This year alone, I have been privileged to stand before over 25,000 people face to face, and to interact with over 50,000 people through other media. I’m in totally shock at the percentage of people that are bound by the necessity of doing what they have to do, that they cannot even begin what they really want to do. It’s humbling to know that majority carelessly comment that they have “no time” for the things that ought to be their priorities.
Often when I ask my audiences the simple dream defining question of “What will you do with the rest of your time, energy and life, if you earned enough passive income to take care of all your living expenses?” I often get answers that bring tears to my eyes. The nobility of the desires are so touching, the passion in the words uttered so moving and the sense of purpose and vision so real. I am stunned at how easily people reel out their true dreams and desires. The desire to start an orphanage, the desire to provide homes for street kids, to sponsor others on scholarships, to build hospitals and schools, to teach morals in secondary schools, to volunteer to teach mathematics and the list goes on. When I contrast these desires, with the current occupations and realities of the people before me, I wonder how on earth people could have so big dreams and mostly likely die with the dreams remaining just that – dreams.
The tragedy is not in spending majority of our time doing what we have to do, and never having enough time for what we want to do. The real tragedy is dying doing what you have to do, and never having the opportunity to express what you truly want to do. The tragedy is in dying with your dream still intact and untouched. Everyday, I come into contact with people who have in them orphanages that may never be built, hospitals that will stay forever a dream, missionaries who will never see the mission field and evangelists who will die as salesmen. The ugly truth is until you are free, selfishness is a life preservation skill. Your dreams begin to take priority only when you have fulfilled the prerequisites of ensuring you are financially free. Remember that in the aircraft, you need to first save yourself before you can even help the child beside you. As it is in the air, so is it with your finances, you cannot help others until you have rescued yourself.
Financial Intelligence is a prerequisite skill for handling true riches, according to the good book, if you cannot handle unrighteous mammon who will commit to your hands true riches? It is of grave importance to ensure that we do all we have to do, to set ourselves free. After we are free, it becomes easy to liberate others. Wallace Wattles once said that the biggest service you can do for the poor, is not to be one of them. You will have no one to blame but yourself, if you do all that you are currently doing, and leave untouched the very purpose of your being. Your first goal is to be financially free, and it’s worth all the pursuit it demands, because the quicker you set yourself free the easier for you to do those things that are connected to your dream and desires.
Are you living your dreams? Have you packed up your dream somewhere where it’s gathering dust? Are you too busy surviving that you have no time for living? The tragedy is real and and alarming, of abandoned dreams and of shattered dreams. Don’t let your dreams gather dust, set yourself free!
My name is Adeolu Akinyemi author of Creating Your Wealth Map Today and I share daily updates daily on BB:29561420
