Listen, Keep Both Engines Going,

And Do More Than You Ever Think You Will Be Able To

What will be placed right here right now is a very simple, very short revelation. Perhaps I really shouldn’t use the word revelation because that in a sense connotes some measure of drama and surprise in its making, when in truth and fact it has been well over a decade since this seed was planted into my mind, and the minds of every other student entering into one of the more prominent educational institutions in Barbados.

The cogs of my brain race back to that ridiculously hot and sunny morning of the first day of secondary school, when our deputy principal at the time said to us all “when a plane has achieved its intended altitude it never ever shuts its engines off; so too must you never ever stop reaching and striving upon entering this school”.

I understood what this person was saying but I never really took much of it to heart. I had already reserved the years immediately following this little speech for the pursuit of the opposite sex and all things involved with such a worthy and noble pursuit (lol). I really didn’t have the time nor interest for the ramblings of some overly uptight educator.

Now I wasn’t a complete clown during these fine years (albeit almost lol). So I did most of the work they told me to, I passed most of the subjects (even the boring and pointless ones) and after some time, popped out of the education system with a bachelor’s degree.

But all this info is completely beside the point. For if I was this said plane, and I had two engines, after primary school and I was supposedly ‘flying’ even though I didn’t shut off both engines, I most certainly shut off one of them (or turned it in the opposite direction to blow-up the skirts of the young ladies at school at the time). So even though I am still tottering along to wherever the hell my intended destination might be, I am not going there nearly as fast or in any state that I should be. Even now as I write I struggle to get that second cob-web filled engine going again after being out of use and out of purpose for soooooo long.

Looking back on my life, even though I have done a lot, seen a lot, laughed a lot, and certainly loved a lot, there really isn’t any sense of regret to speak of. Yet still there is this lingering feeling or more so, this lingering sense of knowing that I could have done so much more.

So what is this revelation? Or, more appropriately, what is this flower at the end of a very long branch of a very tall tree, which grew from a single seed, planted by a very wise educator whom I now respect unequivocally?

Well it’s really very simple (I know I said this ages ago but I’m getting, there bear with me) –

On your journey through life – listen to those older and wiser than you, keep both engines on your plane going and in the right direction at all times, and above all, do more, see more, laugh more and love more than you ever think you will be able to.

Until next time.

This has been Pu Dekcuf