Use death to your advantage By Uncle Ebo Whyte The fact is one day we will all die. That day may come sooner or later but come it will. Someone has said that the day we were born, that day we began dying. So, death really is a fact of life. But you don’t have to dread the prospect of dying. In fact, I believe that we can all use death to great advantage. Here are some of the ways to use death to your advantage. Let death give you a sense of urgency. Many of us think we have forever. We think we will be around all the time. So, there are things we need to be doing that we are not attaching any urgency to and so they never get done. But when you remind yourself of death and the fact that you cannot tell when it will come for you, you will develop a sense of urgency and thereby become more productive. A tool that may help you do this is to wake up each morning and ask yourself, if tomorrow happens to be my last day on earth, how will I want to spend it? If you go out trying to live the answer to that question, you will multiply your impact many times over. Let death make you humble. There is a war we should all wage in our private lives and it is the war against pride. It is very easy to become proud and arrogant. It may not show on the outside but you will know it when it is there. And yet pride goes before a fall. In other words, whenever you find pride, you should know that a fall or destruction or calamity or a setback is not too far off. The Bible also says that God gives grace to the humble. I don’t know about you but I want to receive grace from God daily and since He gives it only to the humble, we need to be on a state of war with pride. And nothing can help you win the war against pride more than the reminder of death. I still remember a conversation I had with a dear friend of mine. He had just lost an auntie and had had to go to the morgue with his mother to check on the body to ensure that it was receiving the right attention. He came back from the morgue very sober. He said to me: “Ebo, my auntie was a very proud and haughty woman when she was alive. She was very snobbish and status conscious. She refused to mingle with people who she did not regard as being in her class. But we went to the morgue and there she was with the corpse of a mad man lying on top of her. I wish there was an NGO that will arrange to take people annually on a visit to the morgue. It will make all of us humble when we are reminded of our end. It will remind us that one day, we will leave everything behind and we shall be on the same terms with everyone with the worms as our masters.” Let death make you build a network. When my father died, my mother tapped into her network for help to raise the five boys my father had left her. Ask yourself, when you are not there one day, what will your dependants and loved ones do when you live like an island and you live selfishly and self-centredly? Let the fact that you may not be around forever and yet your dependants may need help when you are gone make you mindful of building and sustaining a network. If you don’t return home today, who can your spouse turn to for help and support? Who can you be sure will step in to help your children? Think about these things from time to time and see if they do not make you a better neighbour. Let death make you mindful of your legacy. What will you be remembered for and by? If you don’t care how you will be remembered or if you will be remembered, then you are wasting your life. If you care about life, you will be concerned about how you will be remembered. How will your children remember you? How will you want them to remember you? How should they remember you? Now, take the steps to ensure that they will remember you in that light. How will your employees remember you? How will your subordinates remember you? How will your colleagues remember you? Remember that one day you will be gone and whether you like it or not, we will remember you and thank God for your life or we will remember you and ask God why it did not come earlier. Let death make you a more tolerant and forgiving person. It is possible that someone listening to me at this moment is so angry with his or her spouse that this morning they did not talk before leaving the house. They have assumed that there will be time to punish the other person with the withdrawal of their love and civility, but what if you don’t have the time. What if your loved one does not come home this evening? I spent just one hour with a woman who had lost her husband in a lorry accident. She was giving him the cold treatment for one offence or the other when he left the house. He did not come back. And her greatest wish was that she would have had one more chance to have said to him that she has forgiven him and that what he did was no longer such a big deal. She said to me, “Uncle Ebo, if I can have him back one more time, I promise I will never take offence at anything he does.” In her case, it was too late but it is not too late for you. Can you call to forgive your spouse today? Can you call to forgive your friend today? Can you call to forgive your former boss today? Let the truth about death make you a more tolerant and forgiving person. I have discovered that when people fall very ill and come to the point of death and then recover, they become very easygoing and forgiving. They know what most of us will discover when it is too late: that nothing in this world is really a big deal. Let death make you a more expressive person. I was at the death bed of my father and at one point he wanted desperately to express how much he loved me and the words will not come. It was the only time I saw my father cry. The tears will not stop coming even though my mother who was with me tried to assure him that I understood what he was struggling to communicate. He wished he had expressed his love for me more often but it was too late. And for everyone of us, one day it will be too late to find the words to say how much we love those we love. But today, it is not too late. So, let the fact of death make you a more expressive person. I have also had to comfort people grieving over the death of a loved one and I have found that one thing that devastates people more than anything when they lose a loved one is that they did not communicate their love to the departed often enough. I have also found that those who manage to express their love often in verbal and practical ways often find the strength to cope with their loss.
Posted on: Mon, 05 Aug 2013 00:51:39 +0000
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