Start with the End in Mind

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a step. Some will say with a step in the right direction. As for me, all I know is that it starts with a step. You cannot complete what you have not started; neither can you have any experience on that you had wished for. If wishes were horses beggars would ride. Those ideas you endlessly talk about are mere wishes. And they may remain so if you don’t act on them. To bring to fruition those beautiful ideas of yours, you need to step out and expedite action on them.

It has always been my dream and it is still my dream to have a-200 acre farm where nations will be fed and several unemployed people are given sustainable means of livelihood. Yes, I dream of a farm where technology and nature will meet without causing any harm to the environment. It is a farm where nature will inspire ideas that will uplift humanity and lead to sustainable development. What a commendable and lofty dream, you may say! Lofty, yes! But it is achievable. I believe it is accomplishable and I am also aware that things don’t just happen. They are made manifest by those who believe and follow their beliefs with actions. We need to inject life into our dreams for them to become realities. For this reason, I started out my farm with 35 birds in January 2011 in a single room. One and a half years after, the birds have grown to about 500 and we also have some rabbits on a-2 plot of land. This is a step in the direction of having a-200 acre farm. We had taken the first most important step with the end in mind. And we believe in not too distant a future we will get there.

Let me say here that nothing worthwhile can ever be accomplished without its commencement. One needs to start anyhow. One must not wait until everything is perfect before starting, as perfection is not natural. Only God is perfect. It does not matter where you are at the moment or what you have or you don’t have; all you need to do is to take the first step. If you are still wondering what exactly the fuss about taking the first step is, let me quickly share the following story with you.

Sometimes in 2008, we bought an abandoned property from an old man in a war-ravaged environment. Our intention was to use it for pig rearing. While we were contemplating on how the pig rearing business would take off, an incident occurred that changed our plan. The landlord of the house we were living in then gave us a 24-hour ultimatum to take our rabbits from his house. This directive threw us into confusion. We had close to 200 rabbits. “Where do we take them to?” was our first thought. The abandoned property came to mind. But who would look after them? Another question worth ruminating on, as where we were living was like 30 minutes drive away from the abandoned property. We sold some and gave so many out. In the end we were left with no rabbit! After carrying out the landlord’s directive so as not to incur his wrath, we then asked: What if the rabbits had been our only source of livelihood, would we had taken the same decision of doing away with them within a twinkle of an eye? At this point we started considering the idea of turning the property into a habitable house. The next fear to conquer was the fear of the unknown, as the location of the property used to be a hot war zone. The fear was however allayed by wife’s statement that “we are the security of our environment”. The statement calmed my nerves and we took the first step. We did one thing at a time until it became habitable. Today, we live in the house. And our coming to the environment has attracted some others to the hitherto war-ravaged and abandoned environment. Without taking the first step we would probably have still been in a rented apartment.

What is it that you had always wished you could do? Is it a business? Is it an academic programme? What is it? Whatever it is you may have as a dream is realisable. All you need to do is to move from the realm of dream to the realm of reality. To transit from the realm of dream to that of reality what you need is to take ACTION. According to one of Newton’s laws of motion, every object will continue to remain in a position of rest unless an external force is applied. The external force here is YOU. Yes, you! It is not what you don’t have that you require to start; it is what you have. You have to start from where you are with what you have. Start small. Picture the end from the beginning. Focus on the end that you have in mind. Do not be distracted. It is you and you alone that matter in the long run. Start now. Act today, tomorrow may be too late.