100%: Getting Ahead Through Sheer Faithfulness

“Now the time has come for me to die. My life is like a drink offering being poured out on the altar.

I have fought well. I have finished the race, and I have been faithful”.

—Paul the Apostle (2Tim 4:6-7)

 

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Quick Read Summary

• The world requires of us to manifest our values to the fullest daily
• Each person on earth has a time and a chance to show excellence in every minute thing they do
• If we cannot give our best, it is best we step aside and give the chance to someone else who can
• Life is one Long interview, you never know who is watching. The excellence for today is the appointment for tomorrow

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I come back home daily…or as it is with everyone, the sun sets down on me daily. What did I leave to chance today? Looking critically at how I have shown up all day, is this my very best? Did I hold back on anything? Are my promises fulfilled? Are my debts paid? Have I poured myself out? Did I love expressively, unreservedly and vulnerably? Did I laugh with abandon? Did I work with diligence, dedication and all the strength of excellence I could muster? On all the chances that I was given today, did I dispense my utmost gift, talent, time, energy, passion and brilliance?

Waiting?

Or…did I play the waiting game? Did I wait for tomorrow to come so I can have a better ‘opportunity’ to impress? Did I give excuses about what I lack in terms of education, resources, connections, motivation? Did I dance at the altar of mediocrity thinking that 70% for today is good enough? Do I even know how much effort I give daily? Do I have it tracked for improvement, reflection and change of course?

In the end, the results I get are the average of what I have been giving daily. If I give daily 70% with the lie at the back of my mind that I will have another opportunity tomorrow to give 100%, I fool myself. Life is not like school where you sit for an exam for two hours to test you for what you have learnt in half a decade.

[clickandtweet handle=”@Namale” hashtag=”#LifeSignatures” related=”” layout=”inline” position=”right”]”Life is not like school where you sit for an exam for two hours to test you for what you have learnt in half a decade”.[/clickandtweet]

Step Aside!

100⁰ C or 212⁰ F is the boiling point for water…and water at a boiling point is what will boil your egg well. Nothing less than 100⁰ C. Not even 98⁰ C will do. It has to be a whole 100. And that is what life requires of me on a daily basis. That is my challenge for 2017 and beyond. [clickandtweet handle=”@Namale” hashtag=”#LifeSignatures” related=”” layout=”” position=”right”]If there is anything worth doing, 100% effort, attitude and dedication is the modus operandi[/clickandtweet]. Anything less than that will not do…probably I would rather not attempt it. If I will not give 100% of my effort to it, I should step aside and let someone else occupy my place so that they have the chance to give the 100%.

Life Is One Long Interview

Life is a daily exam, and each score propels us to the next level. Life itself sets the tests daily and life itself tracks the scores daily. There is no score that life has not tracked of my daily performance. I always tell prospective employees that an interview is not that which is conducted by a panel once in a blue moon when you are shortlisted. Every day and each moment of your waking up, you are being interviewed by life itself. How you dressed, how you talked, how you showed attitude, how you helped, how you were disciplined or negligent, how you were dreaming or simply coasting in life, how you were intentional or otherwise, each of our actions or inactions are daily interviews in life.

For Every Action…

Someone somewhere is planning to employ a stranger that they met and were attracted by how they showed up. Someone somewhere is planning to build a house for someone else who helped them in their dire state. Someone somewhere is pledging to take care of someone’s child school fees for the whole semester, or even the whole schooling, totally dependant upon this principle if daily interviews. In Physics, we say that “For every action, there is an equal but opposite reaction”. Give 50% of love, you get not anything above it. Give 100%, you get back more than it.

“Towards what end should I give my all?”You might be asking. We need to realize that when it comes to living, we are not asking of life to give us something, life is actually asking of us to give of our best. Each one of us has something to give…daily.

Every day we wake up, there are a million things that we want to do…yet life requires less of us than we think. But for the less that life requires of us, it demands that we give our absolute best, 100% effort, energy, passion, sweat and excellence. If you and I lived by this principle starting today for the next 20 years, we will be able to say (while still alive) together with Paul, “I have run my race, I have been faithful”. In the end, those are the most comforting words to linger in our minds. Nothing else.