Service and Humility

The great Mahatma Gandhi once said, “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” Apparently, there are many ways to discover the self but getting lost in service to others (or a cause) is the best and perhaps the most appropriate option. The last one year of my life has been mainly characterised by service to my country. I didn’t join the army, just in case anyone’s wondering. Actually, I just completed my one-year compulsory service under the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) scheme.

Before I go on, I would like to sincerely apologise for waiting this long before posting on this blog – it’s been about three years since I last updated the blog. I have been going through a transition of some sort which has not only divided me mentally but also emotionally. In a nut shell, I wasn’t in the best position to write anything sensible to keep the readers of this blog inspired. My transition story will be for another day anyway. Be assured that you’ll always get the best of inspirational articles from here henceforth.

Back to the gist; I was posted to Abia State (a South Eastern State in Nigeria) for my youth service and like many others who have served or are serving, the one-year compulsory service isn’t exactly the typical service. It is seen as a waste of time and a sort of delay to achieving one’s goals in life. In fact, the acronym NYSC has been given new meanings which includes Now Your Suffering Continues, thereby indicating how displeased many Nigerian youths are about the programme. However, not everyone who completes the programme continues to think the scheme is a waste of time. Surprisingly, it turns out to be the best year of many Nigerians who pass through the scheme.

The one-year NYSC scheme begins with three weeks in an orientation camp where the overly regimented life becomes so frustrating it begins to appear like months have been spent there. A watch is useless in the NYSC camp as the sound of the bugle becomes the ticking sound of the clock. The bugler’s sound literally tells you the time to do everything from waking up to meal time to parade time; even bedtime. Hereafter the one-year service begins proper. Some people are sent to villages where there is no electricity and extremely poor telecommunications reception. In fact, some get to live the village life they have only experienced from watching the wrapper-tying characters in many Nigerian films where the young women have to walk a distance to the stream carrying clay pots on their heads. Once the corps member’s monthly allowance of 20,000 naira (sorry, 19,800 naira as a friend often corrects me) is paid,  these village corps members have to travel to the nearest city to withdraw their money, shop a little and enjoy city life before retiring to their firewood-fetching, candle-burning village lifestyle. I am not making fun of them, nay; I actually envy them as I was unlucky to have served in a city.

Everything that has advantages comes with relative disadvantages, and serving in a city has its: little opportunity to serve. The corps member who got the Abia State award of 100,000 naira and an honours certificate served in Ubakala, a not-too-city area of Umuahia South Local Government Area where he taught in a secondary school. I heard he was initially posted to Umuahia city but asked to be reposted to Ubakala. His personal project of building an ICT Centre cum library among other things like his service in the Federal Road Safety Corps Community Development Service Group fetched him the award. 

Many corps members did get lost in service especially those who taught in village schools as they did everything humanly possible to impart the students they taught. They didn’t mind the meagre allowance the Federal Government paid them but gave all they could to invest knowledge in those unwilling students. Many took on personal projects to renovate and equip the schools, community libraries and even police stations. A host of corps members belonging to various groups devoted time to carry out services like sensitising the community on achieving the Millennium Development Goals, cancer awareness, peer education training, encouraging mass literacy, HIV/AIDS awareness and going as far as rendering social services to the people of various communities. As a matter of fact, these services were eventually carried out by corps members with all willingness and humility.

Nigeria sentences her young graduates to one-year compulsory experience in a foreign part of the country. Though unwilling at first, these young men and women end up loving every bit of their experience – the people they met, the new delicacies they were forced to try out, the new and interesting cultures, the foreign language they spoke and of course their discovery of how much joy selfless service could offer. Many of the corps members, upon passing out, are often transformed and forcefully humbled through service. They were called to serve their country but they ended up being served. They gained new perspectives on certain issues, discovered the path they must follow to achieve greatness in life and found ways to continue in service.

Service, as it turns out is indeed the best way to discover self. If you find yourself in a corner of confusion and emptiness, try service. If you think you have come to the end of the road and there seems to be no way forward, try rendering service to others. If you really do want to feel fulfilled, help put a smile on a sad face and give a helping hand to those who need help. Dr Albert Schweitzer, the famous missionary doctor and the 1952 Nobel Peace Prize winner who spent his life helping the poor in Africa once said, “I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.” Indeed, the motto of the NYSC is well deserved; “Service and Humility.”

7 REASONS WHY YOU MUST DIE FULFILLED

It is one thing to die and another to die fulfilled. One certain thing about death is that we shall all taste it – sooner or later, but not everyone who dies, dies fulfilled. A lot of people live everyday of their lives asking the question, “How can I bring out the best in myself?” For a long time I kept asking myself the same question and I never had any cogent answer to justify the cause of the bothersome state of my mind. That was a few years ago before I finally hit the jackpot. I found the reason why I thirsted for relevance and I realized the Creator has actually deposited tonnes of resources and materials in me so I was seeking a way to expel them out of me.
A great man once thought well when he said, “The larger percentages of the greatest of minds are in the cemetery”. This fact I will never oppose because I have come to realize the truth in his statement. A lot of men who die today are men who would have been movers and shakers of their generations if and only if they utilized their God-given potentials. A lot of them live life as average men – most of them even below average – who did everything the same way any common man would have. These men as I once heard Myles Munroe call them, died full.
For someone to die full means he/she died with a great amount of his/her potentials. It is of great importance in the society we have found ourselves today, to understand the tactics and tools we need to get equipped with in other to die empty – I believe we understand what that means. These tactics and knowledge is what I have summarized into seven and I call them The Seven Reasons Why You Must Die Fulfilled:

Reason 1: You MUST Not Disappoint God

When God created the earth, he created man and commanded him, “be fruitful and multiply”. He didn’t mean reproduction alone; as a matter of fact Adam was still naked when God said this. God’s order to be fruitful means making meaning out of life and re-creation. It could be ideas, wealth, intelligence or anything else you can multiply. God was talking about making impact in this world just like He made the first impact by creating the entire universe. He wants you and me to continue the business of creation. If you fail to obey Him, you have failed God and disappointed Him to say the least.

Reason 2: It Doesn’t Matter if you don’t but Does If You Do

Have you ever noticed how people who made little or no impact while alive are often neglected and un-remembered? As a matter of fact, those who made impacts are still struggling with people remembering them for their achievements let alone those who have made little or nothing; like fart in the air will they disappear without trace. So it doesn’t matter if you decide to sit back and relax but it does matter when you decide to stand up to challenges and make something positive out of your life.

Reason 3: You’ll give an Account of How You Spent Your Life

We shall all stand before the throne of God someday and give an account of how we spent our lives on earth. Shall you just stand there and bite your mouth racking your brain for the scanty effects you made or talk till you’re begged to take a seat? Well, it is left to you to decide which of the two states you want to fall into. It could be very embarrassing to find very few stories to tell on such a great occasion.

Reason 4: the Earth will testify against You

You see, everything you do on earth today is recorded and something here on earth is a witness. Every minute wasted having an extra sleep, the extra hour you spent playing your life away and every extra day you spent without achieving anything. This life you’ve got is just one and is non-renewable when lost; forget re-incarnation here, it’s all delusions of grandeur. The earth will testify against you and refer to those seconds and minutes.

Reason 5: You will stink if you don’t

I’ve come to realize that in life, those who fail to do something great with their lives never achieve anything and they stink in the society. Stinking in this context means poor and irrelevant. For every achievement, success follows and thus wealth. So if you decide to go about your ways with all your God-given potentials locked inside of you, you rotten on the inside and stink on the outside. For this alone, you want to die fulfilled.

Reason 6: You die just that once

We all die once, yes I know. But do you know that those who fail to release their potentials die twice? Yes! They do. They die while they are living and then eventually die. When someone exists as if he did not, then the person is as good as dead. This is the reason why I say those who fail to make impact die twice. You don’t want to die twice, trust me.

Reason 7: Why Shouldn’t You?

Every animal on earth has its own unique lifestyle and it lives it exactly the way God has designed it to. Birds keep flying until they can’t anymore and fishes keep swimming until they can’t move again. You and I are created for a reason. We are not just dumped here on earth but made to make our generation feel and know we were here. We must find that thing which God has deposited in us, understand it and maximize it. It is what we are meant to do like every other creature. Have you found yours? It’s time to maximize it and prepare to die empty and fulfilled.