Friday 3 January 2014

A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning

-By Ope Ogunbowale
 

As virtuous men pass mildly away,
 And whisper to their souls to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say
 The breath goes now, and some say, No;

Whenever I feel bad, all I want to do is write and vent out my anger and frustration in the best way I can. Usually it takes me hitting rock bottom to come up with new philosophies and perceptions.

I lost a friend recently and it got me thinking, what is the essence of life, why should we struggle and hustle so much and in the end something as trivial as a headache hands one away into the cold hands of death. However, in my lamentations I started to understand a few things. 

Firstly, life is a race, more like survival of the fittest, but there is no guarantee that the fittest wins the race. The most important thing is your deeds and the lives you touch while running the race because when you are gone only memories and deeds remain. 

Secondly I came to understand the meaning of ‘everybody dies but not everybody lives’. Living in itself encompasses just being yourself, being happy, not conforming to individual nor societal pressures, as in the end, your life story is about you and not the society. Therefore, why let the society or peer pressure dictate or plot your life and how you live it? Eventually, it is your life, and your story, and you are the chief story teller, so it is all about you and the lives you touched.

We plan tomorrow like we have a clue, sure if anybody told my friend she would not cross over to 2014, she would have laughed and said ‘you are not serious’ with her soft and gentle voice. Do not wait till tomorrow to tell someone how you feel about them, because they may be gone by then. Push boundaries, add value to yourself, be the best you can be, pursue your dreams, dance in the rain, give someone a smile, take a leap of faith, be hopeful, for eventually we shall all go. Make your time here count, truly live your life.

Permit me to bring in Pareto’s 80:20 management principles which states that 20% of our activities accounts for 80% of results, thus we should focus on the 20% of our best assets and through them the 80% results can be attained.

I grieve deep, but it can never bring back the souls of my loved ones gone, I conclude with the wise words of John Donne(1611), “ours is a valediction forbidden mourning”, till we meet on the resurrection morning, Adios.