WATCH WHAT YOU LIVE AND STAND FOR
A revolution anchored in ignorance and gratification that riches and unscrupulousness transforms mindsets is guaranteed of evaporating from the-face-of-the-earth like it never even took place. That is why, personally, I fear ignorance and self-deceit more than disease and unemployment.
I’m convinced that for societies to transform, the pursuits of knowledge and education must take a pole position because its only knowledge that transforms people and it’s the transformed people that eventually transform societies. For that reason, in my many moments of calibration I recurrently ask myself this question; for what purpose is life if all you do is compliment your pursuits of vanity with greediness, class ignorance and self-deception?
Colleagues, let us transform our societies by cooperatively embracing both knowledge and self-sacrifice. We ought to realize that this world can only be a better place if we all take time to sacrifice and commit ourselves to causes that benefit ALL. A life lived for self is a life wasted but a life lived for others, is a life fulfilled.
As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said: “You may be 38 years old, as I happen to be. And one day, some great opportunity stands before you and calls you to stand up for some great principle, some great issue, some great cause. And you refuse to do it because you are afraid…. You refuse to do it because you want to live longer…. You’re afraid that you will lose your job, or you are afraid that you will be criticized or that you will lose your popularity, or you’re afraid that somebody will stab you, or shoot at you or bomb your house; so you refuse to take the stand. Well, you may go on and live until you are 90, but you’re just as dead at 38 as you would be at 90. And the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit. You died when you refused to stand up for right, you died when you refused to stand up for truth, you died when you refused to stand up for justice.”
These are profound and wise words, and every time I see these words I’m awakened from the inside and prompted to become conscious of the fact that basically, life is all about sacrifice, simplicity, sincerity, integrity, the absence of vanity and a deep desire to serve others before self. On that note, I end by asking once again; for what purpose is life if all you do is compliment your pursuits of vanity with greediness, class ignorance and self-deception? Thank you Chris Mapipo Jr. for reminding me of Dr. Kings’ profound words once again.
© ISAAC KPOKPO
> Public Figure
> Author of “Quintessential Leader”, 2015.
> Founder of “Motivational Arena” 2018.
> Creative Writer
> Script-Writer
> Book-Editor