How to Become Successful: Sow the Seeds of Service – A Story of Mama Nania.

 

Her Envelope

She cupped peace in her hands & we gulped
If satisfaction was food she freely dished
& who else gives a golden joy
without a silver spoon – or
what more is love than her glittering smile

#LovefromaChild'sHeart

The above verse was found painted in no perfect order and folded with a nataraj in an envelope. The eyes that first unfolded it punctuated it with tears… she was a foodt vendor in a primary school. Students who she served some 32years ago now made a plan to celebrate her. She is 62 this year. No gift came more precious to her than this last piece of a world in an envelope. Not the car keys, not the massive cake, not even the cash and quite expensive gifts. She wiped the first thread of sweet tears, and more would follow. She speaks more than her tongue is able to express: “While many are glad I am a year older on earth, I am challenged of a year closer to the grave. But this note in my hand is a voice at heart – you’re not too long in life or too early to grave, it’s worth a lifetime. So, she says to me…”

 

Mama Nania was a mother to many pupils she served with food when she was a food vendor some 30years ago. And till present, she hardly ever defined fulfilment or success more than she now can hold in her hand.

Mama Nania tells a story. She tells how she was the last child in a family of 4 boys and the only girl. She tells how they would all come home from school and meet something to eat, even if some ketch-ups and rice before mum came back from work. She’d have kept something for mum too, before she comes to prepare dinner. She feels sorry she was never there with them at launch, but she was ever thankful for Nania.

Someday she would give her an accolade. The family would be at the dinning, and she would stand in the middle of the meal to award her with an extra fish. She raised it up in a spoon and say; “to mama Nania, who’s the least but the mother to us all, cheers to launch before mum returns!” Everyone cheered, and that was the greatest award she ever had serving her brothers. She wondered why mum had to do that in the first place. Obviously, she wasn’t expecting to be applauded for caring for her brothers. Her own family….

Sometimes, your success is that same little thing you had to do without any accolade and thanks for it. And evidently, your life in service is the brick around your life as a success.

So, when Nania finished high school and worked for 5years as a waiter in a food and grocery shop, she only felt, being paid the token they did, for merely doing what she loved. Soon the school advert for a food vendor for primary and the high school teens. She loved this than anything she ever did for money. And she served more than food to those kids – who actually came for food but needed more than that. She was much more to them.

The greatest dividend you can get from life is to feel fulfilled you blessed humanity. This is the underpinning heart of success. However, you started maintaining that fullness of joy when life may seem most bland and you never stopped adding a token of service to humanity. Sometimes to little ones, sometimes your equals, and sometimes your seemingly unrewarding bosses.

Keep succeeding even when nobody knows.