I heard life is a race, how and when I joined this race, I have no idea. Every human is racing towards something, either a goal or desire, it is what fuels our passion to ride on. Just like every other human with intention of making an impact in the society, I walk the path just like everyone else. To live a life of impact is to be a source of influence, either humans or anything of value. From my own standing point, I chose to live a life of impact through the lives of people I contribute to, it seems like an honourable quest with no foreseeable harm, I presumed. I fixated a lot on how best to contribute, to be of value, to be of use. This habit of mine makes having an opinion about other people's wellbeing a lot easier, I mean I want to help, that was all I could think of. Never really took time to analyse how my actions affects other people's lives. One of the few mistakes we humans make is that, we believe actions out of good intentions should warrant good results but not always. People with best intentions have found themselves in troubles they were trying to solve. Every action taken by a human is bound to get a reaction, a consequence of action taken. We can not always know what the consequences of all our actions will be till we find ourselves facing it. This was the kind of tug of war I had to put up with as I battled through shallow depths of consequences created as a results of my supposed good intentions. Every human should be given a chance to live their lives as they see fit, it is a default settings of ours to exercise our freewill, the moment we put ourselves in a position where we are obstructing a person from exercising their freewill to their satisfaction, then we become the problem. The consequences weren't glaring at first, it started from losing a couple of close friends, slowly it became obvious that my actions was the reason behind it. A wise man once said, it is okay to listen to people talk about their issues but you don't always have to have an opinion. Sometimes the best you can do to people is to be a person that listens to their troubles without judging their actions or motives. This I learnt and gradually I began to work on ways to manage my involvement in people's life. Since my noble cause of living a life of impact, seems to be attracting an unintended consequences, something had to change. Wanting to help without people's consent sometimes can be seen as trespassing. As a minimalist, I decided to pay close attention to how my actions influence others and gradually my perspective about how to live a life of impact began to change. I realised wanting to impact in people's life shouldn't forced. I know of people who are in need but they would never seek anyone for help because they take comfort and pride in being able to handle their lives, their own way. So, instead of rushing into people's life with good intentions, I became more permission seeking. Being patient with people till they are willing to accept whatever I have to offer. Having the willingness to always want to be of help to people is indeed a good value but understanding when and how to get involved in people's life and being cautious of actions and consequences seems to be the greatest value bestowed upon me as I journey towards minimalism.
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