Welcome to the channel. I hope your day has been great? We will be starting a new series in this episode titled: Smell It Before You Eat. I believe this series would greatly improve your life and position you better for effective living. In this episode, I will be sharing Count the Cost. If you want to become a better decision maker, then this podcast/video is meant for you. So, let us get started.
“If wishes were horses, they say, beggars would ride”. The whole world is filled with billions of men and women with various taste and preferences. We want the best of this life for ourselves and families, yet we can only afford so little. We borrow to settle debt and we take so much on credit just to satisfy our insatiable desire for more fun, more satisfaction and more happiness. Our biggest challenge is not just our endless desires but our few means of having them. I have discovered that while the mouth of any human could feed on almost anything, not everything is beneficial to the mouth and nutritious to the body. To help every human avoid premature termination of life, our gracious Creator gave each human a nose just above the mouth. Therefore, “if you must eat it, you must smell it.”
Now the question I would like to ask you is: do you think you have been smelling your actions before you carry them out lately? The project that you have started, relationships that you have started, everything that you have begun lately have they been a product of your smell? Did you at any moment in the process of starting those projects, those new relationships, smell the consequences of your actions?
The truth is for every action there is a cost, for everything we intend, we desire, there is a cost, there is nothing that we want for our lives, there is nothing that we want for ourselves, there is nothing that we want to do that does not have a cost attached to it. If you must therefore do it, if we must therefore have it, then you must first count the cost. There is nothing you desire for yourself, for your family, for your marriage, for your business, for your organization, that does not have a cost attached to it. The fault of most people is that, they desire without counting the cost and so they lay their hands on things, they grab things, they start things, only to find out later on in life, that the cost is too big for them to afford.
The truth is you cannot afford everything you desire. The truth again is you cannot afford everything you intend to do. Not every desire of your heart can be taken care of by you at this moment. If you must therefore avoid shame, if you must therefore avoid failure, if you must therefore avoid abandoning many things in your life then it must be because before you started them, before you got them, you have smelt them.
Have you wondered why God made the nose just above the mouth? Why isn’t your nose somewhere very far from your mouth? If that has not actually happened, many of us if not all of us would have died very early in life. But as God would have it our noses are just above our mouth. So, before anything comes into our mouth, it passes through the scrutiny of our nose and so with the nose you can smell if there is any danger. What then happens to a man or a woman who refuses to smell what he eats or what she eats?
You cannot take actions; you cannot start things that you did not smell. Engage your nose in that sense, engage your discerning capacity, engage your thinking before you start things. Don’t start businesses, only to realize that the business has nothing to do with your passion. Don’t start relationships only to realize that the people you have started relationships with, have no compatibility with you. You must first sit down, count the cost, realize that the things you want to do, you can actually afford them.
Of course, you know that when you look at a typical earthworm, it looks disgusting but besides the look, you cannot eat certain thing as a person, not just because of their looks but because of how they smell. Most times things that are not healthy for the body smell so bad and so when you bring them close to your nose, you throw them very far away from your mouth, why? The nose judges them to be unworthy of your mouth.
How many things that you do as a person pass through the scrutiny of your nose? Do you smell if an action should be executed, do you smell if a relationship should be started, do you smell if a business should be started or you just put things straight in to the mouth? I’m sure you understand that the failures of your life, if you are very honest with yourself are traceable to actions, to things you do and desired without taking them through the scrutiny of your nose.
Before you eat it, you have a responsibility to smell it. I will not smell it for you, do you know why? You have a different nose and you have a different mouth. I have a different nose; I have a different mouth and so I take responsibility for what comes into my mouth and you must take responsibility for what goes into your mouth. You cannot continue to blame the society for the things you eat, you cannot continue to blame your parents for the things you eat. The people around you are not responsible for the things that passes through your mouth, you are responsible. And if you must avoid more failures, if you must avoid more regrets in days and years to come in your life, you must at this moment, take the responsibility to count the cost of every action, to count the cost of every desire of your life.
If you desire it, you must count the cost of it. If you love it, you must count the cost of it. Not everything that you love, not everything that you desire can be taken care of right now by you. If you count the cost, you will know the things to start and you will know the things to delay for times to come. In fact, the truth is, many of us don’t have the culture of delaying our gratification, of delaying our desires, of delaying our wants simply because we have not fully counted the cost, if you can count the cost early enough, you can know the things to start now, the things to postpone, the things to schedule for days and years to come. If you count your cost, you will have little room to regret or to fail in life.
Thank you for the gift of your time, my name is Gboyega Adedeji, and you have been listening to Better and Leading You. I believe you have learnt something, if that is true, I want you to like the video, share your comments with me and share the videos with your friends and associates. I believe your tomorrow will be alright and you will make less mistakes in life, and you will have lesser room for regrets. If you must enjoy it, it is because you have taken your time to smell it beforehand. Smell it early, so that you will know whether you should eat it or you should delay it, or you should throw it away.
Till the next episode that I bring you another interesting discussion under Smell It Before You Eat It, I want you to stay safe.
