The Graveyard is the Richest Place on Earth

By Charron Monaye

If a baby boomer raised you, you were probably taught to honor the principles of work. “Work” meaning a job that you clock in for eight hours and praise God daily to have so you can pay your bills. However, what “work” actually equates to is committing hours of your life in exchange for monetary compensation, and hopefully, your job allows the opportunity to “borrow” hours to cover the time you are away from work due to an illness or a much-needed vacation. And should you have to end up caring for a family member, you must pray that you qualify for Family and Medical Leave, which is unpaid time. The system of work has been in place for centuries. Imagine being a kid, who has tons of dreams and is very ambitious, being told, “The only thing you should be focused on is graduating from high school, getting a job, and retiring. A pension is guaranteed, whereas a dream may never come true! So, stay focused.”

Imagine having a gift or talent that is never allowed to manifest because you have to work and quitting your job to chase a dream is frowned upon and even considered a crazy notion by some people. Les Brown once said, “The graveyard is the richest place on earth.” It took me years to understand that saying, but as I got older, I learned the graveyard is where you “find all the hopes and dreams that were never fulfilled, the books that were never written, the songs that were never sung, the inventions that were never shared, and the cures that were never discovered. All because someone was too afraid to take that first step, didn’t keep with the problem, or not determined to carry out their dream.”

Even if you are working a job, you can still manifest your dreams. I know tons of people who are still working a nine-to-five but living out their dream by utilizing their gifts or passions. With the pressures of the day-to-day hustle of life, wouldn’t it feel good to be able to do something you enjoy and possibly get paid for it? Wouldn’t you feel that much inspired or worthy of life if you were living to enjoy it instead of only living to work and eventually die?