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1. My dear Jack, in my last letter I explained to you that life is going to happen to your generation. It happens to every generation. #Letr2Jack
2. Every generation imagines they can reinvent life. Only nobody can reinvent life. Life has a constancy. You can reinvent culture, you can reinvent mores... But life itself? No, you can’t. It is governed by immutable laws. #Letr2Jack
3. And this is how you know. If you’ve taken time to look at life generationally, talk to the older generation, even much older generation... You’ll have noticed every generation has troubles. #Letr2Jack
4. No matter how enlightened a generation is, no matter how brilliant it is, there’ll be troubles. Everyone will face challenges. #Letr2Jack
5. Technology can’t prevent those troubles, neo-cultural mores won’t eradicate those challenges... Troubles are persistent with life. Everyone faces trials. #Letr2Jack
6. Neither will social media culture eliminate those challenges. If at all it generates its own set of troubles. Every of man’s interactions generates trouble. #Letr2Jack
7. What those challenges do however is that they bring out your character; they show what you’re made of. #Letr2Jack
8. Now, you think you have troubles just because you don’t have money. But money generates its own troubles too. Though the problems of wealth are much more preferable to the problems of poverty. #Letr2Jack
9. One challenge the single rich man or woman has is, you never know who loves you for you. And can anyone ever love you for you? Wealth has its own troubles. #Letr2Jack
10. If you’re successful you face the problem of envy. It’s not a nice problem to have. Envy is a sickness of the soul. It cannot be assuaged. It always wishes people evil, rejoices in pain and suffering. #Letr2Jack
11. The point I’m trying to let you see is that life is full of troubles. It’s not something a young man (or woman) wants to hear but I owe you the truth. #Letr2Jack
12. That’s not saying you have to be afraid. These things happen in the natural course of life. You just deal with them and move on to the next instalment of your life. They will happen anyway. #Letr2Jack
13. If you don’t come to terms with them, you’re going to struggle with the character of life. #Letr2Jack
14. You’re going to be hoping to get rid of your troubles once and for all... Only there’s nothing like troubles permanently going away. At each stage of your life there will be challenges for you to face. #Letr2Jack
15. When you become successful for instance you’ll have to deal with loneliness. The rich and famous are the most lonely. Notice how many of them commit suicide. #Letr2Jack
16. It would seem therefore that life is controlled by certain dynamics and that these dynamics are independent of culture and geography. #Letr2Jack
17. It’s like gravity. Whether you’re in Enugu or Washington you will experience gravity. It doesn’t matter who you are, your background, your gender... Gravity is constant. #Letr2Jack
18. There are laws of life. Each module of life has laws governing it. Success for example is regulated by certain laws. You must work hard. You must apply yourself. No matter how brilliant you are if you’re lazy you won’t succeed. #Letr2Jack
19. That’s partly because the lazy man is full of excuses. He’ll never act on his opportunities, he’ll never create opportunities. #Letr2Jack
20. But he thinks he’s smarter than everyone else. As Solomon said he turns on his bed like a door on hinges, while everyone is at work. He loves his sleep. #Letr2Jack
21. I’ll share three laws with you. Without them you won’t succeed. The first is the law of diligence. The second is the law of faithfulness. The third is the law of loyalty. #Letr2Jack
22. The law of diligence says no matter the smallness of the task or the quantum of pay, put your best into what you’re doing. #Letr2Jack
23. Many of us are waiting for that big assignment to show our capabilities. But you’ll never get to the big thing without being diligent in little things. That’s the law of life. #Letr2Jack
24. We don’t know why this is so. All we know is that diligence leads to promotion. Life has its own calibration. #Letr2Jack
25. And there’s a natural flow to it if you think about it. The guy who is diligent at work will naturally accomplish more and so will be given more to do. The more diligent he is the more he’s deemed reliable. That reliability produces trust, which leads to more responsibility.
26. Be diligent at what you do. That is the secret of successful people. They pour their life into whatever they do. Maximum effort yields maximum result. #Letr2Jack
27. Diligence demands you be earnest at what you do, that you take initiative, pay attention, take good care. #Letr2Jack
28. The second law is the law of faithfulness. Whether someone is looking or not you must stay committed to what you do. There must be a constancy. #Letr2Jack
29. It’s not about the other person. Faithfulness is your commitment to yourself, your commitment to your values. It’s about what you believe in, it’s not about eye service. #Letr2Jack
30. There’s a time factor attached to faithfulness. Faithfulness requires commitment over a period of time, being constant. It’s about delivering on an assignment come rain, come shine. Faithfulness is independent of conditions. It’s tied to a person. #Letr2Jack
31. And someone’s bound to notice. That nobody has spoken to you about your performance doesn’t mean nobody is noticing. That’s the essence of faithfulness. #Letr2Jack
32. Life rewards faithfulness. The reward may not even come from the quarter we expect but life has these orchestrations. Life always rewards faithfulness. #Letr2Jack
33. The third law is the law of loyalty. The problem many times is that people think short term. They can’t see past the now. It’s why they’re not loyal. #Letr2Jack
34. They dimension people in terms of immediate usefulness. When there seems no more usefulness, they jettison the people and move on to the next prospect. #Letr2Jack
35. If you keep doing that, word soon gets around you’re a user of people. You won’t get loyalty and people will be wary about you. They will even fear you. You burn bridges at both ends. #Letr2Jack
36. And true to type when you need a favour from a discarded individual you ask as if nothing ever happened. This gives you false confidence you can get away with anything, and that people are fools. Your infamy is being discussed behind closed doors. #Letr2Jack
37. That’s how you lose things without being aware. Worse, your character becomes your definition. #Letr2Jack
38. When your name is mentioned in certain quarters there’ll be a caution hung on your name. You’re not loyal to anyone, can sell anyone. You’re only loyal to your immediate interest. You won’t get the ultimate prize. #Letr2Jack
39. Even if you seem to get away with it life has its computations. Success will come at a certain price. And the deductions may be made from another header in your life – the one you didn’t think about, couldn’t have thought of. And life is patient. #Letr2Jack
40. Don’t be disloyal. Don’t do evil to someone who has done you good in life. Never forget the good people do to you. #Letr2Jack
41. I read the story about two friends. One was poor, the other from a rich home. The rich guy was very good to the poor guy. They were genuine friends. #Letr2Jack
42. But the rich guy died young. His family also lost their fortune. When the poor guy made it he made sure to look for the son of his friend and set him up. He never forgot. Certain obligations subsist after death. #Letr2Jack
43. When someone is good to you, when someone is instrumental to your success in life you owe a debt of loyalty. It’s a debt for life. There are debts that don’t go away. #Letr2Jack
44. Don’t join others to run your benefactor down. Don’t be an ingrate. That’s disloyal. #Letr2Jack
45. This is a common mistake in workplaces: your boss is good to you but then you join others in running him or her down. Isn’t it better to walk away from such conversations? #Letr2Jack
46. You say unkind and untruthful things about your benefactor in concert with others, allude to hurtful innuendos about things you know nothing about. Where’s your character? That’s terribly disloyal. #Letr2Jack
47. And it’s not wise. Word soon gets back to him or her and you of all people will lose the most. You’re the recipient of grace. You soon choke off the arteries. #Letr2Jack
48. Be loyal. It’s about character. #Letr2Jack
49. There’s a halo of suspicion attached to those without loyalty. There’s a mercenary quality to them. And they soon need help from the very same people whose loyalty they pummelled. #Letr2Jack
50. The law of diligence, the law of faithfulness, the law of loyalty. These are laws of success. No matter what your generation thinks you’re going to come face to face with these laws. You can’t go around them. When you violate them, there are consequences. #Letr2Jack
51. No diligence, no opportunities. No faithfulness, no responsibility. No loyalty, no trust. #Letr2Jack
52. You get it? #Letr2Jack
53. Your mentor, LA. #Letr2Jack
56. © Leke Alder | talk2me@lekealder.com. #Letr2Jack
