Before It is Late

By Orhan Gazi

We are always busy doing something in the course of life. We are always in a rush to get to meetings on time, get to school, and reach our goals on time.

But in the meantime, we are late to reach the main goal.

Before It's Late is a novel. In fact, it is more than a novel...

There are some books that leave a mark on a person's soul and this mark never disappears. This is such a novel "before it is too late".

The story told in this book is an example of the events that a person may encounter after his death. Death was never in the daily schedule of our hero Mehmet Bey. But death suddenly entered the program. Even in his last days, he quickly began to question life and make preparations for what he might encounter.

It was a great relief for him to have the thought of his resurrection engraved in his mind in his last days.

So, before it's too late, let's read Before It's Late.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Orhan Gazi
• Release date: Mar 29, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224254194

Book preview

Before It is Late

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by Prof. Dr. Orhan Gazi

Orhan Gazi

Ankara, Turkey

© OG

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This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This imprint is published by Orhan Gazi.r

Table of Contents

1 UNEXPECTED

2 JOURNEYS

3 CORNER Snatch

4 ENDURANCE

5 AGAIN

6 GATHERING

7 GAME OVER

We are always busy doing something in the course of life. We are always in a rush to get to meetings on time, get to school, and reach our goals on time.

But in the meantime, we are late to reach the main goal.

Before It's Late is a novel. In fact, it is more than a novel...

There are some books that leave a mark on a person's soul and this mark never disappears. This is such a novel before it is too late.

The story told in this book is an example of the events that a person may encounter after his death. Death was never in the daily schedule of our hero Mehmet Bey. But death suddenly entered the program. Even in his last days, he quickly began to question life and make preparations for what he might encounter.

It was a great relief for him to have the thought of his resurrection engraved in his mind in his last days.

So, before it's too late, let's read Before It's Late.

1 UNEXPECTED

We are about to complete another day, one hour left until the end of the shift. This is probably my favorite time of the day: leaving work and going home. I actually love my job. At one point, I was unemployed for a while. Then, I saw how a person's life becomes meaningless when he is not busy with something. We had to find something to keep ourselves busy. Otherwise, we were no different than a ship sailing randomly and aimlessly in a stormy sea.

When I shared these thoughts with a friend of mine, he said, Why is it bad to be unemployed? The bad thing is to be broke. If I had money, I wouldn't work at all, he replied:

Later, I had a short discussion with this friend of mine. I said to him, One must discipline one's life. For example, one should go to bed regularly, produce something or provide a service to people, and make a contribution to society. Only in this way a person's life can have meaning. If you stay out of a process and a system, you will be alone like a wolf leaving the herd, and this will make you unhappy, I said.

In response, my friend said, If I have a lot of money, why should I work, and why should I be unhappy when I don't work?  I wake up whenever I want, visit the countries I want, I can do the sports I want, eat the food I want, and enjoy myself, he said.

I told him that I had gone on a long vacation for a while and that my vacation started to taste bad towards the end, and that although the fee was paid, I did not stay in a five-star luxury hotel for the last two days of my vacation and returned home.

That's your problem, I would never get bored, he replied.

I don't know if my friend was sincere in what he said, or whether he was overwhelmed by his busy work schedule and longed for rest, or whether he didn't like what he did. But from what he told me, I understood that he had no love or desire to work. Maybe this could be a psychology related to the low income my friend received due to his position, and this psychology could have covered his entire being.

It suddenly occurred to me that I had had similar conversations with other people in the past. One day, when I visited the grocery store on the street from my house, the owner's brother, who was working as an apprentice, was not there.

To the grocery store: isn't your brother around? When I called out, I kicked out my brother; There is no desire to work, no determination and perseverance in the man's soul," he replied.

So I started chatting with the grocer about what might be keeping these people away from working. In my opinion, constantly working for low wages turned people off from working, and people ran out of ambition and energy.

The grocery store also talked about the difficulties he experienced. He explained that he worked for a long time for very cheap wages, saved money little by little, never ate outside, and prepared his lunches at home in the evening. In this way, he came to a position from scratch with his nails. He said that he fired his brother because he could not see similar effort in him.

Maybe the grocery store was partly right in what he said, but weren't we humans created differently? Just as our fingerprints are different, aren't our features also different? The important thing was to find and reveal this feature in the other person and try to benefit from that feature.

When I mentioned these to the grocer, he said: There is nothing special about him, he is just a cow, he said.

There was no use continuing the conversation any further. After all, the education and thought levels of these people were certain; They were people who learned life by living and did not compromise on what they learned. With this dialogue, I felt that I was moving away from the realities of life and that I was expecting high society behavior from the grocery store. I am reminded of Marie Antoinette's advice to people eat cake if you cannot find the bread.

There were fifteen minutes left until the shift ended. It's a good thing we were working in a corporate company, at least we had regular working hours. I started preparing my bag to take home. The interesting thing is that I never used some of the items in my bag that I carried on my way home and to work every day. But I was putting it back in my bag thinking I might use it when I left home or after work. They were of no use other than weighing me down.

Why wasn't I walking with my arms around, without carrying anything, when returning from work or leaving home? I had to carry something, and most of it was useless. When I was a student at university, I carried around many books unnecessarily. Maybe having them with me made me feel psychologically comfortable.

My colleague Hüsnü quickly came to his desk and started to pack up. Hüsnü Bey's joy would increase towards the end of his working hours and he would become more lively. Sometimes he would start humming little songs. This man's voice was getting better towards the end of the shift. I was starting to be sure of this. I have witnessed on other occasions that when people are happy and cheerful, they become more beautiful both in face and voice. I have witnessed a sad and joyless person, no matter how smooth his facial features, his color fades, his face loses its brightness, and his voice becomes energyless and gloomy. So, in order to be beautiful, we had to be happy, and in order to be happy, we had to have inner peace.

Mr. Hüsnü was collecting his belongings and chatting briefly with the people in the room. At one point, he turned to me and said, Mr. Mehmet, we went on a nature walk as a family last weekend. The place we went to is about ten kilometers outside the district where you live. We enjoyed it very much, I recommend it to you too, he said.

Oh really? I said and added. Did you go with a tour?

No, we drove our own car, he said.

Let me ask my wife, if she is interested I can get the exact address and directions from you, I said. I recommend it, definitely go, he said.

I was the assistant manager of the production department of the company I worked for. I had a good relationship with my colleagues. We didn't see each other very often as a family. I especially stayed away from this. One of the experiences I have gained over the years was to keep a distance from my colleagues. Whenever I violated this rule, I found that problems would eventually arise, even with the people I loved the most.

I threw the last items on the table into my bag and zipped it up. I took my coat from the hanger and turned to the people in the room and said, Good evening, friends, I'm leaving.

Good evening, they replied.

I went down the stairs quickly. Working was nice, but going home was even better. It gave me pleasure, especially after work. I had to cross the road to go to the bus stop. They didn't put any traffic lights here either. Even though I sent e-mails to the municipality many times, the response was always A feasibility study is being carried out, a traffic light will be installed in your area as soon as possible. I think the e-mails we sent to them to put a traffic light were not enough. If someone was run over by a car and it was reported in the press and the local people blocked the road or something to react, I think they would then take action.

I crossed the road and waited at the bus stop for about