Before Forty by Ekekere Samuel Ufot - HTML preview

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15

Give Back To Society!

Life isn’t just about you! It’s also about the many persons that you see around you. Everyone matters. But not everyone is privileged to enjoy the same opportunities at any given time.

As a result of differentials in opportunity and knowledge, everyone won’t get to the top at the same time. In reality, only a few persons get to the top. But this book is written to empower you for the top life.

The top life comes with astounding responsibility, to be a hand for those who want to get to the top too. You aren’t meant to stay at the top alone, here’s why there is so much space up there. You are meant to live amongst a community of top people. And if you offer people the opportunity to enjoy the same top privileges as you have enjoyed, it keeps you at the top for longer.

Every privilege you have enjoyed in life, there is a natural bind you make with God and with life, to give back as you are getting so that others can enjoy the same privileges too.

You have talent, skill, money or opportunities? At forty, you should have started a giveback to society campaign. You too can correct the ills that society is suffering from.

It begins from a will. There are wealthy people around us, people who are heavily gifted, who have huge talents and are succeeding who think they should be the ones shining. They claim to have worked so hard to achieve their level of success but they fail to realize that it’s not by their hardwork that they became successful. There are people who have worked harder who have had no breaks.

Everyone needs help and everyone who has succeeded got help from someone else. But some successful people look away from those who helped them. They wish away the fact that somebody helped them. They boast about their struggles and try to paint a picture of achieving success all by themselves. Where you are today is because somebody helped you. Where you will be is because somebody is going to help you.

Everything we have was right here before we arrived. All we do through life is to use what we came to see and then drop them at death. But you can’t be the only one who stumbles on a successful path through life and not share with others. What you have discovered about life must not end with you.

Look around you! There is poverty, lack, wars, sickness, hunger, etc. Your privileged position through life is so that you can help change the narrative.

Even if your goal is to be the richest man in your country, the secret to having wealth is giving wealth. You can’t keep gathering to yourself and think you will become wealthy. Wealth doesn’t work that way. There is no rich who got his wealth by keeping it in the bank to grow. He gets his money out to do business and the wealth grows that way. Money answers to giving. When you give money out, you get in return. This is why we buy things in the market. Money exchanges for more money.

Here is why Bill Gates, Zukerberg, Jack Ma, Warren Buffet, Aliko Dangote and others are heavy givers. They have their personal foundations where they dole out a good percentage of their wealth to communities and nations to help with good causes. They aren’t giving because they have wealth; they are giving because they need wealth.

You may say you aren’t a billionaire so you can’t give out today. But you don’t have to be a billionaire. Those who volunteer for just cause aren’t all billionaires. They are only believers in this principle. They start with their will to change things.

Before you turn forty, start a give back campaign. The reason is obvious, if you want to get, you have to give. You may choose to run your foundation like several people do. The earlier you start, the better. You can expect to see the fulfillment of the natural prophesy that goes with giving early in your life.

You may think “I don’t have the means to start a foundation”. You don’t have to start a foundation to sow into people’s life. You can support organizations or foundations that are already engaged in supporting just causes. A good search in your city will reveal a couple of them.

If you think you don’t have the time to be an active member, your donations can come handy. You can decide to give a certain part of your salary to support those organizations you know that are doing a great job in this regard.

It's great waking up every morning to realize that your little efforts have been putting smiles on people’s faces. It’s certainly a rewarding venture.

If you don’t have that much money to spare, you have skill, that’s great too. Give what you have. Share your talent. You can help people discover their talents or how best to use their talents by them watching how you are doing with yours.

You should not be planning to support a cause at forty. You should already have been at it. You should by forty be teaching your children how.

Life functions on the premise of give and take. That cycle ensures that resources get across board. The reason why most persons are poor and fewer persons are wealthy is because a good chunk of the wealth is been circulated around those who already have it. Life however has a way of turning the tides when she has to.

Don’t be a miser who loves to hold back everything that enters his hands. If you have the capacity to lend a hand to a just need, do it. The reason you are in that family, community, city or nation is because you should add value to the people around there.

There are people who think that they should always be on the receiving end. Young people tend to grow with this mentality. We think more about what we can get instead of what we can give. This strategically puts us at a receiving expecting end. Those who are consistent receivers who are not giving out end up always poor. If you are expecting to always receive from people, you have sown your seed for perpetual poverty for the rest of your life.

As you’ve been blessed to receive, bless others by giving too. Let there be a flow! Think about those who are less privileged who don’t get the same benefits as you do.

Everyone won’t be blessed equally with the same capacity but everyone has what some other person needs. You have some need that some other person must meet. But you must have to barter it with the surplus you have in that area of your life. The surplus you enjoy in that area of your life is so that you can give it out to enjoy some other person’s surplus.

It’s important to put yourself as a source for others. You can choose to be a well where people can come and drink from. Have you seen a well become empty? A well that is well dug will continue to produce water year after year unending. When you choose to be a well, God empowers you for a lifetime of resources.

Some persons only realize that they really should have been touching lives when they pursue a political career. During their campaigns, they begin to dole out money to give the vague impression that they are givers, but when they get into office, they turn their backs on the people.

Giving shouldn’t be for political campaigns only. It should be a way of life. Just as it opens doors to people’s hearts politically, it also opens doors everywhere else.

Don’t give because of the office you are in. You’ve perhaps have noticed that the wives of some governors suddenly develop pet projects that end as their husbands leave office. You can actually look around to check which projects of the wife of a former governor still exist. You’d hardly find one.

Some persons are sentimental when they give. In my part of the world, politicians invite the media to come see how they empower their own family, relatives, acquaintances and friends in the name of public empowerment. That’s a fraud!

The best givers don’t make noise about what they give. They let their results determine the quality of their efforts and how people rate them. If you are hoping to be seen by others, that’s eye service and you’ve taken your reward already. You should give because you want to affect and influence lives.

Having the mentality that nobody gave you and therefore you are not under any volition to give is anti your personal development and anti-life. The secret to lifelong and generational wealth is what you are giving now. You will be oiling the ground for your children and subsequent generations because God rewards such efforts.

Even if it is true that no one supported you to the top, you should help those who like you have no one to help them. Whatever challenges you faced growing up is what you are meant to find solution to.

Cast your bread on waters and after many days you will get it back, but this time swollen and heavier. What you give finds a way back to you. You need to cultivate this habit early in your life so that when your gifts or seeds have gone full cycle, you will still be young and alive to enjoy the benefits. If you realize how to give in your fifties, and sixties, what you will actually be doing is sowing the seeds for your children.

There’s a high need for givers across the world, people who will give their time, finance and talent to support causes. If you can support education, it’s great to have people who had education because of your efforts. If you can give free meals, clothes or whatever effort you can make to help people become better of themselves, please do. Whatever you can is worth it. God will enlarge your coast to increase your resources so that you can give more.

Before you turn forty, by all means, start helping people find and discover fulfillment in life by holding their hands and guiding them. God is a giver, to be like Him, you have to give.