Starting a new life

Naturally, man is a not infallible. Only Allah, the Almighty Omnipotent God, our Creator, Author and Finisher of our lives and to who all beings submit is the only being to whom infallibility can be ascribed. Our infirmity or weakness is borne out of the insatiability of our material needs or acquisition, whether of the mundane physical or of the subsistence essence. Man, no matter how gifted, is limited.

Ajimobi wipes away my sorrow, Ayefele says as govt rebuilds Music House

In our bid to overcome our limitations or in our striving to scale the ladder of life which Abraham Maslow conveniently described as hierarchy of needs, we can become desperate. In our desperation therefore, we may appear over-ambitious and can be sometimes stupid in our pursuit. Inevitably, we are very ignorant even when we think we know how to achieve our dream. Often too, we can be negligent of the basics including the spiritual while trying to attain the material, because in our pursuit our success usually manifested. So in our drive to arrive, we can trample on the rights of others or we can be corrupted, injuring our soul.

When we are corrupted, we are likely to get depressed or feel certain hollowness, a void that that can also heighten and fretfulness, leading us to begin a search for ways and means of filling the void. It is usually the quest to fill this void that we feel that we seek reconnection with our God. If we must succeed, we marshal plans, strategize, lay out elaborate plans or road maps to accomplish what we intend.

All these steps we take are the contents of resolutions that we often make, either when a year is withering or another one is blooming. But, a new year is nothing but  continuation or transition of seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks or months,

The paradox of this new year resolutions is that many people hardly succeed at it because they lack the conviction or the will power sustain the change they desire in their lives, and I ask must resolutions be made at the beginning or at the end of the year? What many people fail to understand is that resolution is about commitment to change and God will not change the condition of a person until he attunes himself to the requirements of the change process.

The fundamentals of these are faith, conviction, commitment, patience and steadfastness. And, there is no hypocrisy or self-deception in embarking the process as change is not something you stumble upon. It is a deliberate process, an acculturation over a length of time, a behavioural journey which we do not leave to chance or gamble about. It is purposeful.

Those who wait till the end of a year or the beginning of another year to seek to change themselves through mere wishful thinking hardly last beyond the first few weeks of the year before they return to their old ways of life.

Abdulwarees Solanke

[email protected]