When is something said to have a life? What essentially differentiates living things from non-living?
To have life is to exist, having the potential for growth and productivity. Living happens when these potentials are being utilized; to live is to be active. To live is to move from the point of mere existence to growing and engaging in productive activities.
When we say electricity has life, it means it can produce light with the effect of burning. So, the life in an electrical wire can create.
Life is synonymous with living, while living is synonymous with growth.
When you have life, it is an expected responsibility that you grow. You can’t be in this life, and you are not living. Living means to be aware, conscious, and deliberate, intentional about your life wanting and desiring to change or move from one place to another, from one phase to another.
You are living when you want more, desire more, thirst more, and hunger for more. Living means your yesterday is different from today, and your tomorrow is looking better, brighter, and more beautiful than today. Living is a life that is not static but dynamic and keeps changing for the better.
This is the living I mean. Not living just because you breathe and count your days each passing year but living in terms of what your life has produced.
If the life around you is changing and growing technologically, economically, socially, and politically why won’t you- the most crucial factor and the most indispensable resource of earth that carries the seeds of potential to produce greatness? Why won’t you change, yield and produce? Having life without growth is an ordinary life and a colossal waste of the potential you carry.
Friend, we are designed to live; we are designed to produce, to grow. If you do not wake up to the reality of who you truly are, you become stale, outdated, and useless. You become a burden not only to those around you but a burden to the earth.
If grasses could grow, and if animals could grow, don’t you also think that you are designed to grow?
Biologically, you’re growing whether you are conscious of it or not. Our biological growth equips us with greater capacity for productivity as we grow from infanthood to adulthood. If nature mandates us to develop biologically, it shows that we must make the deliberate effort to grow in every other aspect of our lives.
Have you been growing? Can you identify areas of your growth? Who were you five years ago, and who are you today? Are there any visible differences? Have you become better today in all areas or most? Can you identify areas where you need to do more work to grow? What are your next five years looking like? Who do you want to have become? What do you hope to have achieved?
Don’t be complacent, don’t stay too long where you are, and don’t be too comfortable with the status quo. Want more out of life, demand more from yourself, dream bigger, push yourself a little further, make changes in your life for the better, and bless the world with that greatness that resides inside you.
Indeed, you are made for more. Challenges, obstacles, and hindrances may come your way, and sometimes you will even fail, don’t get discouraged, don’t give up; they are all signposts to the new you, a better you. The truth you must know about yourself is that you can move past those hurdles.
All you need to do is remain focused, harness all your strength, have faith, and believe in yourself. You will be surprised how much you get in return as a reward, but the biggest reward is actually how much more a better person, a new you you would have become.
You are made of more, for more.
You are made to grow, so keep growing
Love is all I have,
Atinuke Odjenima
Transformational Growth Catalyst
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