I was at a business seminar a few weeks back in Bali. It was run by Roger Hamilton, chairman of the XL Results Foundation,and a very intelligent man. It’s been a while since I went to a seminar with NEW information.. so that was awesome. I learnt a lot, but I have to say there was one message which has really shaped my thinking over the past few weeks, and probably because it is so inline with the thoughts dominating my mind at present.

(I highly recommend Roger’s book “Your Life, Your Legacy”, where among other things he speaks about Purpose and the big question of Why.) Click here to see what he has to offer.

Many of us have at some time thought we were here for a purpose, but have you ever reflected on the odds of you actually being born? I certainly hadn’t. I had some vague notion that my mother and father had sacrificed a lot to put me through a good school and so on, but I had never thought “what are the chances of me being born?”

Think of it this way: just cast your mind back over the last 500 years. (As in, not the entire history of humanity, lets just take a manageable chunk size to begin with). And let’s assume that your ancestors re-produced every 25 years for ease of calculation. And lets also assume that one man mated with one woman to produce one of your ancestors (generally the way things work, my 6 years of med school tells me!)

25 years ago you had 2 ancestors alive: your Mum and Dad.

50 years ago you had 4 granparents: your Mum’s Mum and Dad, and Your Dad’s Mum and Dad

75 years ago you had 8 great-grandparents alive, and so on and so on.

If we continue, 500 years ago you had 1,048,576 ancestors alive and kicking in the world. So did I. So did your best friend.

In total over this period of time, 2,097,150 people lived in order that you be born, just as you are, where you are, in this period of time.

Moreover over the last 500 years, these 2 million people had to survive no less than 8 plagues, literally hundreds of wars, countless earthquakes, floods and other natural disasters, and generally make it to child bearing age in a world where this was not at all a given.

The point is, every individual had to beat huge odds to get to the point of reproducing your ancestor. They had to win every time and not lose once. If just one of these 2 million people had died before they had reproduced, you, just as you are now, would not have been born. You simply wouldn’t exist. 2 million people had to win every time and not lose once, despite wars, plagues, high infant mortality, generally squalid conditions… they survived and here you are. Here I am.

Pretty damn compelling argument for getting over your insecurities and taking the gifts God has given you and making a difference in the world I think!

Here’s to getting over it and on with it!

Cheers,

Jo x