I sometimes feel our present human culture is obsessed with having things BIG. We like big businesses, big cities with big buildings. We like to be referred to as the person with "The biggest ... in town."
Big isn't bad. In fact, I like it big also, but although culture teaches us to celebrate big, nature shows us to cultivate small. Look around; everything in nature starts small. From the trees to the fishes, the bull to the person, they all start small. I was reminded of this principle when our baby girl, Jamila, was born exactly two months ago today. As I looked at her lovely white eyes that day, I wondered how a human life could begin in such a small way. But then again, I thought, "In what other way could it start?" Two months on, and it is evident to all the way she has grown so well.
This same principle ensures that countries grow, provinces grow, families grow, and you grow. Whole countries - take your mind to the greatest ones - are established with something as small and fragile as an idea. Not races and ethnicity but an idea. It begins with that spark of a creative moment in the minds of a few, which they fan until it has ignited a flame that burns every heart that hears of it and makes many willing to stake their existence for its realization or nothing else. It is the same with great businesses. Pioneers identify a need that must be met. It is a problem that cannot go unsolved, and they stake all they have and are to see they help solve it.
Greatness doesn't come from mindlessly achieving some BIG stuff - like making so much money--but growing from small to great. Do not be afraid of starting small. More often than not, it's the fear that keeps you as an underachiever and not the fact that what you have started is small.
I and a small team have started a project to support public school education in Nigeria. At present, we have given out thousands of exercise books, but there is still more to be achieved. We are setting up free libraries in these schools, and we will take one small school library after the other. It will be our joy to see hundreds of schools with the libraries they need, but before we get there, we will do with the small we have--one school.
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