Anatomy of a life worth living
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many people have their own idea
of what a life worth living looks like
and this is mine based on my own
life experience though i feel that i
would i wouldn’t have done enough
justice if i didn’t put in a vote of
thanks towards the many people that did
bring me to
where where i am today and that largely
is
my history teachers mrs harvey mr clark
mr knowles and
miss armstrong um in saying that um
the short the long and short of it is on
a god
on others and on a self
now to give you some context i come from
a place where
i’ve dedicated my i dedicated my life
towards the service of other people
in primary school i was a prefect i was
the head boy coming to high school i was
the chapel steward
i was in the src uh in matrick i
finished off with myself being a prefect
in charge of student affairs
um basically taking care of of all the
the students in the school
then coming into university i expected
something grand i expected
you know some sort of continuity i
didn’t expect what the reality which
became
a life that almost felt as if i’d lost
all the meaning which i’d built up over
the past 12 years
the 12 years before that i woke up most
mornings at 12
12 o’clock at noon i’d spent days
skipping lectures
watching netflix i’d lost a lot of
myself i feel in that year
and looking back at it now it’s uh it’s
not something i ever feel i should i
should want to
to repeat you know and so at the end of
that year i decided to run for the
position of first year guardian at my
residence
one which was basically becoming the
mother the mom of all the first years
and i think at my raise 120 of them
we got in the in the following year and
i like to joke about it because
many of them still come to me to this
day and say happy mother’s day to me on
on mother’s day um and so
the change from first year to second
year was day and night
things changed drastically all of a
sudden i’m not staying
in bed till 12 o’clock at 12 o’clock at
noon
i’m not wasting time watching series
instead of you know helping people
knowing that somewhere someone out there
needs me one of my first years needs me
out there
and so i look back at it now and i
wonder what changed
what what changed from first year to
second year or already from
my high school experience and and that’s
what what i have for you today
in the formulation of that formula which
is honor god on
others and on itself so honor god
many people when i say on a god think
i’m talking about the god of
abraham isaac and jacob no it can be
that
but not necessarily but rather your why
what is your why when you you’re down
and out what is that extra bit
that will push you through so viktor
frankl talks in his book man search for
meaning
recounting his experiences in a nazi
concentration camp
he speaks about how those people in the
concentration camps that had a why
that had a reason for wanting to get out
of there the i want to see my wife one
day i want to visit switzerland on a
taste
freedom one day all those people tended
to live much longer
and than the people that that had given
up they had given up they said no
i’ve had i’ve had enough he quotes
he says he who has a why can stand
almost
anyhow and looking at it now that’s
almost exactly what happened to me
in my first year i had virtually nothing
i had only myself and i had choir yes
but i had nothing to
to dedicate myself to i didn’t have a
clue why if you’d asked me back then i
couldn’t tell you
why i was here at university you know
other than getting the degree
and so i thought be more intentional
about it
looking now i i move on all these people
these lives that i’ve impacted and i say
wow i had 120 wires to get up every
morning instead of instead of sleeping
in the day
or wasting my time on certain practices
then honor others
here i quote mrs dalloway um a novel by
virginia wolfe and she says
as we are all prisoners chained to a
sinking ship
let us do our part to mitigate the
suffering of our fellow prisoners
decorate the dungeons with flowers
and that for me speaks to making life
easier for the people around us
making it easier so that at the end of
the day we realize that
we are part of the community and the
community has a vested interest in us as
well
although this does come with a second
aspect of it which is something very
close to me today many people i feel
don’t take the time to listen anymore
and because they don’t take the time to
listen they don’t
they refuse to understand they refuse to
empathize with the people around them
and
allow themselves to see another another
way of life
and so realizing this i decided at my
residence all my first years we need to
promote discourse we need to
talk about the things we need to have
critical discussions not so that we
agree with all with with each other
and that’s intolerance we need to at
least understand each other so that
people know that the social social
difference based on race gender and
sexuality
aren’t the the primary modes of of of
judging a person but rather by a
person’s character
by halfway through the year in my
residence at least on my on my corridor
we got
guys coming onto the corridor normal
feeling like that social difference
is what people think of them when they
get on there rather than that
by the by virtue of their being there by
virtue of just being a person i’m able
to recognize your value
you know i don’t have to agree with you
but at least i understand you and i know
where you’re coming from
then finally i come to honor self i feel
many people
in this day and age find it easy as i
was saying earlier on to let themselves
down if it’s if it’s just me
an example my friend gave me is that if
it’s just me waking up at six a.m in the
morning for a run
it’s easy to say no shop snooze i’m not
going to do it
whereas when there’s all of a sudden
someone else you wake up 6am you’re on a
snooze but oh wait someone else is
waiting to run with me
someone’s waiting for me out there you
know all of a sudden you have that extra
emphasis to get up and to get out there
and this alludes to something which is
also quite important to me is that if
you can’t find meaning yourself
in the things that you love look for
meaning outside of you
in the service of other people and as
i’ve said that’s where i found it with
with the people that i i dedicated my
life towards
then matthew mcconaughey in his
oscar-winning speech which in my opinion
should have won
an oscar of its own he highlights a
different aspect of it and which is very
very closely typed out of stoicism which
is give yourself
someone to look forward to so he tells
us how when he was younger someone would
come to him and say
matt who is your role model and he says
i don’t know ask me in a week’s time and
they come to me a week later they say
matt who is your role model he says i
don’t know ask me a week’s time
every time they’re asking the same
question and he says it’s me
in 10 years 10 years later they come and
ask him the same question he says
it’s me in 10 years time and so you see
what
matthew was doing was that he was
constantly shifting
the standard of what it meant for him in
his mind for perfect for for the perfect
person that he wanted to be
in the legal terms we talk about um
transformative constitutionalism and if
we
equate them it’s basically with what
matthew was saying was that
you are never going to be the person the
standard that you want to be but
true perfection comes out of continually
working towards that which you want to
what you what you aspire towards
recognizing honoring self for me is
recognizing that what society what your
family needs what you need
now isn’t what you’re going to need in
five years time you need to adapt
yourself continually continually
remake yourself so that you are true
reflection each time as you move along
of what of what you
desire what you want to be in this life
then polonius in shakespeare’s hamlet
speaks to young hamlet and he says to
the young hamlet
and above all else to dance off be true
too many people come here to university
too many of my first years drop
out because they’re living the lives of
other people they live in the lives of
their their parents that once that wants
something from them
of um a specific society a culture
whatever
whatever other people want from them and
then bon jovi for me is instrumental in
this and then they say
it’s my life it’s now and ever i am
going to live forever
i just want to live while i’m alive
and so what i say in terms of honoring
yourself is reminding yourself that you
have one love you have to live it
you know it’s one thing to to think that
you can you can make yourself happy by
keeping everyone else happy but at the
end of the day
the man of the glass the man in the
glass you in the class need to be happy
with who you are
now i wouldn’t be an academic if i
didn’t at least provide some caution
towards what i’m saying
and i find tim minchin is instrumental
in this in his speech that he gave at
the university of western australia
nine life lessons and he there
proposes two things amongst many others
which but these two are the most
important for me and the one is
short-term commitment to short-term
goals passionate commitment to
short-term goals
so while it’s nice to know that in five
years time i want this degree i want to
be a human rights lawyer i want to
change the world
well it’s fine to know that what are you
doing in the short term to help you
towards that goal
statisticism again says what can you
control what can you control you can’t
control the graduation ceremony five
five years from now but you can’t
control now what you’re doing preparing
for your tests
doing the hard work but at the same time
mention then says you can’t live like
this
you can’t live your life with the blind
that horses wear
allow yourself to take to stop along the
way to pick up little gems
of life to build up your cv of of good
living
paulo cuello um is instrumental in this
in
his book the alchemist and i see it in
my life as well is if young santiago he
knew he wanted to travel but he never
took the time
to to actually get out of his way to
live life a bit imagine
i was happy with who i was in first year
imagine i sat and said this is it
this is who i want to be i’d never have
joined the choir i’d never have picked
up first year guardian
never become the chairperson and never
taken the time to build up my profile my
personal cv of life
never been able to impact lives in the
way that i wanted to
now i’ve said a lot and and what i’d
like you to take out of this at the very
least is again what i’ve said honor god
honor your why and of course that means
you need to know it
honor others and honor yourself
and the framework for this which i’ve
always proposed is liver with intent
be practical about it and finally
be authentic thank you
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you