Living Life : Better Your Best

We often define our targets and our personal definition of success and achievement and work hard or smart towards these goals. But what happens when we achieve these targets? Humans have the ability to aspire to be better or to make life better for those around them but when they reach here it can take various paths. Some people prefer to sit on their laurels and assume nobody can ever knock them off their xxxxing perch, to borrow from a famous quote from a famous football man. Think about the cut throat competition at the top end of the world’s most popular or elite sports – the Serena sisters, Roger Federer or Raphael Nadal in tennis, Tiger Woods in golf, Alex Ferguson or Jose Mourinho in soccer, Lewis Hamilton or Michael Schumacher in Formula One, Kobe Bryant in the NBA – the list is endless. These are exceptional humans in a way because when they reach a much coveted target celebrate for a day or so and set a higher target which they go about pursuing as if the load of success on their back does not exist. I used to find it hard to understand what drives this kind of men and why they never sit back to celebrate their success, sit back and swig a beer, try to live life, until I revisited my primary school somewhere in central Kenya and realized that I had never noticed at the young age that the school motto was ‘Better Your Best.’ Most of the most successful men, if you look clearly are not pursuing money, not any more. They wait for the big break that allows them to live relatively comfortably without worrying so much about how they will place food on the table tomorrow, then they just liberate their minds to focus on succeeding in whatever form they choose to. In other words, success becomes an obsession that only poor health, not old age, can deny them. They work so hard and cannot imagine retiring, so they keep retiring and un-retiring. In the sport of pole jumping the notion of better your best cannot be better portrayed. Athletes attempt to jump a certain height and as soon as they achieve it, the bar goes higher. So should our attempts at setting targets in real life be. Never rest on your laurels. The world moves real fast. Time basically whizzes by, every minute of the day. Change is everywhere, so when we set targets, they will never be attractive forever. Think about how many men and women, boys and girls are trying to set the record of a solo circling around the world on a boat and the age is going lower and lower, the latest attempt by a mere fifteen year old girl! Remember you don’t have to sail around the world solo – in Rwanda, we are land locked. Begin right at home with what resources you have. Do you want to be unique musician, then try playing one or two instruments so that you don’t just be like everyone else who’s straining their voices. Do you want to be a soccer player, train a little harder, be on the lookout at the new trends in South Africa while everybody is yelling in support of whatever team they are supporting. Try to do things that stand out, not for bragging rights, but for the purpose of making people wonder, who did this? I would want to meet who sang this, who wrote this, who runs this business, who works this job, who lives in this home, who runs this project! And remember as soon as you succeed in what you have wanted to achieve, take a breath and get down to trying to achieve something better. This Sunday, I wish you a better day! kelviod@yahoo.com