My purpose in life is to make sure when I die, someone will say “Isioma touched my life”. My purpose in life is to be remembered.

When I was asked to do this it never occurred to me to say no. I had no idea what I would write about, but as with most struggling writers we hold on to the hope that, the right idea will come to us and the proverbial floodgates would be thrown open. On Tuesday at about 6pm or thereabouts 70% of the tweets I read were talking about Don Jazzy’s latest act of generosity on Twitter.

  A couple of people asked him for lump sums of money and he obliged their requests. Now this wasn’t the first time I’d stumble onto this sort of thing, Don Jazzy is famous for the freebies he regularly doles out to his followers. Why was this time different? Why was I compelled to base an article as important as this on something that many had come to term regular and expected?

A bible passage says and I paraphrase “ask and you shall be given”. A few of us quote this verse when we need favours from God, parents, family or friends and you can bet that more often than not we are the ones asking, not giving. Permit me to digress for a bit.

For a few years I was intent on finding my purpose in life. I believe, rather doggedly that we weren’t put on earth to simply exist. No, I believe that we were individually placed here to achieve something. And so I asked myself “what is my purpose?” As basic as that question is, I assure you that it is the hardest question a young adult will ever ask. After weeks of mauling over this question without an answer, one random day, it hit me.

My purpose in life is to make sure when I die, someone will say “Isioma touched my life”. My purpose in life is to be remembered. There is no greater compliment than to be a testament to another human being. You see my laptop, on which I spend hours every day will in one quick painless format, forget that I ever existed. My phone that is a constant companion will not say to its new owner “no, don’t touch me…I belong to Isioma”.

 None of these gadgets I hold dear have the ability to treasure my memory for all of eternity. We do not need to be a Ghandi or Mandela to make an impact in the world. Our dreams need not be complicated or grandiose. In the 22 years of my existence, the people that have blessed my life are not World leaders or Nobel Prize winners. They are the simple folk.

The purpose of sharing the Don Jazzy story at the start of this piece is to emphasize how impacting one life confers eternity. Of course just because he was generous on twitter doesn’t automatically make Don Jazzy a saint or grant him keys to Heaven but if and when his time comes, one person will stand up and say; ‘I was privy to his generosity’.

At least one person will treasure his memory eternally. The idea behind the 30 days 30 voices series is to share personal experiences that have shaped us and hopefully inspire others. So I have a challenge for you, decide today that when your time comes at least one person will give a genuine testimonial. Be a friend, teacher, cohort, lover, comforter and helper. Change the world, so that when your time comes to depart this world, your essence will continue.

It’s easy just start with one…one man.

About the author: Isioma Osaje is a fifth year medical student and a creative writer. With vast experience in entertainment journalism, she works with Hip Hop World Magazine as an Assistant Editor and contributes to several print and online media platform.

Follow Isioma on Twitter – @Msjazzyfied

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.