A Must Read
A story is told of a man who once prayed to God. He fell to his knees, shut his eyes, opened his heart and with his hands in the air, he prayed to God every single day for 50 years. Each time, he says the same prayer: “Please God, let me win the lottery”. Lo and behold, an angel goes to God one day and laments, saying, “My Lord, this man has prayed to you for the past 50 years, why don’t you let him win the lottery?” Can you guess what God said?
The lord answered, I would love to, but he has never even bought a lottery ticket >
Funny huh? At first glance, most of us might be quick to brand this man as unreasonable but the sad truth is, most of us are not any different from him. Every single day, we pray, we hope, we complain and we lament about our situations, about what should have been or could have been, about how live has constantly screwed us over and over and yet each time, we choose to remain in our comfort zones. We seem so determinedly unwilling to take that extra step, make that live changing decision, put our shoulder to the wheel or even as much as take a peek through the window of success.
We have become but perpetual dreamers, too scared to be awaken from our deep slumber. Too scared of the uncertainties of life. And each time the alarm of reality begins to dawn on us, we struggle, mustering the last iota of strength left in our bodies to hit the snooze button and reluctantly return to our dreams. And so this unending vicious circle continues, dreams unrealized, potentials unnurtured, talents deeply buried and lives lived without purpose.
But if you can dream it then you can do it.
In fact, it is good to dream and we all should. But at some point in time, we are going to have to wake up in order to realize those dreams. There are a few of us who have enough will power to wake up every morning, polish their shoes, put on their coats and with a bag in one hand, embark on a relentless journey in the pursuance and development of their dreams. Of course life is not fair, it never was and will never be. But while it may be true that some people are born with a competitive advantage, the good news is, we each get to write our own stories. To be honest, I am not a fun of quotations and sayings but this old Latin phrase is quite compelling under the circumstance:
This translates roughly into “Every man is an architect/artisan of his own fortune”. We live in an ecosystem, constantly interacting with each other and hence it becomes inevitable that the course of our lives will be influenced by others. But I do believe that ultimately, the overall outcome rests on our able shoulders. The key is in getting started. But it does not end there, consistency and persistence in our efforts is required if we are going to make a breakthrough in building our dreams. It’s like a good friend of mine once said, you just need to get tired of poverty, wake up one morning, look yourself in the mirror and say to that young man or young lady: enough is enough.