Complete the MIssion !!!

 

Complete the Mission !!!

I never got to be a soldier. But maybe that was because I never got a chance to join the army when I had the right age, height and body weight. However, not being a soldier has never deterred me from embarking on missions and setting goals and playing roles as best as I could. In fact, most of my school, personal life and working career has been a series of missions. A mission is about embarking on a quest to accomplish something or achieve some simple result or difficult objective – like mission impossible! A mission is primarily a personal undertaking, but may involve others to a tertiary degree. In other words, "the buck stops with me" as the Americans would say. There are times when I have had to give up a mission, but it never felt good. The only consolation was that I gave my best and therefore I was able to walk away from the field with my head held high and head into the next battle. Life is a mission. Some people say it is a “calling”. Some people give it a funny name like “bucket list”. Guys who want to sound knowledgable talk about "purpose". It is a very fulfilling pursuit, but not everyone is easily drawn to this taxing war. Some people just never set sail – never journey beyond the comfort of the door -  never join the army.

However, as life would have it, there are enough distractors and detractors that are commissioned to ensure you do not pursue your mission; the neighbor next door plays loud music, you would rather relax than study for your exams, and then there is the interesting time consuming new… (fill in the blank) that takes you wandering away from your mission. In the army it is called ‘a walk of love” or AWOL or something like that. In such an event information somehow gets to central command that there is nothing happening on a particular battle front because a solder has gone AWOL. This is when MISSION CONTROL takes over and calls the soldier to order. Hopefully the wayward man, woman, mind, body, soul or spirit is restored with a modest admonition. Sometimes it takes more than that – a court martial. Managers are good at enforcing that, mission control, that is.

Like I said, life is a mission and at times you find yourself wandering around in circles and promising yourself that you will get back in line as soon as you have finished doing “this and that” or when you have completed “one or two things” as they say in some parts of Africa. Unfortunately, all these excuses end up using stray bullets or more accurately wasting bullets and precious other resources. And you don’t want to not complete the mission. So if you are still with me, here are the BIG FOUR; don’t lose focus! say NO a little more often! do the work- stay with the discipline, keep the faith! and ultimately, you must separate yourself to complete the mission!

 Allan Bukusi