Maximise the moment

"Men make history, and not the other way around. In periods where there is no leadership, society stands still. Progress occurs when courageous, skillful leaders seize the opportunity to change things for the better " - Harry S. Truman.

According to research, an average person living in a cosmopolitan city is likely to see between 5,000 to 15,000 images a day, compared to only 2,000 thirty years ago.

The high productivity demands and fast-paced environment required by multi-national corporations and other institutions, make it a wearisome task to juggle work, family life, and other commitments.

It is extremely challenging to have a balanced life in one's life without maximizing every moment in this contemporary age, yet most of the people are oblivious of what it takes to maneuver through this ever-changing world. Have you ever had moments in the past where you wish you could change certain things or do things differently? When you reminisce growing up, do you remember moments in your life when you did not maximize or give it your all?

The answer is a big yes for me. In my junior and senior high school days, I lived a very mediocre and haphazard life. I missed the chance to maximize those significant moments that formed the foundation and building blocks of my life. Today, as I advance in age, I begin to notice the significance of maximizing every single moment in one's life. American Catholic nun, artist, and educator, Coria Kent said, " Life is a succession of moments. To live each one is to succeed."

It is very challenging to live a balanced life in this information age with the myriad of things and people vying for your attention and loyalty. The challenges in this era, no doubt, calls for a focus in your energy, resources, and time.

In other words, your strength in this age is predicated on the intensity of your focus. You are as determined and strong as your focus. A double-minded person is wobbly in all of his/her endeavors and shall not be able to maximize the moment. Eagles are said to be strong, swift, and courageous because of their focused vision.

An eagle has an eye sharpness of at least four times that of a person with perfect vision. The eagle can spot a rabbit moving almost a mile away. It means an eagle flying at an altitude of 1,000 feet over an open sky could spot a prey over an area of almost 3 square miles from a fixed position. When you are focused, you become precise, swift, and strong; you accomplish a lot with less effort.

Life is a cycle of moments or seasons, and how you manage the present season determines your success in the next one. Most people live "out of moments," that is to say, they fail to maximize the season at hand; instead, they are always talking about either the past seasons or the seasons to come.

It is good to draw experience and wisdom from the past; it is great to have aspirations, dreams, and plans for the future; but it is extremely necessary to maximize the moment right where you are, in whatever you are doing. "Don't wait for extraordinary opportunities. Seize common occasions and make them great. Weak men wait for opportunities; strong men make them," Orison Swett Marden.

Life is lived in seasons and even our purposes have their "shelve-life." Thus, ignorance of purpose and displacement in calling, accounts for some of the reasons why most people don't get to maximize their moments or seasons to the fullest. Maximizing the moment requires sensitivity of the moment and understanding of one's position and involvement in that moment.

It takes insight, understanding, and skill to traverse between the present and the future. It is tempting as a young person to be overly zealous to immediately actualize your dream or purpose in life when you discover your passion. From the moment you discover your purpose, you have to guard yourself against being too obsessed of your dream or vision at the expense of managing the present well.

One of the key components of vision is, the process involved in fulfilling it. Having a vision or dream is one thing but how to fulfill it (which is the process) is also whole different ball game. Fulfilling your purpose to the fullest requires managing the process effectively. Someone once wrote, "One day at a time, sweet Jesus. That's all I'm asking from you just give me the strength to do every day what I have to do."

Bear in mind, the future only belongs to those who manage the present well. Pastor, Lecturer, Author, Consultant and a motivational speaker, Mensa Otabil puts it this way, "buy the future cheap." When you learn how to be an effective steward of the present, the future inevitably falls in place for you, while others struggle to survive. Abraham Harold Maslow, an American professor of psychology at Brandeis University, Brooklyn College believed that, "The ability to be in the present moment is a major component of mental wellness."

A young man born in New Orleans, Louisiana, who came from a family consisting of three siblings, suffered serious physical abuse from his "carpenter" father so much that he attempted suicide in an effort to escape his father's beatings. Telling the seriousness of the abuse inflicted on him by his father, he said, "his only answer to everything was to beat it out of you."

The church where His mother goes with him and his siblings became a safe haven anytime they attended. At the age of 16 in an effort to distance himself from his father, he made a legal name change. Having dropped out of high school, he decided to maximize every moment thereafter; hence, he strived and earned a General Educational Development (GED) diploma.

One day watching an Oprah Winfrey talk show, he heard someone describe "the sometimes therapeutic effect" that the act of writing can have, enabling the author to work out his or her own problems. This comment inspired him to apply himself to a career in writing. He soon started writing series of letters to himself, which became the basis for the musical, I Know I've Been Changed.

Resolving to glean the best out of every season, he decided to use up his savings of $12,000 to debut the show he had penned, which he directed, produced, and starred in at a community theater in Atlanta, Georgia in 1992. The show initially received a "less than stellar" reception and was a financial failure, but he kept on maximizing every moment, doing the necessary and right things.

Over the next six years, he stayed focus and rewrote the musical show. Soon, he started performing to sell-out crowds and the musical was moved to a larger theater. After so many years of maximizing the moments and staying focused, he finally earned critical acclaim as well as commercial success. In 2005, Forbes magazine reported that he had sold "more than $100 million in tickets, $30 million in videos of his shows and an estimated $20 million in merchandise" and that "the 300 live shows he produces each year are attended by an average of 35,000 people a week."

Today, Tyler Perry is an actor, director, playwright, entrepreneur, screenwriter, producer, author, songwriter, and Hollywood's highest paid actor. According to the new Forbes magazine tally, the list of the highest-paid men in entertainment is led by Tyler Perry, whose films have grossed more than $500 million worldwide. Tyler Perry maximized every moment of his life in spite of his socioeconomic status, past abuse, and an uphill career which has eventually paid off.

I agree with American cartoonist, humorist, and journalist, Frank McKinney Hubbard, better known by his pen name "Kin" Hubbard who said, "In other to live off a garden, you practically have to live in it." You have to keep keeping on maximizing the moment, staying focus, be consistent at whatever you're doing, giving your best at all times and one day, you would wake up with the future in your hands.

No matter where you are, your position, academic achievements, etc., as the Spanish would say, "Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero" meaning "Seize the Day, putting as little trust as possible in the future." Putting a little trust as possible in the future means concentrating your strength, resources, effort in whatever you are doing now instead of deferring it to the future. Some people are always getting ready to live but never live. They have "the one day or someday" syndrome.

It does not matter what kind of university degree you have or the status you have attained; if you have found yourself cleaning floors today, seize the moment!

You may be the last employee on the corporate ladder of your organization, but seize the moment to be excellent in all your endeavors! Anything your hand find doing, seize the moment and give it your all because the future only belongs to those who have diligently managed the present well.

The hallmark of true greatness is to understand how to maximize every moment. According to American leadership expert said there are three stages in life - Learning, Earning and Returning. I suggest that to discover your greatness in life, one need to manage each of these stages effectively:

• LEARNING - This is the infantile or foundational stage in any endeavor. On this level, you learn the principles of life and its dynamics. Here, education is key because the main focus on this level is to equip yourself for life. Ideally, from birth to late twenties in life, you learn. You spend time developing yourself; refining your gifts, talents, abilities, as well as acquiring extra skill-set needed to establish your passion in life.

This level could also be where you have just started an academic course, a dream, a trade, etc. Financial rewards and gains shouldn't be your focus here; your aim is to maximize the learning moment. Sadly to say, this stage is also where most of us stumble and never fully reach our potential for the next level because we set our eyes on the next level of life prematurely, which makes us go after quick fixes or short-term gains.

American blues guitarist and singer-songwriter acclaimed for his expressive singing and fluid, complex guitar playing, B.B. King believed," The beautiful thing about learning is that no one can take it away from you."

• EARNING - Here you start reaping the reward of your effort, sacrifice, and knowledge. Normally from early thirties to middle age, you earn. On this level, you gain a reward through hard work and the accumulation of experience, and when you get to this stage you should focus your energy primarily on earning. I am sometimes intrigued by people who want to get ahead in life but never want to earn a decent living. It takes diligence to maximize the moment on this level. "Dignity does not float down from heaven; it cannot be purchased nor manufactured. It is a reward reserved for those who labor with diligence," Bill Hybels.

• RETURNING - This is the last stage to maximize life, here you give back all that life gave to you. You show your appreciation by genuinely changing and impacting the lives of the people in your generation and the next in any form or shape you can.

Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics, George Bernard Shaw said, "I am convinced that my life belongs to the whole community; and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can, for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in the life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I got hold of for a moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before turning it over to future generations."

Life is all about moments and seasons, and most of us are stuck at one level in life because we have not learned to successfully navigate our way through our moments effectively and judicially. The principle of moments in life is like the old British school system; you never graduate to the next level until you have successfully managed the present level.

Hence, it does not matter how many times you miss your moment you will keep repeating the same class until you succeed. Charles Dederich said, "Today is the first day of the rest of your life," therefore, seize the day and know that nothing is worth more than this moment. "Real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present," Albert Camus. Discover Your Greatness!