If you don’t commit to winning something, you’ll only be seen doing nothing. Today you are born, The next day you are gone.
It’s good to know this. Because when you do, you shall learn to appreciate every bit of life. Life’s good. Yeah I know, LG. No matter how bad life treats you, just know that it is still good to be alive. Never wish for death. I mean never. At least wish to cross the three scores and a ten, by which time you would have at least unleashed your God given talents. It is also God’s promise for your life.
So I tried remembering one of the basic characteristic of every living thing as taught in basic school days. Every living thing shall die. Back to my point, Life dies. It appears very generic. Let’s come home to us, in a perfect situation. Menstrual life dies when the sperm meets an egg. The sperm life dies leading to a new life of the zygote. A mother’s expectancy cycle dies to give the world a new life. Every stage of the baby’s formation dies until a baby is born. A baby crawls through the stages.
The crawling stagedies and he starts walking. As a toddler, the child acts as one. Through the stages, life grows into puberty. Childhood dies and life pushes us to reproduce to fulfill one part of our very existence on earth. Life makes us responsible and eventually we die. This is where we are. Things happen within each stage. Life dies at every transition point. Every transit point comes with its own challenges, experimentations and escapades.
I always share with my buddies that the level of frustration at any transit point is determined by the flight you travel on and even the transiting destination. When life transits, there is always a feeling. It could be fear, humility, anxiety, arrogance, ignorance, learning, resistance, impossibility, shock, possibilities and sometimes to be on the brighter side of things, greatness!
So I don’t get it when mothers worry when babies hurt themselves in an attempt to transit from crawling to walking. It is part of growth. As a baby, you went through it. You don’t have to be scared now. Every life must die because death is part of life. In your corporate lives, Life dies too. Life died the very day you started working after graduating from school. The school days are long gone, including the school boy-school girl errors. And so we celebrate our first jobs. It’s always about the opportunity given us to grow, to die and so to live again.
It is important to get a good, intelligent and competent Line Manager for your first job and not necessarily a good pay for your first job. You are blessed to be earning a good pay and also having a competent boss at the same time, for your first job. Learn to serve, so you shall be served. Apprenticeship is wise. That is the dying process in corporate life. Some don’t have it.
Those who know how to learn to live and reproduce at the workplace become useful even when they are gone. Knowing very well that life dies, you give opportunity to people who want to live, so you can move on. It’s just like sowing that seed so it dies and sprouts. You need to learn to die at the workplace. Give all you have. Build leaders.
In the levels of leadership, proposed by John C. Maxwell, Leaders must reproduce. It’s a command. If nothing or no one dies, how can you live? It’s somewhat sad to see people existing in the workplace rather than living. If you don’t live no one will die for you. Someone will die for you to live only when you are seen living to die. Live. Don’t exist.
Something must die. Not Romeo, anyway. But as inspired by the Holy Scriptures, our understanding of Life is not what we are experiencing. In its deeper meaning, serve and be served to be honoured, through the dying process. ‘Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains a single seed. But if it dies, produces many seeds (John 12:24).
A leader must learn to die. The road to leadership is interesting with serious eye-opening revelations. After all, the hen that protects its eggs hasn’t done anything extraordinarily. It is just its responsibility. Be the leader to produce many seeds.
Also, the chick that decides not to follow the mother’s steps dies before its time (an African proverb). It’s a two-way responsibility. But in all these, build a base for leadership prowess as a fortress not to always look up to the top but rather tapping into your God given abilities. Ask for capacity because at any point in time a new life can begin because your old ways must also die.
This calls for replenishment of knowledge on the back of a genuine stock-taking. A bird that sits on a tree and also builds its nest on the same tree has no fear of the strength of the branch of the tree because it trusts its own ability to fly even if the wind blows against its flight. Build wings. Trust your wings. Acquire more, give out more, pass on more and be the Leader. Always remember the transit point concept in life. Issues are exposed and they come out, often times, discouraging. People who are weak to follow their dreams may always find a way to discourage yours.
Whatever profession and job role we find ourselves in, we should learn to pursue the purpose for which we’ve been employed for. A musician has no option than to make beautiful music, an artist can only paint beyond your imagination, a poet shall write; which is why you should also work to achieve that goal, exceedingly and excellently.
There should also be something burning instinctively from within your soul yearning and yelling to win. If you don’t commit to winning something, you’ll only be seen doing nothing. Your time should be measured. Today you are born. The next day you are gone. It reaffirms that no single being shall live forever. This beautifully relates to the workplace.
Life dies is all about understanding life and how it relates to the workplace. You are just passing through. You are not acceptable here. But you have a responsibility here. So you have to leave behind a legacy. How do you want to be remembered? Leaders must learn to reproduce their kinds before they die. Life shall always die. And you’ll leave a legacy anyway.
You have a choice to make it a good one. Build people. Invest in teams. Legend rise from legends. At the work place, everything else shall pass but your deeds which are a mix of your values and principles must live. Breathe into associates. Make the most use of your living hours before you die. Mark the stages. Meet the stages. Live the stages. Die and reproduce through the stages.
