John’s parents just moved to a new town, he is in a new school, he is both starting a new stage of his education in a new environment and in a new and totally different level. Today is his first day at his secondary school, the environment is different, the buildings are bigger, the faces are strange, there are lots of other people of his age around, with their parents around, some of the parents were happy, some of the other students wearing similar uniforms were bigger. This new environment is strange, it seemed like he belonged to the smallest group here. This new environment was so different from his previous school, where among the students, he and his mates were the biggest, they were the seniors then, all his friends were around, he knew everyone and was happy. “John”, called his mum, “John, I’m going back to work, be a good boy” said his mum. As John’s mum left, a tear rolled down his eyes. Why do I have to be here, I wish I can go back, see all this strange people, I want my former colorful school with beautiful colors all around, with the fun filled playgrounds and my friends.
Life is a journey, everything that has a beginning will have an end. As long as we are alive, our possessions, our achievements, our locations, our look, our state of mind, everything around us will change. Along the course of our lives, we meet different conditions, we experience different situations, some begin pleasant, some seem unpleasant at the beginning. As we grow older, we set targets, we move our lives towards different goals at different stages. We achieve some goals, we later discover some are irrelevant and we drop them. At times our perspectives change and we realize some things were totally unnecessarily. As time goes on we have better understanding of some things, some get clearer, some we still don’t understand but as long as we live, we’ve got to keep living.
As long as one is alive, we’d have things we desire, things currently out of reach, some seem accessible because we seem close, some seem so far away and some we don’t even know where we stand in our quest for it. Desires will arise, achievements will later become irrelevant, the current moment will become memories but each event remains in our memories, some will be relevant now, some will come later as memories, some will shape our perceptions of life and some will affect the people around us.
When we begin life, we are brought into life by our earthly parents, from the moment we start to grow, we begin to learn, both consciously and unconsciously, our environment begins to influence us, what we see, what we hear, what goes on in our environment begins to shape our minds and determine the targets that are set for us and the ones we set for ourselves. One things is certain though, whether we achieve our goals or not, our actions as we pass through life influences our environment, influences our future and mostly determine the conditions of our future.
Time is the sea of life, our body is the vessel carrying us(our soul) through it, our actions, words, thoughts and interactions are the steering moving us. The question then is that where is our destination? In our journey in life we set different targets, but as we grow and time passes we later discover based on our current knowledge that our targets in the past have either been achieved by some other people too or is not the best that could ever be done. Even the targets that currently seem outstanding and as not been achieved by many will still be surpassed with time. However, one thing is certain, for everything that lives, death will come. When death comes, personally for each and every soul, their aspirations, achievements, wealth or whatever they possess as a living being ceases to be theirs.
If everything one possess will still be lost, why should one bother achieving anything? Every man has a potential, a potential that must be utilized in making his life and the life of others good. All achievements should be for this purpose.
If everything one possess will still be lost, why should one be desperate or seek to posses things in ways that are not good. This should be avoided. Patience, integrity, transparency, love, kindness, sincerity of purpose, service of mankind will get one anything he desires. Since all will still be lost in the end, its counter intuitive to hurt fellow men or hurt ones-self in the journey of life in trying to achieve our heart desires.
Finally, when the vessel(body) dies, the soul becomes free, what will determine how far the soul would have gone is the direction the vessel as moved controlled by the rudder(our actions, thoughts, words). God has a plan for every soul, the plan is for every soul to come to him at the end of their journey. God is good, let your actions be good so you can get to him at the end of your life. Life is in stages, everything that has a beginning has an end and an end is a new beginning. Let the beginning of your next journey after life be good. Start building your qualifications now, begin to do good, to yourself and everyone that comes your way.
This journey or the next
