The 3W Compass of Life

My greatest compass in life has been the three W questions;

Who I am?

Where do I come from?

And where am going to?

Do you really know and understand who you are? Are you just floating about like a feather in the wind? Genuinely being who you are is more important that what others expect you to be. Who you are will show in what you do. When you are certain of who you are, you can’t be ashamed of how someone else sees you. Who you are is your conviction of the real and true you. If you spend so much time pretending to be someone else, you will soon forget who you are. You have a unique finger and footprint. That should tell you something. The world is like a giant paper, and we are like pencils…as we walk the earth we leave messages on the earth. The constructiveness of our movements determines if the messages we live behind will be read, understood and remembered. Determining who you are is actually finding your center and focus. It is finding you root in this world. The more you know who you are and what you want, the fewer things will upset you. You just have to own who you are, that is your identity in this world. What makes you different is what makes you beautiful. Market the real you to the world. Do not let the crap this world is selling drive you into hiding your true identity. The art of understanding who you are, sets rules and grounds for decisions on; friendships, relationships, career, spirituality and a lot more. Living with the flow means anyone and anything is allowed in your life.

Realizing who you are gives you that center and focus that draws reasonable boundaries. You start recruiting people and things into your life that will build the person you know yourself to be. If you don’t know who you are or have forgotten who you are, it’s time to start finding that person. Return to the things you genuinely love, visit the activities that gladdened your heart…In the truth of doing the things you know you were born to do, you will find yourself. When you do, never forget who you are.

Where do you come from? Yeah I guess you will start naming a country, a village and so on. That’s not the answer to that question. Where do you come from? What does the place you come from mean to you? What does the place you come from stand for? What role did that place play in your life? What are your attachments to that place? What devotion do you have towards that place? What values have you derived from that origin? Do you ever ask yourself such questions?  “It is always good to remember where you come from and celebrate it. To remember where you come from is part of where you are going…”Anthony Burgess. The country, town, village or families we come from tells us a lot about ourselves. That was not just a place, it meant something. Most times we derive our future journeys based on how we defined where we came from. This is of great importance to us as humans. Our restraints, values, tolerance and a lot of other attributes we bear are derived from where we came from. Where you come from tells you a story from 2 dimensions; the good and the bad. The negatives of where we come from and the positives of where we come from played a role in our growth. I know you may be thinking, what does where I come from have to do with anything in my present life. Where you come from represents your roots. You may or may not like where you come from, but it represents your essences/foundation. You always have to remember your roots because they are the foundation of your life and the wings of your future. A person without knowledge of their past, origin and culture lacks a foundation. You may be an orphan, a refugee and so on; but have in mind that the society you were nurtured in offered you a foundation. Strong roots will definitely produce many beautiful leaves and healthy fruits.

As Africans, I think many of the problems we are facing today stems from the fact that most of us have lost touch with our roots especially our leaders. Without deep roots even the lightest wind of adversity will blow us away. Assets such as patriotism, cultural pride, cultural preservation, nation building and much more are expressly embedded in the firm attachment of our roots to the land of our substance. The reason we find ourselves lost is because we did not understand our foundation. You can not define your destination without clearly understanding where you come from. I live in Cameroon and I come from Cameroon. If I have to move from Cameroon to Ghana, I must first know where exactly I am in Cameroon and from there I will know how to locate the airport and board a plane for Ghana. If I have to blindly wonder of in Cameroon to find the airport, there are two possibilities; I may never find the airport or I may take an unusually long time before finding my destination. Roots don’t need to define you, they are a reminder of how you started and as such set up the needed momentum for you to launch into a clearly defined future. As you will walk forward, you will have to look back at where you came from, in order to be grateful and inspired. Understanding the history of the people you came from is important. That history should tell you what you should not repeat and also help you identify what works so you will never let go of it. When you truly understand where you come from, you can then define where you are going.

Where are you going? Has your life any direction? Where you came from had no power to define who you are, but where you are going will be expression of who you are and thus will clearly define you. Where you are going is your destination and purpose. Once your purpose is clear, you can bring out the paper and map out strategic goals that will get you to your destination. The glow on our lives is not so much in our destination, but the many beautiful little goals we get to achieve to get to that final destination. The struggles of the journey, the milestones and the conquests all blend in to spruce up our existence. If you really want to understand the importance of having no defined destination, wake up one morning and walk about aimlessly with no direction. You did not put any thought or planning into that walk. You paid no attention to the path or the things along the way, because the path didn’t matter as you have no particular destination in mind. That is just how life works. When we live without a compass or focus, we put little or no effort into whatever we do. We tend to face our studies, career and life in general with no enthusiasm when we have no specific point of focus. A destination offers you a vision and a dream.

Maturity is attained when we grasp a clear understanding of who we are and where we come from and translate that into a purposeful destination. These are very easy reading from paper, that actually living it out in practically. Take a walk or sit in an open space alone, think of your family, and community. What were the values you picked up from them? Are those values ones that motivate you and set out principles for you to live by? Who do you really think you are? Are you fun, outgoing, a leader or an innovator? When you leave or you public circles and find yourself alone, what is your view of yourself? Are you living a life scripted by someone else? Have you any conviction about your life? Why are you here? When you wake up every day from bed, what motivates you? Are you dead while you are living? Do you live just to whine the time till your breath stops? When all this is over, what will someone remember you for? Get serious and get answers to these questions. Your life is meaningful, you were meant to leave a mark on this earth. You are relevant to the world, the fact that you don’t see that yet, does not make it untrue. We were not just created to breathe and die; if that were the case, so much work and ingenuity would not have been invested into our being. Find your essence of existence and unleash that miracle into the world. Heal someone, teach someone, comfort someone, touch someone, in fact, be someone.

“You have a fingerprint that no one else has, to leave an imprint that no one else can leave.” Keith Craft