MAXIMIZING YOUR LIFE

Maximizing your life

What is the meaning of the word MAXIMIZE? To maximize means to increase SOMETHING as much as possible, or to make the best of SOMETHING. (Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. International Student’s Edition. New 8th edition).

And Cambridge English Dictionary defines Maximize as “to make SOMETHING as great in amount, size or importance as possible.”

What does LIFE mean? Life according to Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. International Student’s Edition. New 8th edition says “the ability to breath, grow and reproduce.”

Another English dictionary says “life is the period between birth and death or the state or the experience of being alive.”

To me with the above definitions understanding what it means to maximize one’s life won’t be any difficult because I believe the above definitions are simple enough to put anyone on his feet knowing fully well that we have a limited time to work here on earth before we die.

MAXIMIZING YOUR LIFE, this is what I have to say or write about it:

1.      To make the best of SOMETHING while you still have the ability to breath, grow and reproduce.

2.      To make SOMETHING important as possible as you experience being alive.

If you look at the Dictionary definitions I wrote above you would find out that I wrote SOMETHING in uppercase. I wrote it like that because to me I believe that it is in the SOMETHING that whatever we need to understand lies.

Therefore you should know the SOMETHING here stands for ANYTHING you do now or will do after now. Whether you are teaching, writing, getting married, dating, eating, changing one’s life, dancing, watching movie, watching football, schooling, etc., or you are going to do these things in the future. They are the SOMETHING you have to maximize because they are your life. These things are the things you have to make best of. It is very simple; if you fail to make the best of them it means you have failed to make the best of your life.

Another thing of importance here to note is “we are not here to live indefinitely; therefore a time comes when we can no more breathe, grow or reproduce.” The writer of Ecclesiastes is so emphatic about this when he wrote Ecclesiastes 3:1-2  “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:  ² A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;”

With this in our minds we are to know that we have very short time to write our names on the Marble or leave our foot prints on the sand of time. Therefore you don’t have all the time in this world to make impact. The only time you have is now. When I say NOW I mean today.

To maximize your life you have to do “that” SOMETHING you do now as if your life depends on it (in actual sense your life depends on it.) How well or bad you will live tomorrow is totally dependent on how you do “that” SOMETHING you are doing now or you will do tomorrow.

I know there are many people who don’t like hearing or reading about anything that has to do with death. It is funny because we all know that one day; one by one we all shall die. Death is inevitable. It is something none of us can avoid. The worst of everything today is young people die more than old people. It is something that worries me anyway.

TAKE NOTE OF THESE POINTS:

a.      You don’t have all the time in this world to make impact. The only time you have is NOW.

b.      You have a life given to you by God and that life is not given to you to live it as you wish. You don’t have to waste the life by leaving as you wish. The giver of the life will request you give account of how you spent it. (Romans 14:12 “So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.”)

c.       The life Giver requires you reproduce another life. The first thing God said when blessing the man, the image He created out of dust and sent His breathe in; is “be fruitful” (Genesis 1:28). That sentence simply means “be productive.” We all know every fruit reproduces its kind. That is natural law.

Here I am not talking about having children, I am talking about reproducing someone like you in the work you do. It is said “a success without a successor is a failure.” Whoever that made this quote first is a very wise person.

Maximizing your life has nothing to do with how many houses or cars you have but it has to do with your reproductive ability. (I am not saying having cars or building houses or other properties is bad. That’s not what I am saying here.) What I am saying here is this “people will not count you as one who has really maximized his life because of the properties you acquire but based on how many people whose lives you were able to impact by reproducing yourself in them.

NOTE: Whether you impacted people positively or negatively, you will be remembered in them all. This is why it is important we make positive impact on people. We have to reproduce the good part of us in the people we work with or even work for.

Don’t forget there is a time when we can’t be able to reproduce. There is always that time when we can’t be able to influence anyone. Ecclesiastes 12:1-8 talks much about this. Therefore the only time you have to maximize your life is now.

d.      Every second you spend here on earth, you spent it between your birth and your death and they are worth spending with care and caution. You have to be deliberate about your life and what you do with it. Do not leave your life in the hand of chance. Those who are successful in life are those who are DELIBERATE in their action. Nothing just happens, things happen because someone made them happen.

e.      Every second you spend on frivolous activity is wasting a portion of your life which if time is not taking, you won’t be able to recover it till death.

Few years ago something happened that brought tears to my eyes and fear to my heart. I was invited to a church in Lagos for their annual thanksgiving service and when I got there, I didn’t want them to give me sit among the priests, pastors and clergies because I was not one. I was once a guest speaker in one of their youth programme. While waiting outside for them to make a space for me somewhere at the back as I instructed one of the ushers that came to welcome me. One man who by my own calculation would be in his 70s walked up to me and greeted me and I smiled as anybody in my position would do.

To cut the long story shot; the man told me that there is something he learnt from what I told them when I was there as a guest speaker that he has been putting into practice since then and it has been helping him leave a better life. I was happy to hear that because as a motivator or inspirational speaker my joy is always to see or hear people talk about how God through me has changed their lives. But the man now said something that brought fear and tears to my heart and eyes. He said “how I wish I have known it when I was younger, my life would have been a different story now.”  I became afraid as tears rolled down my eyes. My fear is this; when I will be in my 70s will I have any regret of what I would have done that didn’t do because of my personal mistake? The statement from that man shook the root of my entire life. Friends, my desire is that none of you reading this piece would say what that man said when you have become old or older.

TO MAXIMIZE YOUR LIFE you have to

1.      WORK WITH TIME:

Always remember that time waits for no man. You should know that “anytime you spend your time in doing something, no matter what it is, you are spending your life.” Your time is your life. If you waste anytime, you waste your life.

Youth Wing of Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (YOWIPFN) in Mushin area of Lagos State invited to me to speak in one of their youth programmes and after the programme, another pastor took the opportunity to ask me to come to talk to his youths. I agreed and asked him when their meeting would be starting. He told me the programme would start by 6pm. I said okay. Then he told me that I should not bother coming by 6pm that I should come later. He told me that I should come around 7pm so that once I come in I would be given the microphone.  I smiled and told him I will be coming by 5 minutes to 6pm. And he was surprised to see me in his office before 6pm. I have many reasons why I like going to programmes where I am a guest speaker earlier or on time. (If you want to know then ask me in secret). Laughs.

People who are close to me know that I don’t joke with time. I don’t joke with time because I know my time is my life. The first thing I always ask any person or group of people whenever I am invited to speak is “when is the programme starting?” One thing I learnt from those who are mentoring me is managing my time and managing it very well.

One of the things that killed Sapphira in Acts 5 is misusing her time. If she was there on time with her husband and see what happened to her husband she would have told Apostle Peter the truth and save herself from untimely death.

a.      You don’t have to procrastinate. Procrastination is a thief of time. And anything that steals you time stills your life. John 10:10a says “the thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy.” Anytime you procrastinate, you expose yourself, your life to danger of being stolen, killed and destruction.

b.      Create time for anything you want to do or you are doing. You must create time to play. Time to read or study. Time to do your work. Time to play with your wife and children. Time to surf the net, chat, sleep and time to just lie down doing nothing but relaxing. All these things I wrote above are very important if you want to maximize your life. If you work without playing, tendencies for you to die younger than God planned are higher. If you also play more than you should, the tendency for you to die a poorer person is higher too.

There is a saying that says “all work and no play make Jack a dull boy.” But I have added something to it “more play and less work makes you a poor man.”

2.      ORGANIZE YOUR THOUGHT:

We are living in a world and at a time when what we see or hear are being dictated by our environment. When I say environment, it is not limited to where we live or places we go physically.

The word environment has changed with time. At this moment or time, internet, our phone, television or even magazines have all become “our” environment. I always tell me people that my friends live in my phone. The statement is true to every one of us especially young people. And this is one thing our parents or those of older generation do not understand. Our parents or people of older generation do not know that what their children face today is beyond what where they live physically can handle.

If you want to maximize your life you have to organize your thought. Decide what stays and what don’t. Do not allow your friends or the things that happen around you both in and outside your phone to control your mind.

Decide what you meditate in and what you don’t. It is not all manner of music you hear or watch the video or fashion you see along the road or in a magazine that you should get yourself involved with.

Our mind is a battle field and many battles have been won and lost in our mind. Anybody who fails to take control of what stays in his mind in this generation will live to see himself rubbished. There are some programmes they air on our airwaves that I have kept asking what the sponsors want to achieve with them.

The writer of Proverbs 4:23, says “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.”

The Hebrew word translated “diligence” here is “mishmar” pronounced “mish-mawr,” meaning; “place of confinement, prison, guard, jail, guard post, watch or observe.”

I won’t dwell so much on this point but by what is written above you should by now know what I am advising you to do to and with your thought or with your heart.

You have to put your heart in prison, you have to guard your because it is from the what keeps you alive or takes you to death comes from.

One thing that is certain about human being is this; humans are spirits that have souls and live in a body. Our soul which is our heart is the home to our emotion, desires, feelings and wills. This part of our lives can never get born again. Apostle Paul while writing to the Roman Jews told them to organize their thought. This is how he puts it, in Romans 12:2 he wrote, “…be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind…”

He told them to renew their mind, which in simple term means; do not allow wrong pictures and thoughts to stay longer than necessary in your mind. We should avoid mediating on those issues and pictures we see around us everyday that reduces us to mare objects.

Let me conclude by saying this. You can maximize your life if you so wish. God has given us all that pertains to live and godliness (2 Peter 1:3). All you have to do is to get back to Him and He will guide you into all truth.

Thank you so much and God bless you as I see you maximize your life.

Onuigwe Chidi Sirnoel