Be YOU or be YOKED: you’ve got only one life. LIVE!
I began life watching my father make things. Papa loved making things. He made soaps; he made creams; he configured dye to turn our old clothes new, syrups to cure the ills of malaria parasites and other tropical ailments, and tinctured delicate-smelling perfumes out of plants, nuts and flowers. People in our community used to say you could tell Chief Udoka Akpan Udoh Akpan Amaetor had walked through a path or passed by a street from the fragrance in the air.
In addition to tinctures and perfumes, my father wove hats and mats from raffia and carved spoons and complicated bowls out of hardwood pieces. And when he made pots out of clay we dug from the streams that watered our community; the sticky dough seemed to come alive in his hands. When he felt like it, there was nothing my father couldn’t carve, mould, weave or fire into shapes from the many elements nature provided, many in our community said. They also said that my father saw possibilities in everything and could make something out of anything. Despite his sense of craftsmanship and love for creating, my father was not as financially rich as his many ideas. There was a reason for that.
Papa was a product of his time and culture, a time and culture that posited, even if not always verbally, that only through farming and farmlands could a man properly feed his family and take care of their other needs. My father’s perfumes and lotions may have smoothened our bodies and made us smell good, his dye may have turned old clothes new and fresh, but they were not going to be what put food on the table of his family or clothes on the back of his children. Farming was what could do that. Like his father and ancestors before him, that was what my father believed. And it was what he gave his complete focus.
It is an unquestionable fact that the actual worth (or a person) can only shine forth when he is entirely himself. Self-realization plays a significant factor in making that possible. Only a person who has in-depth, intimate knowledge of who he is understands most what matters most to him. That understanding is what allows him to polish that thing in him and make it shine. But self-realization is a journey. Since it does not always come easy, it is a process you undertake when you fully appreciate that you (as well as that which you have within you) matter because it will demand you were stepping away from the crowd so you can fully hear you, feel you and be you.
On knowing oneself, my father himself used to say that it was okay for a man to go on a journey, as long as he doesn’t forget to take himself along. When I look at inventions created by ordinary people like my father, I sometimes wonder, did Papa forget to take himself along his own life’s journey? I know that achieving one’s dreams is not as simple as just wishing it; I also understand that the circumstances of one’s birth play a significant factor in whether one can dream dreams and have those dreams come true or not; but, ultimately, life becomes better when you are genuinely YOU. I am convinced my father missed experiencing the’ better version of himself in choosing to follow the path pre-ordained by his father and forefathers’ cultural norms.
That is not to say my father regretted the life path he chose. I never heard to express any regrets about his life. But I sometimes wonder what kind of life my father could have had if he had allowed himself to embrace his love for creating things entirely.
My father was a good man, a generous man — a man given to meeting others’ needs than his own. For that and other reasons, he was highly thought of by his family, friends, entire community, and outsiders who knew him. But all of that hasn’t stopped me from wondering what we knew of him, the best version of my father?
You see, though it does not sometimes come easy, a journey to self-knowing is a journey that allows you to truly express yourself in a manner that lets you live your dream. It is a win-win kind of journey because it teaches you to become the best version of yourself. And so, these days, I sometimes wonder, even though my father was regarded as a great man by his family, those who knew him, was what we knew of him the best version of my father? Also, what version of himself would my father himself had uncovered if he’d given himself entirely into making things?
Be YOU or be YOKED: you’ve got only one life. Live!
Here is the truth. No one wants a live a life filled with regrets. Besides the stress that comes with it and the horrific aftermath, it would most certainly induce (we all know what stress can do). A life of regrets is joyless: it is similar to eating sawdust even though you can comfortably afford the best cereal in the market. But without the wisdom that self-knowing endows, that kind of life is most definitely a certainty. Not only will you constantly feel like you are feeding on sawdust, but none of the success you manage to achieve will also bring you any sense of fulfilment — no matter the impact and impression they may have on other people.
Knowing you allows you to live intentionally. Intentional living is all about knowing yourself enough to know what works for you and what doesn’t — again, despite what other people may think. A life that isn’t lived intentionally leaves you feeling stuck, staring at your reflection in the mirror every morning, pondering the ‘futility of it all. Why live that way when you can change all that in a second by taking the time to learn YOU, who that is, and what matters to him or her?
