By Alpha Amadu Jalloh
You think you conquering the future?
Tell me, with what army?
With money?
With titles?
With followers?
With power?
With beauty?
With influence?
With control?
Tell me honestly.
Who told you the future signed a contract with you?
Who promised you tomorrow?
There is something frightening about the human being. We act as if life belongs to us. We speak in years while life only promised us moments. We build castles inside calendars we may never reach. We fight over chairs that eventually become empty. We insult people as if we ourselves cannot become weak. We humiliate others while forgetting humiliation changes addresses very quickly.
Today you laugh.
Tomorrow life laughs louder.
Today you reject.
Tomorrow you seek acceptance.
Today you stand.
Tomorrow you search for someone to help you stand.
Yet somehow humanity remains intoxicated by the illusion of ownership over time.
You think you conquering the future.
No.
You are negotiating with uncertainty.
The future has buried kings.
It has swallowed presidents.
It has silenced scholars.
It has reduced millionaires to memories.
It has taken beautiful faces and returned them to dust.
It has broken families that looked untouchable.
It has humbled people who thought they had mastered life.
The future fears no one.
That is why arrogance is one of the strangest diseases of the soul.
A person earns a little and forgets hunger.
Gets promoted and forgets friendship.
Finds love and forgets loyalty.
Builds a house and forgets gratitude.
One victory later they start behaving like destiny now reports to them.
But destiny does not report to anyone except Allah.
You see people planning ten years ahead while forgetting they have not controlled ten seconds of their heartbeat.
You speak as if your children belong to your plans.
Your marriage belongs to your plans.
Your health belongs to your plans.
Your career belongs to your plans.
No.
Life is borrowing all of them to you.
Borrowing.
Temporary access.
Nothing more.
This is why I sometimes wonder whether success has become one of the greatest tests rather than failure.
Failure introduces humility.
Success often introduces imagination.
Suddenly people believe they are self made.
As though the oxygen they breathe belongs to them.
As though one invisible clot cannot rewrite everything.
As though one phone call cannot change an entire family history.
As though one sentence from a doctor cannot turn ambition into prayer.
We are strange creatures.
When poor we pray.
When comfortable we delay prayer.
When afraid we remember God.
When secure we remember ourselves.
Then one storm arrives and reminds us who we truly are.
Temporary.
Temporary houses.
Temporary jobs.
Temporary positions.
Temporary beauty.
Temporary applause.
Temporary victories.
Everything temporary except the consequences of how we treated people.
You think you conquering the future?
Then answer me.
Why do you destroy relationships for status?
Why betray those who held your hands?
Why compete with people who never competed with you?
Why act superior because your season currently looks brighter?
The future is patient.
Very patient.
It waits quietly.
It watches silently.
Then one day it introduces balance.
The mocked become admired.
The admired become forgotten.
The ignored become needed.
The powerful become dependent.
The loud become silent.
Not because life is cruel.
But because life insists nobody forget they are human.
That lesson arrives differently for everyone.
For some it comes through sickness.
For others through divorce.
Some through loss.
Some through regret.
Some through loneliness.
Some through children.
Some through old age.
And some discover it too late.
That is perhaps one of the saddest discoveries a person can make.
To arrive at old age and realise you spent your strongest years trying to defeat people instead of understanding life.
To realise your victories created emptiness.
To realise people only respected your position and not your character.
To realise your children inherited your anger but not your wisdom.
To realise your wealth protected your comfort but not your peace.
And then you look back.
Not asking for more money.
Not asking for more titles.
But asking for one thing.
More time.
The same time you once wasted proving yourself to people who forgot you.
That is why I no longer fear people who appear powerful.
I fear becoming blind to my own temporary existence.
Because the truth is frightening.
One day your phone will stop ringing.
One day someone else will sit in your office.
One day your clothes will belong to another person.
One day your room will be cleaned after you leave and life will continue.
Not because you never mattered.
But because nobody was designed to stay forever.
Read that again.
Nobody.
Not me.
Not you.
Not the people you envy.
Not the people who hurt you.
Not the people who abandoned you.
Not the people who celebrated too early.
Nobody.
So perhaps the better question is not whether you are conquering the future.
Perhaps the question is:
What kind of footprint are you leaving while borrowing time?
Will people remember fear?
Or kindness?
Will people remember ego?
Or generosity?
Will people remember noise?
Or substance?
Will people remember titles?
Or truth?
You think you conquering the future?
Be careful.
The future may simply be allowing you to feel strong before introducing you to yourself.
And when that meeting comes, may you discover that your heart remained bigger than your ambition.
Because in the end, nobody conquers the future.
We only meet it.
And eventually become part of someone else’s past.
