How is it that man has not learnt, or ventured forth to claim his glory? Daily we are faced with scenario’s that repeat themselves over and over again yet we draw this shroud around us! It is my humble opinion that there are really two main types of people in this world. Those that lead and those that follow. When I say lead I do not necessarily mean ‘Lead’ in the traditional sense altogether but those folk that actually go out into this world and do something. I find it sad that people in general are so conditioned by their circumstances and their apparent lot in life that they do not seek out an alternative or different avenue but rather stay in their ‘comfort’ zone if you could refer to it as such, even though they appear to be miserable.
I say take a stand! It is as simple as making a decision and living by it. We are programed to fail by society and our peers, siblings and colleagues alike. It is human nature to fail, we have all done it at some time or another. Riding a bicycle is possible the most common of them all. You hear people say “If you fall off, pick yourself up and try again” But how many of us actually do that when applying this theory to life. I guarantee you that at least 90% of this world put the bike (obstacle) in the garage and promise to try again when we feel like it, or when the sun is out or possible when no one is around to witness the next fall (failure). This is the very point where that remaining ten percent say, “OK lets try that again!” Of the remaining ten percent five or six percent actually achieve their goal through adjusting their circumstances to give themselves better odds of not falling again. BUT there is that one percent that will ask, why are we riding bicycles when we could be flying or sailing or even inventing something like a jet pack, or powered roller blades. If a thirteen year old can sail around the world solo (2003) on a yacht then dammit! I too can achieve.
And immediately our collective conditioning kicks in and our mind says to us, Ooh! he had the opportunity or his parents had the money or any myriad of excuses appear in our minds eye to justify why if only we had what he did we could have done the same. And you know what I agree with you. BUT when last did you take the lead in your life and change circumstances to suit yourself? You are still overweight, after trying so many diets. Have you ever considered all you need do is to stop eating so much? Your car was poorly serviced and needs attention but you don’t have the money because your boss is a miser. Have you ever considered that you could repair it yourself at a fraction of the cost! Or, get a better job would be an obvious solution. But straight away our mind says to us we don’t have the expertise to service a vehicle or for that matter the tools. So we will sit at home on the our broken couch, bitching about a car service company whilst drinking a case of beers which would have covered the cost of the spares your vehicle needed. Go Figger!!!
The leaders make a plan, they make a conscious decision to better their life, and by this I do not mean becoming an astronaut after finishing primary school I mean planning and plotting your avenue to achieve that astronaut status. If that is what you want to become then their is absolutely nothing standing in your way excepting what YOU place there. We stand back far too much in this day and age, accepting what the world tell us to do. Have you ever considered who it is that is tell us what to do? Their is a distinct barrier with regards to being civil and respectful to others but that does not mean that because the norm is to wear clothes we must do the same, or for that matter adhere to rules conjured up by a society that does not allow new growth or ideas. The Wright brothers were ridiculed prior to their first flight, Alexander Graham Bell was also called a fool for wanting to communicate through a cable over long distances. Just because we can not imagine the technology or perceive the possibility does not mean it can not be done it simply means we have not found a way as yet.
Go out and find your way. A sculptor in Iceland once described her master piece before she carved it out of a solid block of ice. The interviewer, stating the obvious, ‘but it is just a block of ice, there is no image as yet’ was perplexed by the sculptors reply, which was that all she need do is remove the excess ice to reveal the sculpture inside. I think that it is only someone who is totally in control of themselves that can a) make that statement and b) bring it to its expected result. Is that not what we should be doing, removing the excess from our lives to reveal the jewel inside. I hear us say, ‘but how do we know what to remove, and the answer comes blaring forth. How will you know until you remove it? There are a myriad of success stories of people in this life that have a rags to riches story and the one common denominator is the drive to make it happen. Gary player is reported to have won his first golf tournament with only two clubs, a seven iron and a putter. The prize he won... a set of golf clubs. Sol Kersner’s first hotel was a dilapidated hotel in Durban, look at the man now! KFC recipe was marketed to one hundred and thirty two stores before someone bought it to use in their establishment, where is it today? Richard Branson was expelled from school, failed several grades and lost seven businesses before his first success, again I say look at the man now!
How is it then that we remain sheep whilst others thrive. Richard Branson said once in a lecture to his South African staff that if you wish to be successful then your first step is to surround yourself with successful people. How simple is that? All the reinforcing and positive statements are read and recited to us time and time again, a few I remember from my childhood are, ‘Grab life by the horns’ or ‘The world is your oyster’ and lets not forget ‘Every journey starts with a single step’ BUT I implore with you, what the hell did all those mean when you are faced with an issue that seemed insurmountable? And the ironic thing is that we humans have counter sayings for use after failure, like ‘The grass is greener on the other side’ or ‘The time was not right’ and of course ‘Rome was not built in a day’ We of course have varying degrees of pessimism ranging from those mentioned to ‘Well you cant win them all’ which remains a classic. How is that for killing drive in someone who is battling through life? There are no easy answers but what I have discovered is that it is an individual path of discovery. Listen without comment or criticism, watch without ridicule or judgment and then venture forth on your own journey.
People will always say to you after the fact, ‘But i told you so’ or ‘If only you had listened. At this point it comes down to this fact for me, the decisions I make are sometimes researched and sometime not, but this being said I am reasonably aware of the consequences of my actions and also that I do not and can not lay blame at anyone’s door except my own. This fact alone makes me responsible for my own actions and thus I learn on a daily basis, lessons that help me tomorrow. Arrogantly I claim that there is nothing I can’t do and it will only be a matter of time for me to prove to myself that this statement is in fact a reality or simply an illusion.
You need to find a cause or a direction that is not necessarily unique but which ultimately will answer or standardize the reaction to any and every question or scenario. By this I mean having a single goal for everything in life. If your goal is singular there ultimately can be only one answer to any and every question in life, or am I mistaken. Mine is having found a goal that has become my ultimate question in life or quest would be explaining it a little better. Throughout my life people have been banging on my door, telling me that I am doomed and on a road to nowhere unless I follow their ideals, be it work, play or spiritual. So at my own pace and using my limited intellect I sorted through all the questions and listened to most of the answers with an open mind and finally found what I deem to be the ‘big’ question.
“What is the meaning of life?”
And my answer to that, after all the exploring and faulty stepping along the way has to be recognition of the fact that there is an entity with far greater powers than us that runs this world of ours. Please do not let your mind close down here as this is not another ‘I have found God’ story but rather a acknowledgement that there is ‘something’ out there that makes me breath in my sleep, something that originally set my heart in motion and something that caused me to take my first breath besides a doctor slapping me on the bum. So the first step was accepting this fact that we are far outgunned when it comes to creating worlds as we have as yet not discovered where we came from let alone where we are going. We are unable to cure our illnesses and struggle to even understand them. So with this kind of logic I tackled the next obvious step, that being seeking an answer to this question I have concluded is the most important in my life. Having done this for a good many years in a good many countries and through a myriad of different faiths I concluded that very few people understood the question and, those that did referred me to literature that was so outdated I needed a translator to read them.
I concluded that there is ‘something’ that governs our day to day living here on earth and a natural conclusion is that it needed respect and acknowledgement from me in order to start understanding it. You do not swear at your teacher on your first day of school, for then it is a simple deduction that he or she will give you attitude for the entire year and your education will be limited to the basics and failure would almost be a certainty. So here I am today with a yard stick with which to measure my every action. This would include every single facet of my life bar none. And that is, every time I encounter a decision to be made in my life I refer it to my own brand of test. Would I be making progress towards or away from my ultimate goal of ‘God’ realization? If the choice I make right now takes me closer to ‘God’ realization I will gladly make that choice and forge ahead, but if that choice takes me away from my goal of ‘God’ realization then I refuse to take one more step, but rather change direction and start again.
FOR ME IT IS THAT SIMPLE !!!
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