By: Iyo Embong

“The Past isn’t here to speak for itself, and hence gets a better reputation that it deserves.” Strange is this quality of human nature, which decrees that unless we feel a future before us we do not live completely in the present… (Human nature)…always must look forward.

At times we find ourselves looking two ways at once. Sometimes we glamorize the past, and think it was better than it was. And sometimes we expect too much of the future and presume that its problems will solve themselves. But both are important – the past for lessons learned, the future for assurance of eternal continuance.

But between the two is the present. Here is where we are. Now is when we’re living. “That which we are, we are.”, and if we are to be anything better, this is the place to begin. And it comes down to a question of character. The “…result of any man’s life will consist of…his character multiplied by… his circumstances…”

“It is moral courage that characterizes the highest order of manhood and womanhood.”

• The courage to seek and to speak the truth
• The courage to be just
• The courage to be honest
• The courage to resist temptation
• The courage to respect and enforce and live by law
• The courage to do one’s duty

If men and women do not possess this virtue, they have no security whatever… (And) a great deal of the unhappiness,  and much of the vice of the world, is owing to weakness and indecision of purpose …The weak and undisciplined man is at the mercy of every temptation; …To be always intending to live a new life, but never to find time to set about it” … is exceedingly frustrating and short-sighted.

“The Past isn’t here to speak for itself and hence gets a better reputation than it deserves.” The future is limitless, everlasting! But “that which we are, we are’ ” And that which we oughtto be we had better begin to be…

Now is the time to perform, to repent – to improve!

By: Iyo Embong