Your Biography, Can You Buy it?

The past holidays I got some time to visit my old friend Jabulani in Richards Bay after charismas. The aim was to see the new house that he bought after his wedding. I had to stop at the Mall to get some small groceries. In our Zulu culture you do not come to visit someone’s house without umngenandlini (entering the hut). 

At the Mall, I bumped to my old colleague Mpho. Mpho has launched his new book called CRACKING THE PROPERTY INVESTMENT CODE 3 months ago. I congratulated him and asked how does it feel like to be the published author. He was so excited about his book, he even expressed the feeling of seeing your book at the book store. I could see the excitement in his eyes, it was so fulfilling seeing someone living his dream. We concluded our discussions and went our separate ways. A few minutes later I was at Jabulani’s house, the house is big and beautiful. We spend most of the day catching up and braai meat, a few hours later it was my time to go back home in Pinetown. On my way back home I recalled Mpho’s excitement and something came to mind. If having your book published make you feel like that, how is the feeling of buying your own book? I realized that the question does make sense. The question exists if the book is about your life story (Biography), written by another author.

Will you buy your life story book at the book store? Will you read it till the last page? Will you be proud of your life story? These questions made me reflect on my life and I started questioning some of my moment in life. I realized that I’m not sure about my story. The life story is unique for everyone and it based on different principles. My principles lead me to the following meaning of LIFE-STORY:

LIFE

· LOVE: Love means to be deeply committed and connected to someone, yourself or something. The basic meaning of love is to feel more than liking towards someone or something. Love is when you choose to be at your best when the other person is not at their best. This plays important role in writing our life story, giving your best when the other person is not at their best.

· INSPIRE: Inspire means to excite, encourage, or breathe life into. Inspire comes from the Latin word that means to inflame or to blow in to. When you inspire something, it is as if you are blowing air over a low flame to make it grow. While writing our life story we must breathe life into our communities. Let make sure we aspire to inspire before we expire.

· FORGIVE: Experts define forgiveness as a conscious, deliberate decision to release feelings of resentment toward a person or group who has harmed you, regardless of whether they actually deserve your forgiveness. Practising forgiveness on our life story releases all the negative feelings that may stop us from achieving our goals. 

· ENGAGE: Engage is being with someone/something to make an effort to understand and deal with someone or something. Being engaged brings support/contribution to positive change within the communities.

STORY

· STRIVE: Make great efforts to achieve something. Let make a great effort to achieve our goals, so that will be proud of our life story.

· TRUST: Reliability and firm belief. Trust the process to your goal and review it when needed. Be a firm believer of the plan and process that it will deliver, even if take too long. They say patience is a virtue, let be patience with our life story.

· ORGANIZE: To arrange/plan/ order things so that they can be  found easily and quickly. It easy for us to organize things for companies we work for, but difficult to do the same for our life story. Try a 5-year plan for your life story like the companies you work for, the progress can surprise you. 

· RESPECT/REWARD: Respect is a feeling of deep admiration for someone or something elicited by their abilities, qualities, or achievements. The Dalai Lama said “ mutual respect is the foundation of genuine harmony” Practising respect on our life store will create genuine harmony with our yourself and others.

The reward is something that is given in return for good or evil done or received or that is offered or given for some service or attainment the police offered a reward for his capture. They say the journey is a reward, so as our life story. Latin proverb says ” after the battles come the rewards”. It is very important to celebrate your achievement, reward ourself to create the positive energy that will carry you during the difficult times. 

· YOURSELF: This is about loving yourself, accepting yourself as you are and to come to terms with those aspects of yourself that you cannot change. It means to have self-respect, a positive self-image, and unconditional self-acceptance. Steve Jobs said, ” your time is limited so don’t waste it living someone else’s life”. Let all write our life stories that will be proud of.

What are your principles of LIFE-STORY? I know it difficult to be sure of your answer to the existing question about your life story. Remember you still have time to rewrite your life story if you are not sure as me.