CHAPTER 43
LET’S SWEEP OUR WORLD OF CHALLENGES
In sub-Saharan African where brooms are still part of everyday life, it is common place to find brooms being used as cleaning facilities. It’s such a common tool that one would hardly find its absence in an African home. The broom though is more than a cleaning facility, it is a life teacher.
Life is filled with challenges which come voluntarily or involuntarily into a person’s life. The greatest joy any man would like to have is to live a life free from challenges. Consider these challenges as dirt. Dirt finds itself into an area unconsciously or consciously. It results from dust that settles in an environment, compartment or room. No one loves to live in a dirty house, so too no one likes the challenges of life. That’s why the broom comes handy as a guide to sweeping these challenges away.
A broom consist of individual broomsticks combined together to create a bunch. Every broom stick is important but each broomstick cannot sweep independently. Each requires another stick and a host of other sticks to be able to sweep off dirt. We need the help of others as much as we have capacity within ourselves. We can pull down big challenging situations when we work together as a team. The capacity of a collective whole can do much more than one man will do.
Take a look at the broom. Each consisting broomstick has deferring characteristics. Some are strong, feeble, short and others long. The broom will however only be a broom when these all combine. Each person has independent attributes with differing roles to play in helping you get over challenges. You can’t afford to overlook any person around you. They each have a role that some other person will not be able to play however well they try.
The broom is a symbol of unity. One cannot break a bundle of broom however hard he tries, however when each is separated into single broomsticks, there is enormous breaking ease. Our collective effort at facing our challenges is a great attribute. We tend to do more as a collective united whole. The moment that unity of purpose is removed and each strives independently, each can only do as much as his individual capacity can carry. Truth is, two people can do more within a short time than what each independent persons will do when added together.
Each broom stick is combined together into a bunch with the help of a binding rope. It is this rope that keeps the broomsticks together. This rope is unity. Without unity, we cannot work together. We need to be united in the fuel of love and passion towards the achievement of our set goal and objectives and then this will help us overcome any challenge that stands our way.
The cost of a broom is negligible compared to how much dust it can sweep. Its importance and usefulness transcends its prices. It’s one of the cheapest yet useful instruments. It does not cost much to be united towards a course. It just takes an agreement to work together. However its effect is in gargantuan dimensions bringing about uncommon achievements that could never have being possible.
All brooms do not all have equal sizes. The effectiveness of a broom is dependent on the size of the bunch, the strength of each broomstick and the nature of surface one intends to sweep. Not all surfaces apply the same type of broom. Challenges are of types. Some will require the action of maybe just one or two persons while another may require a large group of persons. One must know the quality of human input necessary to tackle a challenge in the shortest time or else risk spending so much money and much time
The common nature of the broom doesn’t make it lose its worth. It does so much however invaluable it seems. No one person or group is common however common they may seem. Everyone has capacity and value they can place in that project to see it come through. The most worthless person isn’t worthless at all. He just hasn’t found his use. When his use arrives, his value will be released.
Whatever it is that is your challenge and that seems impossible, take the broom for inspiration. Learn the power of team work, find some other person with the same passion as you have and push to have that challenge overcome.
Remember, together everyone achieves more. Start sweeping now.