If you bury a pebble, it will obey the law of gravity and stay in the ground. It may even sink deeper with time. If you bury a seed, it obeys a different law and grows out of the ground… Against the pull of gravity.
If you look at the pebble and you look at the seed… you will see that they are somewhat alike to the naked eye. What makes them different is what is inside them. What is inside the pebble is not what is inside the seed. That is why a pebble is called a pebble and a seed is called a seed.
People are the same. We all look similar but have different content. Some people are like the seed and some are like the pebble. Some people remain the same without changing or growing. They simply get born, live like every other person, attend weddings , pay bills, grow old and die. And get buried like the pebble they resemble.
Another set are bent on expressing God given potentials to affect lives and add value. It is from this set that the rest of the world is watered. andrew carnegie said that a life which does not add value is wortheless. just like a tree which does not bear fruit.
it is possible to have plenty of money and still feel insecure. it is possible to know many people and still feel lonely. you can own many houses but never feel at home. the adding of value is the only thing that nourishes society. that is why there are so many people who have money in africa but the continent is still poor. ( i can tell you confidently that there are some nigerians who have more money than some small nations of the world. but they are also among the most insecure people on the continent. ) the only way to get money without adding value is to acquire it fraudulently. sadly that is how most of the money in africa is acquired. money is not wealth. wealth is something that comes as aresult of the creation of value.
The interesting thing is that all people regardless of their heritage or background can choose which to be ... The pebble or the seed. In fact the whether we see it or not, we are by our daily actions choosing sides.
to be a seed is hard. It is not easy to grow to be exponentially greater than your original size and even produce thousands of other seeds and even trees. ( especially when you are in the midst of pebbles ) The process of transformation from seed to tree is very stressful and filled with challenges. That is why it is more convenient to be a neat pebble. A pebble can not produce other pebbles. It can only break into several smaller bits. This is not multiplication. it is division.
so what is my point ??
Every single person is either growing or diminishing. we must make a conscious choice to grow. with each waking moment of our life , you are either contributing or collecting. adding or subtracting. Age has nothing to do with it. if there was a fire in a south african house today and a 27 year old drug addict was in it beside nelson mandela ... and they can only save one person... who do you think they will choose to save ?? you become a person of worth based on the value you give with your life or talent it has nothing to do with how old you are. wole soyinka, fela, gani, awo, achebe, all are perpetually valuable even in death. you can chose to be so too. africa can never grow until its young people decide to stop acting like consumers and start offering product or service value. if fundamental paradigms do not change, circumstances will remain the same regardless of length of fasting.......
It is all a matter of choice… are you a pebble or are you a seed?
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