Reflections on sunday: The meaning of life

I’ve been thinking a lot about life lately and let’s hope there is no foreboding involved in it! When you think back and look at all the people you’ve come to get acquainted with in your life, it makes you wonder exactly what it is that people expect before their rendezvous with their maker. It makes you ponder: what exactly is the import of your life? You may live a hundred years or a few hours, what’s certain is that your life will be taken away by death. Whatever span and quality of life you enjoy, everyday you live is a postponement of death. Still, like everyone, I am sure I’d rather die after a hundred years than after ten. On the other hand, that should not stop us from celebrating the life we have lived, however long or short. For at the end of the day, it is not in longevity that your life is fulfilled. How glorious it is then, to live for the service of good, and to strive to make an irreversible statement in defence of good, during whatever length of time. Who would not dream of being a Nelson Mandela who was able to reverse evil and show the people the abundant dividends accessible in the pursuit of good? How great, the pleasure of having the time to pass the baton of your people’s collective vision so that you can see it flourish among others before your day of calling! And how despicable it is to live for the service of self, to endeavour to deny others what is duly theirs, or to destroy the spirit of others. Not to see that the abundances of the world were made for all of humanity in its successive generations is to have no vision. To have a vision is to be able to plant the seeds of good, and to strive to be able to see them sprout in others. The riches of the world are only good when shared in all their forms: material, spiritual, physical, intellectual, et al. A few years living as a Nelson Mandela, are worth more than a thousand years living as a Robert Mugabe. People of goodwill cannot choose the myopic path of self-aggrandisement and self-prolongation. To be unable to pass your vision to your generation and to posterity is to negate that stated vision. If a ‘fundamental change’ cannot endure and is not everlasting, then it is a misnomer and its propagator deserves to be chased away like a ‘chicken thief’! At a humble level, we have seen people who promised us heaven in hyperbolic words and actions, only to discover, to our horror, that it was only a ruse and their true intention was to actually steal our chickens or crop harvest! Let us therefore celebrate the lives of all those in their humble station who remain steadfast in their promises and actions, who do not move with the wind of self-interest. We need to celebrate the lives of those who give of themselves whatever they can in humility and sincerity, and in the service of humanity. A genuinely kind word here, a word of counsel there or a helping hand at work, all these may seem minor to those who give them, but what an immensely valuable worth they are to us who receive them. And what a shocking disappointment it becomes when it emerges that these apparent proponents of good are only after their self-fulfilment. Contact: ingina2@yahoo.co.uk