“There is nothing like a dream to create the future.” – Victor Hugo
As a child we often use to imagine that we were someone or something in life. We use to pretend and play for hours that we were either doctors or lawyers or teachers, you name it we were it. I for some reason always pretended to be a teacher. I use to take all my reading books and handed it to my pretend class. I use to mark their work with a red pen, I set tests and all the things a normal teacher would do in their daily lives.
As I grew up however all this pretend play became a distant memory and later disappeared. I matriculated and started studying law, but for years I was very restless, both in my studies and the work I was doing. Something was missing. The company I worked for went under and we all lost our jobs. I was devastated. I had a lot of study debts to pay and no work. In a desperate attempt to see if any good will came from it, and to keep me busy I offered my service to the church to collect the monthly donations and contributions from the people. I ended up at a ladies house who changed my entire live. She was the Head of Department of the Afrikaans Department of the School where I became a teacher a few months later.
She set up an interview for me with the Headmaster. I was very scared the first time I stood in front of a classroom of children, but deep down in my heart I suddenly remembered what I use to do as a child. I dared to pretend I was playing school again. I ended up teaching there for almost seven years at that school from that day forward. All because I unpacked my dream.
Teaching was in my blood the thing I was made for but it took me a long time to realize it. Life had to first walk a different path with me to prepare me for my greatest reality.
None of our dreams are too big to become a reality, but for some reason we stop dreaming when we reach a certain age, and then fall into a rut. We become scared of our dreams, when actually they are the things that guide us in our childhood.
Most of us however pack our dreams away and never look at them again. Then we ask ourselves why are we unhappy. This because we don’t follow our inner guidance that was given to us a children.
We don’t do the things we are talented for and we don’t use the gifts God gave us to make us successful in our lives here. Everything that you see around you today was once a dream of someone who was not willing to give up on it.
Reach out and unpack your dreams and live the life your were meant to have.
Comments Off
When we think about death we think of it as the end of life as we know it, and yet this is the beginning of freedom. When we die our souls are freed from all earthly things that keeps us captured. We are responsible for being prisoners of our lives here on earth, because we are forever chasing after more wealth in our lives. We never have enough money.
We are often convinced that once we have a lot of money we will be happy, but is this really true or is it a false elusion that keeps us from being prisoners in this world. If you have to die today are you happy with what you achieved in life, or was your life just a rat race chasing after riches? I recently suggested to my dad that he and my mom must take sometime off and go overseas. He told me that he can rather use the money in the bank in a better way. Sadly if I look at his life he has millions of dollars to show. All of it safely tucked away in a bank account, but he has nothing to show for the life he lived. He chased after money all his life never to have enough. The sad part is that when he passes away his wealth will be left behind for others to enjoy.
I cannot help but to ask myself what life is? My husband and I travel a lot. We go out of our way to spend time with the kids and take them on overseas trips. Matthew is three years old and he has been all over the world. I know he might not remember it but we have the photos that we can show him and we always go back to places we enjoy. Yes we are not staying in a three story mansion or driving a Bentley but if I have to die today I hope that my children will remember the time that we spent together as a family, something I never had as a child. What I remember of my childhood is my father being a frustrated man always too tired to spend time with us and always shouting and screaming at us.
How many of us are actually living a life where we are too busy chasing after material things and not actually seeing the brighter and more valuable things in life? What is more important to be remembered as being rich or to be remembered for the person we were.
We have just celebrated Christmas and we are now standing at the dawn of a new year. Maybe in the New Year we must chase after family time and freedom to live our lives and enjoy and be grateful for what we already have instead of chasing money and live a dying life.
Comments Off
One of the most important things I have learnt in life is that if you do not have a strong foundation to build your life on everything around you will crumble. This foundation is layed when we are young children with the morals and standards that we receive from our parents. This gives us as parents a great responsibility to teach and guide our children and I do believe that there are some of us out there who do not realise the responsibility involved. It is almost like we are handing our children the blue print and building instructions to build them a future when they are bigger.
When they grow up however it is their decision whether they are going to use the blueprint or not, and then if they are going to listen to advice or not. There are so many of us who are blaming our parents for the way we were brought up. It is their fault that we made the wrong choices, but if you sit back and look at your life for a moment one sometimes realises that they gave us the blueprint and we were the ones who changed it. We also like to please our parents and sometimes choose the careers they selected for us just to find out that we are not happy and that a big pay check is not always great if we are miserable in the work that we do.
My parents were both teachers, but my dad hated his job and he always told me that if I go into teaching he will disinherit me. So what did I do I went to study law and soon realised that, that was not quite what I had in mind. I was struggling with the whole concept but getting a big pay check when I became a big shot lawyer kept me going. There was just one little problem my goody consciousness kept on telling me that I was making a mistake. One day I went to see a lady from church and we started having a conversation. I was studying part time at that stage and was looking out for a job closer to home. She them told me that they required an Afrikaans teacher at school. She knew my parent and that both of them were in the same profession. I told her that I cannot teach and then she looked me in the eyes and told me it is in my blood. I was born with it. My mother had a great reputation in the teaching profession. I took up the challenge and the courage and went to see the headmaster. He interviewed me and a few days later I received a phone call that he is happy and will give me an opportunity to teach at the school.
I found the career I was good at and I loved it. Because I loved my job I did not mind giving working long and hard hours. I could not wait to get to school in the mornings, and the fact that I disappointed my dad did not matter that much. My dad was not disappointed in me at all when I eventually got the courage together to tell him that I was teaching, because he could see a twinkle in my eye and a change I my life.
If I had no blue print in my life and I did not build my life on the morals and standards that I received from my parents I probably would not have succeeded in life, and I am not saying that I agree with everything they do, we cross swords very often about certain things, but what I do is also use the thing that I fail in to teach me something. And because I am willing to take life as a learning experience I gain a lot of value and my foundation are getting stronger and stronger every day. I get so upset with my brother when he blames my parent for the position he is in. They just gave him the blueprint and he had to lay and build the foundation, and although we as parents have a great influence on the lives of our children and we are responsible for them and their up bridging we must also allow them to work for what they want instead of just always taking responsibility for their mistakes. One can lead a horse to water but you cannot make the horse drink.
Comments Off
By orsillam | 17th Jan 2008 | Filed under
GoalsI recently a movie about a lady who got diagnosed with a brain tumor. The doctors told her she had three weeks to live. She had a hard time accepting it and understandably cried a lot and blamed God. She also phoned her sister who was only interested in her own life and did not bother to listen to the lady.
This lady had a special book that she kept called her possibilities book. In this book she had pictures of things that she wanted to achieve in life and since she only had three week to live she decided to follow some of the dreams in her book. She went to the bank withdrew all her savings and went off on a great adventure. It took the possibility of dying that made her realise that there is more to life.
This made me think. If it wasn’t for the fact that she was dying she would have never followed her dream. How many of us have dreams that we paste in a book? Once in a while we look at these things but never actually go out there and do the things we so badly want. Why must we be threatened by death before we start to live our lives.
We so often save up money for when we go on pension or work ourselves into a coma to achieve great things like living in a mansion or driving a nice car, that we forget to live our lives. What if there is no old age, can you honestly say you lived your life fully if you had to die today?
We often measure our achievements and our success to the standard of other people and then once we start comparing ourselves with others we see ourselves as under achievers in comparison to them. But what is the measure of success? I heard the tale of a man telling this story. He said he was standing at a railway station waiting for a train. As he looked up towards the escalator a very large lady was coming down. He gathered that she did not travel a lot because her luggage was old. Next to him on the platform was another couple that made some rude remarks about the lady. She heard them and he could see in her eyes that she was hurt by these.
Why do we compare ourselves to others? God created each and every person in his or her own unique way. We are all perfect, but by comparing us to others we seem to miss our perfection. God’s soul lives in each and every person. By judging and comparing we set our-self human standards and we are losing sight of the greatness that God created within us.
We all live our lives chasing and comparing ourselves to the standards of others instead of living our lives to the standards and capabilities that God has given each of us individually.
We are all unique in our own special ways. Uniqueness that is beyond comparison. We each received various talents all to fulfill a special place on this earth and to live our lives to its fullest.
At the end of the movie the lady realised that she was the only one that could make her possibilities reality. She was misdiagnosed but instead of going back to her old life she change her possibilities into realities.
What is it going to take for you to change your dreams into realities
Comments Off
We are entering what for most of us is a well deserved rest. The festive season seems to put everybody in a mood of giving and gratitude. We give to those who are less fortunate because it is Christmas.
We are in a spirit of happiness. We shop and buy gifts for our family and friends, we leave to go on holiday. It is the time of year that people look forward to the most, but it is also that time of the year that we need to look back on the things we have done and take stock of our lives.
We look back on the things we have done and then set goals and new year’s resolutions to change the things we are not happy with. But how many of us actually see these things through. I take myself as an example. Every year I promise myself that this is the year that I will be top fit and achieve all my goals. O man and I start off with a bang. I exercise and cycle and before I know it I am back into my old routine of not having enough time to achieve these goals.
We walk the same path over and over again, and always end up at the same place. I cannot help but to ask myself why? Why at the end of the year am I all for it and when push comes to shove I end up where I started. We get frustrated with our current situations and stagnate in our lives. We live another year to survive and end up setting goals for the next year just to forget about them as the year progresses.
The only way to change the world is to change ourselves. I remember when I was younger it felt like everybody blamed me for the problems in their lives like it was my fault things happened and then I realised with a great shock that I was doing exactly the same thing. I use to blame other people for my problems, it was their fault that I rolled my car that I couldn’t cope at work and my relationships with my loved ones was on the rocks so to speak. It was only when I realised that the only person I can change is myself that things started to go my way.
We all so badly want the people and the circumstances in our lives to change and we get frustrated if they don’t. It is because the key to change is within us. We must look to the inside and change the things there that are causing the blocks to achieving our goals and ultimately our destiny. If each person just takes stock of his or her own life during the festive season we open ourselves to change. A whole new world awaits us. God told us that we must first remove the rock in our own eyes, before we attempt to remove the splinter in our brothers eyes.
World peace begins at home. Maybe this year we must make the entire year a year of festive happenings. Instead of just giving presents to someone because it is Christmas maybe we should give throughout the year to say we care.
May 2008 be a year of love and care throughout the year but also a time for change not in others but a change in ourselves.
The only way to change the world is to change ourselves.
Comments Off