Reclaiming our purpose

Dear Editor,

How is it that we have so easily surrendered the swords of the fearless warriors and working tools of the builders that fought for and built that which we claim to now possess?

How is it that it’s O.K. for us to accept that we no longer occupy the first class seats in the jumbo jet called The Bahamas 1973?

How is it we have made ourselves so comfortable riding economy, yet, we pay for first-class seats for others who barely know the words to “March On Bahamaland”?

How did he get on this plane without a ticket? Not even a passport.

How did we even allow him on the line in front of us, just for him to grant his fellow undocumented friends, family and countrymen the good fortune to be served first, while we are pushed farther and farther back on a line that was not even ours to stand on?

How is it that we gladly stuff ourselves in a seat that’s nowhere near the size of the throne of our birthright?

Have we allowed this because we only want go to Miami when jumbo jet Bahamas 1973 is capable of traveling around the world countless times without having to refuel?

We seem to be so content saying “No, y’all go to the world; just lemme go to Miami. I ga check y’all when y’all come back. Please remember to pick me up eh!!!”

After all, we are traveling “first class” right?

What a joke!

How did our thinking become as shallow as the waters on the sand banks in The Exumas and not as deep as The Tongue in Andros?

How did we allow the land of our inheritance to be possessed by unknown farmers?

How did we allow our sovereignty to be trampled upon and enslaved by printed paper, backed by an attractive interest rate?

How have we become so comfortable with a mediocre existence? How is that ever alright? How can that ever be alright? How can that ever be right at all?

Are we so fearful of mining our potential, so that we don’t have to face the responsibility of multiplying our talents? Are we that fearful of our greatness? Are we so fearful of looking in ourselves, so we don’t have to face the reality of who we are?

I suggest that it’s something called the comfort seat. It’s a seat that steals your soul. It gives birth to an alien called FEAR! We were not born with it but it’s a demon that has inhabited the consciousness of our existence.

It steals our drive to work, stunts the genius of our imagination. It’s a thief. It robs us of our desire to harvest the bountiful spoils of the land that our Father placed us upon, to own and possess.

It suffocates our courage and drive to be “more than conquerors”.

Fear is the killer of potential. It makes us comfortable, lazy, apathetic, slothful.

Fear inflicts paralysis.

Fear is the single greatest serial killer of all time. It has shamelessly slaughtered the hopes, dreams and potential of nations and we continue to let him off “scot-free”; no bail, no time spent, no incarceration. FREE!!! to go and “kill” at will.

We are so comfortable sitting in the seat of comfort (fear) that we are too fearful to fight for a fair share of our share.

Fortunately, some of us have broken free of Mr. Fear because his proposition was too unfair.

We have chosen to give ourselves a fair chance to live an extraordinary life; limited only by potential and the commonly uncommon ability to achieve beyond our imagination.

We are all born with this ability but some of us opt to sit in our comfort seat. Sit and pretend. Pretend that everything is alright when the crop is burning, the harvest is in peril and the bright skies of the future are clouded with the smoke of unbridled laziness and contentment.

How do we get out of our comfort seat and into the saddle of purpose?

How?

How do we reclaim our industry?

How do we renew our license to drive?

Where do we dig the new well of opportunity, draw the water of potential and farm the field of renewal?

What is the call for the new day?

Perhaps, the answer lies as near as our own “home”, hidden in a closet filled with unwritten books, unrealized stories, unknown adventure, uncharted territories.

Maybe if we open the closet and explore the shelves within ourselves, we will find that strangely familiar person, who has been sitting and catching dust for far too long.

Maybe if we dust him off and search within, we’d discover the person that we always were but have yet to become.

Maybe we will find ourselves sitting in first class on board jumbo jet Bahamas 1973 headed on another world tour.

Maybe, just maybe, we will awaken the greatness in us.

March on Bahamaland!

— Darren Bastian

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source https://thenassauguardian.com/2020/07/13/reclaiming-our-purpose/