My dear Jack, in my last letter I explained to you that life is going to happen to your generation. It happens to every generation.
Every generation imagines they can reinvent life. Only nobody can reinvent life. Life has a constancy. You can reinvent culture, you can reinvent mores… But life itself? No, you can’t. It is governed by immutable laws. And this is how you know. If you’ve taken time to look at life generationally, talk to the older generation, even much older generation… You’ll have noticed every generation has troubles. No matter how enlightened a generation is, no matter how brilliant it is, there’ll be troubles. Everyone will face challenges. Technology can’t prevent those troubles, neo-cultural mores won’t eradicate those challenges… Troubles are persistent with life. Everyone faces trials. Neither will social media culture eliminate those challenges. If at all it generates its own set of troubles. Every of man’s interactions generates trouble.
What those challenges do however is that they bring out your character; they show what you’re made of. Now, you think you have troubles just because you don’t have money. But money generates its own troubles too. Though the problems of wealth are much more preferable to the problems of poverty. One challenge the single rich man or woman has is, you never know who loves you for you. And can anyone ever love you for you? Wealth has its own troubles. If you’re successful you face the problem of envy. It’s not a nice problem to have. Envy is a sickness of the soul. It cannot be assuaged. It always wishes people evil, rejoices in pain and suffering.
The point I’m trying to let you see is that life is full of troubles. It’s not something a young man (or woman) wants to hear but I owe you the truth. That’s not saying you have to be afraid. These things happen in the natural course of life. You just deal with them and move on to the next instalment of your life. They will happen anyway. If you don’t come to terms with them, you’re going to struggle with the character of life. You’re going to be hoping to get rid of your troubles once and for all… Only there’s nothing like troubles permanently going away. At each stage of your life there will be challenges for you to face. When you become successful for instance you’ll have to deal with loneliness. The rich and famous are the most lonely. Notice how many of them commit suicide.
It would seem therefore that life is controlled by certain dynamics and that these dynamics are independent of culture and geography. It’s like gravity. Whether you’re in Enugu or Washington you will experience gravity. It doesn’t matter who you are, your background, your gender… Gravity is constant.
There are laws of life. Each module of life has laws governing it. Success for example is regulated by certain laws. You must work hard. You must apply yourself. No matter how brilliant you are if you’re lazy you won’t succeed. That’s partly because the lazy man is full of excuses. He’ll never act on his opportunities, he’ll never create opportunities. But he thinks he’s smarter than everyone else. As Solomon said he turns on his bed like a door on hinges, while everyone is at work. He loves his sleep.
I’ll share three laws with you. Without them you won’t succeed. The first is the law of diligence. The second is the law of faithfulness. The third is the law of loyalty.
The law of diligence says no matter the smallness of the task or the quantum of pay, put your best into what you’re doing. Many of us are waiting for that big assignment to show our capabilities. But you’ll never get to the big thing without being diligent in little things. That’s the law of life. We don’t know why this is so. All we know is that diligence leads to promotion. Life has its own calibration. And there’s a natural flow to it if you think about it. The guy who is diligent at work will naturally accomplish more and so will be given more to do. The more diligent he is the more he’s deemed reliable. That reliability produces trust, which leads to more responsibility. Be diligent at what you do. That is the secret of successful people. They pour their life into whatever they do. Maximum effort yields maximum result. Diligence demands you be earnest at what you do, that you take initiative, pay attention, take good care.
The second law is the law of faithfulness. Whether someone is looking or not you must stay committed to what you do. There must be a constancy. It’s not about the other person. Faithfulness is your commitment to yourself, your commitment to your values. It’s about what you believe in, it’s not about eye service. There’s a time factor attached to faithfulness. Faithfulness requires commitment over a period of time, being constant. It’s about delivering on an assignment come rain, come shine. Faithfulness is independent of conditions. It’s tied to a person. And someone’s bound to notice. That nobody has spoken to you about your performance doesn’t mean nobody is noticing. That’s the essence of faithfulness. Life rewards faithfulness. The reward may not even come from the quarter we expect but life has these orchestrations. Life always rewards faithfulness.
The third law is the law of loyalty. The problem many times is that people think short term. They can’t see past the now. It’s why they’re not loyal. They dimension people in terms of immediate usefulness. When there seems no more usefulness, they jettison the people and move on to the next prospect. If you keep doing that, word soon gets around you’re a user of people. You won’t get loyalty and people will be wary about you. They will even fear you. You burn bridges at both ends. And true to type when you need a favour from a discarded individual you ask as if nothing ever happened. This gives you false confidence you can get away with anything, and that people are fools. Your infamy is being discussed behind closed doors. That’s how you lose things without being aware. Worse, your character becomes your definition. When your name is mentioned in certain quarters there’ll be a caution hung on your name. You’re not loyal to anyone, can sell anyone. You’re only loyal to your immediate interest. You won’t get the ultimate prize. Even if you seem to get away with it life has its computations. Success will come at a certain price. And the deductions may be made from another header in your life – the one you didn’t think about, couldn’t have thought of. And life is patient. Don’t be disloyal. Don’t do evil to someone who has done you good in life. Never forget the good people do to you.
I read the story about two friends. One was poor, the other from a rich home. The rich guy was very good to the poor guy. They were genuine friends. But the rich guy died young. His family also lost their fortune. When the poor guy made it he made sure to look for the son of his friend and set him up. He never forgot. Certain obligations subsist after death. When someone is good to you, when someone is instrumental to your success in life you owe a debt of loyalty. It’s a debt for life. There are debts that don’t go away.
Don’t join others to run your benefactor down. Don’t be an ingrate. That’s disloyal. This is a common mistake in workplaces: your boss is good to you but then you join others in running him or her down. Isn’t it better to walk away from such conversations? You say unkind and untruthful things about your benefactor in concert with others, allude to hurtful innuendos about things you know nothing about. Where’s your character? That’s terribly disloyal. And it’s not wise. Word soon gets back to him or her and you of all people will lose the most. You’re the recipient of grace. You soon choke off the arteries.
Be loyal. It’s about character. There’s a halo of suspicion attached to those without loyalty. There’s a mercenary quality to them. And they soon need help from the very same people whose loyalty they pummelled.
The law of diligence, the law of faithfulness, the law of loyalty. These are laws of success. No matter what your generation thinks you’re going to come face to face with these laws. You can’t go around them. When you violate them, there are consequences.
No diligence, no opportunities. No faithfulness, no responsibility. No loyalty, no trust.
You get it?
Your mentor, LA.
© Leke Alder | talk2me@lekealder.com.
The law of diligence says no matter the smallness of the task or the quantum of pay, put your best into what you’re doing. Click To Tweet Faithfulness is your commitment to yourself, your commitment to your values. It’s about what you believe in, it’s not about eye service. Click To Tweet When someone is good to you, when someone is instrumental to your success in life you owe a debt of loyalty. Click To Tweet Don’t do evil to someone who has done you good in life. Never forget the good people do to you. Click To Tweet Be loyal. It’s about character. Click To Tweet