Benjamin Zulu is a Counseling Psychologist, Conference Speaker, and Life Coach
Come around me young people, so that I may tell you what shall befall you in the days to come.
I’m borrowing that expression from Jacob and the way he summoned his sons to his deathbed in the evening of his days.
Neither I nor you is in the evening of their days yet, but we’re on our way there. More importantly, you’re already in the evening of your planting season.
What you’re sowing now you’ll live with it for the rest of your life. Where you’re investing your time and your energy now will reverberate throughout your life.
Jacob predicted the children’s future according to their current conduct. Joseph had dreams with which he saved his family and so his father gave him a double portion of blessings.
But Reuben was undisciplined although he was the firstborn. So his father told him that although he was the strength of his youth he was yet as unstable as water and so he would not excel.
This was because Reuben had slept with his father’s concubine.
The lack of self-control in sexual matters doomed him.
Also Read: In the Midst of all the Festive Hype, Keep your Head Straight
How come nobody is telling us these things? One lady told me she’s 38 but already divorced with 2 teenage children. She’s jobless and she lacks any specialty in training except a degree in general science so she has to get by with menial jobs and hustling.
And yet she was once in the university but what did she do? Of course the suicidal blunders girls do there of dating and at 20 she was pregnant, moved in with the boyfriend and so began a life of woe and agony that would last many decades.
There was a wave of graduations in our local universities recently and I heard one speaker urging the students to get spouses before they leave and this is the kind of thinking that produced such disastrous stories like that lady.
On the day we got admitted at the university I hooked up with a colleague with whom we shared first names and soon we realized that we also shared worldviews.
We came from financially vulnerable circumstances and we swore to change the narrative. We would be single-minded on creating a better life before anything else. Love can wait. We would get financial freedom or die trying.
Let others cohabit with women, go clubbing, and ‘enjoy life,’ but we knew where we came from and we couldn’t afford to go back there.
That’s how we got here. My friend is a magistrate today and a fast-rising legal mind.
If you don’t set the sails of your life you will be carried by waves and trends and you will hit the rocks. You’ll find yourself stranded and begging somewhere in midlife and yet you once set your foot in college.
Start by building a broad foundation for your career and then later bring your family to that solid foundation.
Also Read: Career Growth Should Never Be Reason for Marriage Collapse – Mandago
