Be the man you want to be
Have you decided? The kind of man you want to be? Not professionally, no?
Have you created a timeless standard for yourself? That will be the driving force 10, 20 years from now, when you are teaching your sons and daughters what is expected of them and they ask you why? Will you resort to “because I said so or will this be an opportunity for you to instill wisdom and pass on the lesson that you learned, you have to decide who you want to be.
Ladies and gentlemen, a story.
The boy had a name, his name was not important. He stood at his balcony, the cold dry, dust ridden air of late February assaulted the land. There was a deadline coming up and he was wondering whether to give it up or in other words, to choose to do it another time. When he was ready, when all he desired now was aligned and had manifested in his life. oh the ludicrous notion, man’s desires are insatiable. Yet, decisions such as this, some of them at least, when scrutinized, resemble a pattern, a cycle, and all of a sudden, similar strings of decisions are remembered where this criteria was used.
That is the beauty of age and experience, lessons have weight and yet so costly are they.
And with age, comes the burden of dreams unfulfilled. He remembered a time when he wanted to be a professional racing driver. Over a decade and a half have passed since, yet, what has he done to earn living that dream?
What about architecture? A passion of drawing that brewed inside and was sought to be expressed whenever the opportunity presented itself or whenever he made the time. In the dead hours of the night, when even the crickets hush. Back then, he had no music to work with, just a rattled old desk, a dining chair, pencils and paper, yet for hours he would flow until satisfied with his creation he was. and he would go to sleep whether it was 3 am or midnight, the prospect of school the day that followed did not deter him.
Then there was that manual of engines and how cars work. Oh the knowledge, such enlightenment, how an engine works, what it is made of… over and over he went over those pages, and believing he could make one himself, he decided to ask the only one person he knew had a spare toolbox for one. He was excited, a higher power decided to deny him that joy. But on and on life went and once in a while, he would make a car for his younger brother. Made of rubber sliced from tire tubing, sticks, pieces of wood amd wire and wheels fashioned from cut outs of old sandals. It was requested of him as he grew older and older to make more for his brother, and this was much longer after, when was much older, when it seemed he had already been awarded his battle scars. Was he bitter? Indifferent? Spiteful to the world or the people that mattered, that could have but didn’t? What stopped him? He decided to teach the younger one how to make on for himself then abandoned or perhaps, hasn’t made a toy car since then.
In high school, poetry and the love of computers grew inside him and were added to his growing list of passions. He filled notebooks and notebooks with verse. He created systems, unsatisfied, discarded them and started afresh. Working for hours on end, sometimes going to sleep at 3 am when the fluorescent light illuminating the light to the domitory assaulted his eyes, he moved along, to sleep and fight the other day. He gave very few things his all, and for these things he was willing to go the extra mile, extra hour, extra page, extra instruction. Once, he had done just that and in the throes of stringing together iff statements in Microsoft access database, his going the extra mile was said to be antics for getting to see a girl, oh how mistaken the accuser was and in his face the boy reared with a bellowing laughter, oh how he laughed. Perhaps it was pain, perhaps it was power, story for another day.
Next was the garage, FORTRAN and Pascal, short lived experiences with the last two. But life is life. And the tales of this period are riddled with pain, the pain of repeated defeat, the pain and burdens of mistaken identity, the pain and humiliation of the lack of power that comes from money and material things, interactions with God, decisions made that altered the rest of life, battles of will and the breaking of will, addictions, social awkwardness and work, relentless painstaking work, closing up shop when people were asleep, stomachs full and in bed, waking up when people were still in slumber. Stories of hunger, hunger for days, and a knowledge of the other side of having a stomach full and of no worries of whether one will eat later. Stories of disrespect and being no ones choice. Stories of failure, running away, broken spirits.
Fast forward to campus, what happened, the pursuits of things timeless had faded, so it seemed. Life was filled with the pursuit of things that offered instant gratification, of going against authority, implied or otherwise, stories of waste. Stories of betrayal of self, stories of greater pain, of knowing love that can cripple and love that can raise. Of indifference, slack, procrastination, darkness and even more darkness, picking oneself up, falling, dusting oneself off and getting up again, of being mocked and laughed at, betrayed and discredited, tales of fear, tales of hope, of winning battles and falling back to addictions, deeper and deeper.
Now, it seems as though he has joined the rat race, that crippling fear that keeps someone going round and round in a pointless circle.
To what is man ascribing to, if after the end of his days, he has nothing to show for his life?
This is the time that a man has to decide the kind of man he is going to be. To be a man that takes initiative, own up to responsibility, live with integrity, consider the consequences of his actions before undertaking or participating in any activity. To choose actions that are for the long term benefit and not for instant gratification but for growth, development, health, peace of mind and not for the sake of immediate pleasure. TO choose to be a man that delivers on his promises. A man that endeavours on the daily, to love and honor God, his creator. To love, provide for and protect and honor family. To lead those entrusted to him diligently, with courage and integrity. To serve those under whose authority he has been placed. To be the best that he can be at all times. To conduct and present himself with respect and in the manner befitting for a king.
And the story of the boy, now a man, continues…
