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By: Toyib Amusa, Student

Good day everyone, and I wish you very good compliments of the season!

This letter is an extract from the remains, left in my cerebrum, of what I read, many years ago, about Muhammad in “The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History,” a 1978 book by Michael H. Hart, an astrophysicist, alien life researcher, and white separatist.

The most influential person says we should be mindful of five things before five things come to us.  As a medical candidate, I have no doubt that those five things are going to be beneficial to us, and the same are listed as under:

Thing 1: To make use of our youth wisely before old age. 

It is very important that we, particularly the medical students, make use of being young to acquire adequate knowledge in this respectable and honorable field we have chosen to pursue our career in. 

Imagine how difficult it’s going to be if one of us decides to postpone the acquisition of medical knowledge until old age. We know that in old age, the memory is not so retentive as when one is young because the cells of the brain start getting close to worn out, and it is not to be forgotten that Alzheimer’s disease or Parkinson’s disease is most frequent in old aged persons. How would one be able to retain important information from so many voluminous texts and books in old age? How would it be easy to move from one class to the other in order to attend lectures and seminars? Therefore, it's most incumbent on us to judiciously use our youth before old age.

Thing 2: To make use of our leisure time before getting busy. 

As medical candidates, there is no doubt that much is required of us. However, we still need to look after ourselves and have time for ourselves. But, the question is how do we make use of our leisure time, i.e., the time when we’re not working, or in the lecture rooms attending lectures, basically our free time. 

In school or during school periods, our free times are when it is time for lunch, anytime before 9 a.m. and anytime after 5 p.m. I opine that those times should either be used in these followings ways but not limited to:

• Making calls and connecting with family and friends;
• To read other books or novels that are outside science or medicine;
• To indulge in some extracurricular activities such as dance, cultural learning, exercises and games, watching didactic movies, meditation; and
• Most importantly, to relax, to rest in order to revive our brain and mind and to gain more energy, etc.

Thing 3: To make use of our health & wellbeing before sickness. 

I believe in the bridge that connects our objectives for coming down here and the attainment of these objectives, which I could call our destination. We have to look after our wellbeing and remember if we fall sick, it is not going to be like home no matter how good people we have around us. Besides, falling sick in Guyana,  I would say, is expensive. I prefer to spend money on good meals than to fall sick and to spend on hospital bills.

Majorly, what can make you sick is what you eat or drink and what you expose yourself to from the environment such as smokes from cigarettes, weeds, and industrial wastes. Falling sick is usually not a bad thing, you know, because it would give you time to look after yourself and enjoy. However, some kinds of sickness can deprive you of attending lectures. It’s very important to remember that the state of our wellbeing determines how much we would be able to attain our objectives. It’s no surprise that you can’t attend lectures on a sickbed. So, even before you fall sick, make sure your objective is attained both in this worldly life and beyond.

Thing 4: To make use of your wealth before poverty. 

Cambridge dictionary defines Wealth as “a large amount of money, property, or valuable possessions that a person or country owns.” As per Wikipedia, “Poverty is not having enough material possessions or income for a person's needs. Poverty may include social, economic, and political elements. Absolute poverty is the complete lack of the means necessary to meet basic personal needs, such as food, clothing and shelter. The threshold at which absolute poverty is defined is always about the same, independent of the person's permanent location or era.”

Your knowledge is also your wealth. Knowledge could be turned to physical wealth, cash, and assets. And that is one of the reasons we are here to acquire this knowledge so that we might exchange it with wealth. After the acquisition of medical knowledge, we are expected to become doctors, and we will attend to patients, treat them of their illness and in return, be expected to be paid and have the satisfaction to have delivered healthcare to someone or have relieved people from some ailments, complaints, or difficulties. 

We should use this wealth before anything of adversity comes to us, build relationships, get ourselves a shelter for the rainy days, get assets that would make our living and sustenance easy, and keep something for our coming progeny, as the future is unpredictable. 

We should make use of this wealth and prepare ourselves before the uncertainty of this world surprises us. We should use this wealth of knowledge accumulated and gathered over the years to assist the less privileged and needy and establish justice, and more importantly, to provide a fundamental base for further undiscovered knowledge for the coming generation.

Thing 5: To make use of our life before death. 

Regardless of what social class you belong to, political affiliation, clan, religious group, and creed you believe in, I think none preaches evil and propagates vice in the society. They all preach and advocate for peace, unity, and cohesion and ultimately direct towards a status of higher morality. Irrespective of one’s aims in life, the primary essence of one’s existence is self-realization and accomplishments. Therefore, it is of paramount importance that you make use of your life without the waste of time to achieve those objectives and aims during your lifetime.