While you are still young

By Henry E. Nsidinanya (henrythegreat21@yahoo.com)

WHILE YOU ARE STILL YOUNG, remember the man and the woman whose love and commitment to each other orchestrated existence. Honour your parents.

WHILE YOU ARE STILL YOUNG, remember the womb that carried you and shielded you for nine good months. Appreciate your mother.

WHILE YOU ARE STILL YOUNG, be mindful of the words you use to address the elderly. They were once like you and you will still be like them.

WHILE YOU ARE STILL YOUNG, manage tasks well. It pays to have younger generations sing your praises. A cardinal virtue of Late Eze Kanu Oji(Eze Aro of Arochukwu) A great honour indeed.

WHILE YOU ARE STILL YOUNG, make careful choice of lifestyle to avoid being scared of writing your auto-biography which your children must read. You will as well have a replica.

WHILE YOU ARE STILL YOUNG, be careful the people you associate with as friends. They can make or mar you. What a sensitive experience.

WHILE YOU ARE STILL YOUNG, pursue your goals and aspirations with resolute determination to ward off Mr. Discouragement. He is such a pseudo friend who has but regrets to offer.

WHILE YOU ARE STILL YOUNG, find out what your counterparts in other places on the planet earth are doing that make them popular and resourceful. You too can gather ideas and become a genius.

WHILE YOU ARE STILL YOUNG, don’t be afraid of failure. Research and experiences have proved that failure is an essential tool for achieving success if understood and carefully managed. Most of world’s celebrated personalities today either failed at start of the journey to prominence or in the heat of performing the tasks involved. Yet they ended in success.

WHILE YOU ARE STILL YOUNG, be conscious of youthful exuberance that destroys fragile destinies. Everyone does not have the same grace. Avoid engaging in acts that threaten your bright future and land you in perpetual pains. These include drug addiction, deviation from the good teachings of your parents, disobedience to your teacher, laziness and negligence to duty, lack of respect for your parents, constituted authorities and elders, destructive relationships and associations.

WHILE YOU ARE STILL YOUNG, never forget that the elders and young minds need you. What will you offer? Maximize your potentials and be the best you. There is something in you others need too.

WHILE YOU ARE STILL YOUNG, remember that the way you address and treat your parents is how your own children will do to you. You cannot plant weed and harvest wheat. Neither can you receive what you did not give. Have sense of judgement.

WHILE YOU ARE STILL YOUNG, mind the kind of advice you listen to. Not all are comfortable with what you are. There are destiny killers.

WHILE YOU ARE STILL YOUNG, be useful to your world. Use your skills and vigor to help people grow. The truth is that you grow higher. Be part of building a healthy society you too will be proud of. Many are things you cannot do at old age.

WHILE YOU ARE STILL YOUNG, think of the next stage of life. Many lived their youthful age in unnecessary luxury, forgetting the evenings of life that must surely come.

WHILE YOU ARE STILL YOUNG, never see old age as a curse but a blessing. It is indeed, a blessing to see old age. You gain nothing by dying young. Even the Creator is against untimely death. History is also never complete without the elderly.

WHILE YOU ARE STILL YOUNG, be a responsible partner in promoting continuation of human existence. You continued from where someone stopped. Somebody should continue from where you stopped. This is a reality of life.

WHILE YOU ARE STILL YOUNG, make the right choices, take good decisions and think before you act. The pains of the irreversible are incalculable. Many are already living with it and may end like that.

WHILE YOU ARE STILL YOUNG, guard your legs against treading on thorns. Many are still paying the costly price of trespassing where the angels fear to tread. What a costly adventure.

WHILE YOU ARE STILL YOUNG, aspire to greater heights. You cannot afford to suffer the pains of limitation.

WHILE YOU ARE STILL YOUNG, create a good history of yourself. Somebody will write on you on a day you may not know. And writers scarcely write on negatives.

Wishing you all a successful Easter celebration and the best in your endeavours.

* Henry Nsidinanya is the Secretary-General, Atani Welfare Union Arochukwu Worldwide; former Secretary, Atani Welfare Union Lagos branch and member Nzuko Arochukwu, Lagos branch.