Читать книгу Life Compass - Dr. Chilungamo Khuwi - Страница 8

⸙ FIRST THINGS FIRST

Chapter One

Every person’s life is made up of primary and secondary things. Primary things are what makeup who you are and why you do certain things (motives or intents). That which is secondary is birthed from the primary; the things that you do and how you do them.

The entirety of your being (all that encompasses you) often dictates the ingredients of the primary. In other words, you are the primary! It is everything about you. They are the substance or the particles that make up who you are, your essence. These are things that define you and can’t be separated from you. Such things include identity, spirituality, purpose, and character. Though the primary things are the essence of who you are, the positive aspects do not always come automatically. Though they are within reach they are things which we normally should be conscious and intentional about if we want to develop them. Good character doesn’t come just like that, one needs to deliberately develop just as discovering one’s purpose, learning, spirituality and leadership. All these need efforts though they are part of who we are.

As mentioned before, secondary things are things that you do and how you do them. Things like finance, career, friendships, marriage, etc. are all secondary things because they are not directly part of who you are.

Let me break it to you that personality, just as habits, is part of secondary things because they are not who you are but rather emanate from who you are. Who you are, determines how you behave or the way you do certain things? You can never fake who you truly are. You can, however, fake how you behave. Even though you can fool people about who you are through your personality, you know who you are (your intentions) at the core. People have resorted to quick-fix their lives through developing personality traits to convince people or win people over, the dos and don’ts, ‘how-tos, etc.

There is a basic structure of life, a minimum composition of areas which every human being should be good at to have a functional life. This is where you need to start building your life from, and this same principle applies to businesses, institutions and machines. This basic structure enables things to deliver on their minimum expectations. The rest of the things are there for extra value, to beautify or to spice up things one way or another. For example, paint on a car is not mainly applied for the car performance rather the outlook and prevention of rust which adds more beauty, durability of the wood hence value to be sold at a higher price..

Every primary thing in your life is an essential need because it’s the foundation or forms the skeleton for your life. If primary things are not in place then your success, if you manage to attain it at all, is temporary. Among the secondary things, there are also essential areas that even though they are outside of us, we still need to master them for effective living.

Primary things are things that you should seek out to work on first and foremost. They have great bearing on your secondary things. It’s easy to attain secondary things when you have primary things figured out but very hard to work on primary things when you have secondary things. Though not impossible, it can be quite the challenge to work on primary areas which have survived years of misinformed ideas when the secondary structures (relationships, money management) have already been erected. Some secondary structures are built from the wrong premise. Though hard, it is not impossible.

People are busy focusing on secondary things that are not essential such as career, possession of material things, etc, which just add extra value, without first sorting out the essential needs of life. Value is added to something that’s already there. It’s like having a beautiful car hood without an engine and you are busy perfecting it. You can’t drive it no matter how beautiful you make it. You need to have something operational which you should add value to; you need to have the basics of your life going before you think of jumping into certain things in life. Because of such disorder, people end up living chaotic lives and wonder why their lives are all over the place and nothing to show for their efforts over time.

The same thing goes to organizations and businesses which need basic or essential things in place for them to run effectively and last, the rest are just additional elements. Things like purpose, mission, essential workers or departments, core values and governing principles, funding are essential to the business.

I believe every individual should be good at these essential areas no matter who they are, what they do or don’t, whether single or married, white or black; these basic areas are cross-cutting. Remember essential doesn’t only mean primary areas but all primary areas are automatically essential. These essential areas in a human life include purpose, vision, mission, identity, character, spirituality, leadership, finance and relationship. We are involved in all these areas one way or another, both at individual and group level.

Let me order these things according to their importance in the structure: the purpose is the why to your life (or why something exists). Spirituality, Moral Fortitude (good character) and personal leadership are the foundation by which you stand (or fall). Money making and relationship management are but the supporting pillars that ensure sturdiness and form.