Challenge yourself to smell the coffee and wake up from your slumber and start making your life more productive and useful. It seems I should take the scalpel, scissors and forceps; operate on your brain and implant this sentence, “Life is short, but it’s really worth it.”
“Life is short, but it’s really worth it.”
Sesan kareem
Have you ever lost someone? a family member, a colleague, a classmate, a co-worker, a friend or a neighbour you just said Hi to on your way out, to the cold hand of death? What comes to your mind when you see an obituary, attend a funeral ceremony, pass by a cemetery, or see a dead body on your television screen or in real life? Is it a sense of fear, pity, sympathy or a lesson that life is short and has an end?
Some schools of thought believe that discussing and remembering death causes depression. But I am of the opinion that the remembering of death is a catalyst that prompts people to wake up and smell the coffee that:
Life has an end. It opens our eyes to the fact that our days are numbered on earth. Whether we live for a thousand years or just for a minute, death is our ultimate end.
Life is a test. Death wakes up to the grim reality that we are in this world to either succeed or fail, to either bring glory to God and our names or to bring shame to ourselves. Death cautions us to live a life worthy of emulation and stay away from nefarious acts. The remembrance of death gears us into action, live a good and highly felt life and be grateful to God and people. In short, the remembrance of death is the beginning of purposeful life.
We are accountable to God. Death is the gateway to another life. It is a door that leads to another which when closed upon a human being, indeed is closed forever. Death helps us to face the reality that we are accountable for our actions and inactions to God. It is a sign that at the end of life there is a reward for either being good or bad.
There is no second chance. Death is the criterion that separates the living from the non-living. It implies that we have only one shot at life. We can decide to use it anyhow, but it is a point of fact that we just have only one chance. However, our one shot at life is enough to make a difference and writes our names in the minds of generations.
Intuitively, we are all going to taste death; I will, you will. No one is saved. No man is immune to the striking power of death. Billions have gone and billions yet go. Every minute, men are being buried beneath the soil. From Sydney in Australia to San Francisco in America, to South Korea in Asia, to Senegal in Africa, human beings are being put six feet under the ground. My grandfather and great grandmother were not spared from this sad experience—neither will you. One of my favourite aunts has felt what it feels like. I know I cannot change this status quo; I cannot cheat death— neither can you.
Great thinkers, record breakers, world shakers, history makers, game changers, destiny fulfillers, light bearers and risk takers of old were unable to cheat death. Great thinkers like Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Thomas Edison, Steve Jobs and Alexander Bell were not left out from the cold hands of death. World shakers like Michael Jackson, Dr Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Park, Whitney Houston, Winston Churchill, Mahatma Gandhi and Zig Ziglar tasted death.
Today is the day to wake up and smell the coffee. Tomorrow may be too late. Now is the right moment. Whether you are reading this article on a chair, relaxing on your bed or you are in a bus travelling, this is the moment for you to take a grave decision of your life. And the decision is to strive hard to live a worthy, beautiful, meaningful and colourful life. I can see you overcoming your fears, turning your pains to gains, and sufferings to strategy of progress; using your agony to turn things around for your good; having hope regardless of what you are passing through; smiling often regardless of how bad your situation may seem; forgiving no matter how cruel people were to you; and most importantly, never giving up on God and yourself because the most important ingredients in the soup of life, the very one that makes it beautiful, colourful, rich, wonderful and worthy to live, is the belief that success, greatness, happiness, joy, conquest, victory, triumph, peace and love are achievable.
Author – Sesan Kareem
Edited by Ruby Ebere
