Discovering the Basic Principles of Life (A must read)

This is a motivational piece I would like to share with you guys which focus basically on the principles of life. A friend asked a renowned Nigerian motivational speaker about the basic things that matter in helping an individual lead a successful and near perfect life. He said there are 5 basic principles of life, relating the analysis of the question to a quote by one of the greatest philosophers of all time Socrates who said there are three most important things in life which include;

Knowing yourself

Knowing yourself

Knowing yourself

This might seem tautological, but when he explained further about the importance of knowing one’s self, It became rather obvious it can’t be overemphasized.

This is because the only way you can become yourself and live a fulfilling life is by you truly knowing and understanding yourself. It’s simple “if you don’t know yourself, you can’t be yourself”.

He went further went ahead and gave 5 key principles which in his opinion were crucial to the life of any individual.

The first was "Knowing yourself", this comes first because it’s the bedrock in you taking decisions and following a particular path, you just have to discover yourself and know who you truly are. Recently I spoke to a friend who is an Accountant and just got employed into an Accounting firm, she had always anticipated becoming an Auditor. When I asked how she was faring in the practical business world, she gave a rather oddball response compared to what I had expected which was “she wasn’t really enjoying Auditing”. This was because she didn’t bother to discover herself prior, what area of Accounting she truly loves and possess a stronghold at. Those are the type of disappointments one should expect in life if considerable attention isn’t paid to the first principle of life which is discovering one's self.

The second principle is “knowing why you are here”, this involves discovering the purpose for which you exist because everyone is in existence for a particular purpose. Some are designed to be writers, musician, actor and a host of other things. Others might be designed to become professionals such as programmers, engineers, lawyer and the likes. According to Francis Bacon, it’s a sad fate for a man to be well known by everyone else but still unknown to himself. We all have to look deep to identify the true purpose of our existence.

The next principle is “knowing the solution”, life is never guaranteed to be smooth neither is it confirmed to be a bed of roses. Problems, challenges and setbacks are bound to occur, they will definitely come and go because it’s a major phase in life. We need to be problem solvers by focusing on those problems and incongruities in our life and also formulating the most appropriate solution to see us through it.

Next up is "discovering that passion, talent and gift that makes you unique". Everyone is unique, do you know that?...We all are, the only problem is we all might not be unique for the right reason but trust me everyone is unique in his or her own way. We all have talents like I said in the first principle some can sing, some can draw, others can dance, those are condiments in our lives which requires discovering to make our lives complete.

Lastly, you have to "utilize those in-built passions, skills, talents and gifts" judiciously so that they would materialize into profit and something of value to you at the end. We need to constantly look for ways in which we could create value to the lives of others and fill a vacuum in the world. There are people who have tapped into these and gift and have life changing stories to tell. Transitions of zero (0) to 100, drastic movement from grass to grace, those are the likely results if these life principles is properly embraced.

Those are the 5 life principles which I feel could add value to the life of almost anyone, we just need to pay closer attention and read between the lines to actually decipher the complexities attached to the battles of living a satisfactory life and finding fulfillment.

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Thanks for reading :)

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