheap sympathy and likes but they don’t even like themselves. The difference between winners and losers is persistence. It ain’t talent but persistence.
When I was a kid, my dad always told me an interesting story about the bamboo tree. He said that after planting the seed, it takes five years to break through the ground. Five whole years of attention, care and watering everyday. If you miss a day, it dies right there but after it breaks through the ground, within five weeks, it grows up to ninety feet tall. After telling me this story, he would look me in the eyes and say, “so my son, your journey isn’t gonna be easy. Its gonna take time.”
When you have a dream, people are going to laugh at you because they don’t see what you see. They would ask why you are watering the ground after planting the bamboo see. They will see you do it every day for five years and they wouldn’t understand what’s going on. They will call you mad; they will call you crazy but you wouldn’t mind because you already know the outcome of what you are doing. You can see the end from the beginning and so you stay focused till it sprouts from the ground.
While you are working on yourself secretly to become a better person, never let anyone talk you down or try to talk you out of it. Some may think you are not being realistic and would ask you to be real, but remember that realism is often an excuse for pessimism and you don’t need any form of negativity in your life when working on yourself towards becoming a better person.
So in other not to be like that man sitting on a rocking chair at the age of 90, thinking about all the things he wasn’t able to do and achieve in regret. I implore you to start now. Yesterday is gone but you are alive and here today. It’s never too late to start. Put in all you got and the result will be a life of fulfilment.
You don’t have to be great at starting, but you gave to get started to be great.
Author: 
