Getting more personal

I'm happy to announce that I've moved my blog to a new personalised branded address: http://www.izzonline.co.za/ which is right where you are now. The old address will from now on no longer be treated as a live blog and will outdate. In all future visits, please dial http://www.izzonline.co.za/ . Isn't that easy to remember when you need to refer a friend to!

Thank you for your support and I'm busy thinking of more daily writings to put here for the next four months. Yes, the year has gone by just before our eyes, hands and energies. Make sure the rest of it doesn't go by before your very dreams. That will not be good a feeling at the end of the year when your emotions automatically go into stock taking mode and you discover, to your shame, that not much of value has been attempted, done, or achieved in the year that is the 007.

In case you hadn't noticed during July (07), 2007 was the only year in our lifetime to have the lucky number sequence, the jackpot: 7.7.7. I'm happy to announce that I took full exploiting advantage of it as I used it to rocket launch myself into achieving my childhood dream of writing a book - and boy is the book going well (I'm even toying with a plan to self-publish so you can bet it will be on the shelves and Amazon.com, without doubt or rejection slip collection from you know who.

And it is on the 07 07 07 that I laid my first sentence and in fact, created the entire plot and characters of the story. These words sounds vain, but the story and the writing are brilliant. Anyways, this entry was about custom domain http://www.izzonline.co.za/, which is a bit vain itself. Pardon me, for it is rare of my nature.

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Izzonline July compilation

Each month end I'll be recollecting, in compilatoin, izzonline best posts, if not most, in terms of what really helped me get through multiple rainbows of emotions and maze of thoughts. And hopefuly you can cement some of your personal learnings too. On your marks, ready, GO:

Conversation withi Paulo Coelho
Now, what happens Mr Coelho, when you do all the best that you can to be better in your community and interact humanely with others, especially your friends - and they throw it all back in your face.
http://izzonline.blogspot.com/2007/07/conversation-with-paulo-coehlo.html

Beat the path of your heart
Heaped with worry that trickles to our hearts, we fail to develop a sense of hearing the song in our heart - a calling that says, 'beat this path', 'this is your purpose give it your all', 'follow your heart'.
http://izzonline.blogspot.com/2007/07/beat-path-of-your-heart.html

Smiles and laughs half the stress
Take time to smile and to laugh. That's the best medicine for so many inner human malices. When you smile, you're turning a frowned or otherwise indifferent face in to a beautiful emotion mirror.
http://izzonline.blogspot.com/2007/07/smiles-and-laughs-half-stress.html

Be honest with your heart
Better be the best first version of yourself than a second version of somebody else, it reminded me. And with that, I made a pact between my heart (the inspiration) and head (the writer) that you shall write as you feel and think. Not as you read and copied.
http://izzonline.blogspot.com/2007/07/be-honest-with-your-heart.html

Forgiveness purifies your heart to keep more love
Now for you, in moments of challenge, a challenge to forgive when forgiveness is most needed, where do you stand? (And it's most needed when you deny it).
http://izzonline.blogspot.com/2007/07/forgiveness-purifies-your-heart-to-keep.html

We fear a thing called nothing
Fear is pure melancholy and no more. It's a feeling like any other and we can either choose to embrace it or let go of it and just be.
http://izzonline.blogspot.com/2007/07/we-fear-thing-called-nothing-laughable.html

Don't fight your own
And because I was in fight mode, it took me longer to realise that the damage being done didn't justify the fight. That I was eating away at the foundations of something precious, something I could barely be happy without.
http://izzonline.blogspot.com/2007/07/dont-fight-your-own.html

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Be honest with your heart

'Be honest with your heart.' These words rang in my head for the past two weeks as I journeyed through a tasteless cocktail of emotions of joy, doubt, adrenalin, disappointment, affirmation, self distrust, ability, incapacity, excitement, carbon-copying and finally originality. These emotions made up the introductory journey to writing my book. I had it all right, still have, but to get it right I went from corner to pillar then back to corner, and eventually found the centre of my heart. At which point writing became like second nature as has always been with me.

I'm blissful in mood now because amidst that rollercoastering cocktail, which was just foul and nearly made me throw up, I became honest with my heart. I made peace that I can't write like somebody else. That I mustn't even attempt to write like anyone else. Not a carbon copy Izz, my heart would say to my pop encultured mind. Better be the best first version of yourself than a second version of somebody else, it reminded me. And with that, I made a pact between my heart (the inspiration) and head (the writer) that you shall write as you feel and think. Not as you read and copied.

The morale: well, be honest with your heart. Find your true passion, listen to what your heart says is the big picture, then let the mind, albeit guided by the heart, plot the way through the maze that is life or that project you started. It is much easier that way unlike doing what everyone else around you is doing. Novetly is the way the heart always feels. Carbon copy is always the way of the mind, which is other peoples heart's DNA - so rather let the mind hear out the heart for once, ok, may be twice, even thrice won't hurt.

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Don't fight your own

The only best people you have are those that your heart chose to attach to. And even more specific, your life partner or your very best of friends. We get pissed off sometimes by people's behaviours and repetitive mistakes, but that all combines to make us what we simply are: human. And to fight our own, to fight those that you hold closest to your heart is not really doing much good, except when our motive is to better things up. But in most cases, we fight to protect our point of view or just to prove another wrong.

I once got caught up in a series of irrelevant fights that were extremely fruitless. And because I was in fight mode, it took me longer to realise that the damage being done didn't justify the fight. That I was eating away at the foundations of something precious, something I could barely be happy without. And it was all because I wanted my personal, individualistic prefereneces to prevail. No, it shouldn't work like that. At least ideally. It should work on a compromise where possible.

Fighting your own is in fact fighting yourself. Because those we love are a reflection of us in so many ways. As varied in characters as we may be, the gist is the same or similar at least. That's why we tick with some people and not at all with others. The distress of fighting your own is not worth the distraction from the nurturing of the relationship and the destruction of the trust and reliance. Tolerance, tolerance, tolerance. Your own people or partner, may in fact be the one running for your rescue when you're in deep waters unable to ride the raging high tide. And then they pull you out.

In short, embrace your own and find ways that are more amicable to deal with the others shortcomings and to manicure some of your narcistic preferrences. After all, you yourself are not perfect, you're just human. Don't fight your own.

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Good to be alive

still breathing

!!WOW!!

good to be alive

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Small, constant actions turn dreams to reality

Thoughts alone, as grandiose as they may be, don’t get us closer to the reality of our dreams. They don’t make us work the daily goals and walk the talk. But thoughts are important as the springboard because they’re the ancestors of action, although having thoughts doesn’t guarantee action. It’s only through action that we truly do get closer to our dreams. Almost to say that actions are catalysts of turning dreams into reality.

Without taking action on what we have thought, we will continue to sell ourselves short. We will continue to be drifting ever distantly from our greatness. I know with me there are many thoughts, and repetitive thoughts, and less or at times, zero action. When that happens, and this is always a guaranteed outcome, I feel at my lowest – because I set my thoughts higher and my action mojo low or not set it at all. And I think that even for others, these causes a lot of the life’s depression valleys that we often find ourselves deep in their shadows.

If it is your thoughts and plan to go to gym to shape up for the summer, what is stopping you? Thirty minutes, or even 15min on the treadmill workout in the gym can provide some good deal of fitness (and cut back fat) as well as leave you less stressed by lightning you up.

If it is your plan and wish to wake up earlier in the mornings, say at about 5am, and you always find the courage to bang off the alarm than to step off bed, why not try to just get out and splash your face with cold water before hitting the kitchen for a kick starting cup of coffee? I bet you won’t go back to lounge in bed – at which point we always fall back into tempting slumber.

If it is your plan - which you always miss - to pray more often, why not do it whilst busy with something else or even whilst walking or driving? Almost like have a conversation with God as you would with a friend accompanying you in a car or walking to lunch. And it doesn't have to be a brilliant speech, but just your heart's prayer in your own words - a talk with a Friend. Still have excuses to miss it?

If it is your dream to start writing a book, why not just start by some little action: writing down the chapter names, designing the characters and laying out the plot? In fact, why not just write your first sentence.

The list is endless, and the first action, as difficult as always thought to be, is very rewarding. Instead of always wishing it, better try and do as little as you can manage of it each day. And you don’t have to always get it right – or for it to even work the first time. It is that we keep doing it that it turns into a habit, and such habits will truly make us.

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Beat the path of your heart

As I was completing chapter one of my epic, the protagonist was respected with much adoration and in fact, applauded with tears, when he insisted that nothing is going to stand in his way to 'beating his path'. His heart, like yours and mine, cried endlessly as it longed to be fulfilled by being freed to pursue what it desired. For when we acknowledge and grant our heart's their deepest desires, we grant ourselves freedom and peace. We become happier human beings.

But it's not easy listening to the soft whisper of our hearts amidst the clutter and noise in our heads. Heaped with worry that trickles to our hearts, we fail to develop a sense of hearing the song in our heart - a calling that says, 'beat this path', 'this is your purpose give it your all', 'follow your heart'.

The protagonist in my first chapter, like very few amongst us, was courageous enough to proclaim his hearts desire and back it up with action. He wanted so badly to feel the joy of his heart that his heart told him, 'I've been looking forward to this moment'. In him, ironically, the search was on by his own natural joy to find him. but he was hardened by life's daily sorrows to be able to take a moment and listen, and in fact, answer the call.


He is now a happier man, with even bigger challenges ahead of him, but he is no longer afraid for his heart is leading him, he is following. His mind is learning not to be hasty and faithless, and with that, he journeys forth and runs towards his fears to beat the path of his heart. To walk the isolated path of his heart, but with joy draping his life.

We should - instead of going with the flow that, in fact, is the flow dictated by others in our lives and even worse still, not known to us - follow our hearts and we will surely find the path, lean as it always is, fulfilling.

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The universe is the servant of your wishes

As I'm battling to get through difficult chapter one of my fourteen-chapter book, I introduced a passage in one of the conversations in it. The passage is a long-standing natural truth that holds anywhere in the world (not that I've been an inch off South African shores). It's the principle that for a person who truly and hard enough, from the floors of their heart's, wishes to have something or be of greatness, the universe, with all it's many known and unknown mystical energies, will 'conspire to grant your wish'.

That truth, that principle alone, tells us that each of us can craft their own path to greatness with just a little bit of effort one day at a time for the universe's energies are not reserved by trucks of cash by a select few - they are accessible to everyone.

Effort and action, in my books I must confess, equals an invite for the universe's energies to come lift you up to heights that you yourself choose. It's an invite for these energies to circle around your heart to make it stronger to get closer to your dream. To metamophose your mind into a divine capsule that produces ideas you never thought would pass through your head. To transform your body into a stealth to guard it against weakness and distractive desires that may waiver your focus or put you off action from the dream.

But it is up to each one of us to make that one decision - as repetitive as we may make it (but continue until we get it right) - to start. To start to run our brush strokes on to that blank canvass. Until such a time happens, the powerful known and unknown mystical energies of the universe will not come to our support. And our dreams will remain just that: poooof... dreams.

As the many elders before all of us have said: "if you believe in something hard enough, the entire universe will conspire to make it happen". So do believe in that dream of yours hard enough, unquestionably and obsess on the action that has back it up, and watch the wings that the said energies will provide: wings of the mind and heart. And from that, comes never-thought-possible reality like the beauty of the first chapter of my international bestseller epic (ok, a little bit over shot but you get the point: believe hard enough).

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Happy birthday tata Nelson 'Madiba' Mandela

It is my grandest and most humbling wish to meet this extraordinary human being. In fact, an ordinary man from the Eastern Cape village who dreamt of doing extraordinary things, and went on to change the world - forever. On his 89th birthday, may Madiba be celebrated by the world and that all of us learn the best of human qualities in us that are crystal-clear reflected in tata Mandela.

No doubt about a ripple he had that started lasting long after our generations. No doubt that his magic, as ordinary and humbling as it is, will go on as an eternal legacy.

Your's is a most adored, inspiring and fulfilling life most of us only dream of, but through the humility, understanding, tolerance, smiles, and forgiveness that you teach us each day you do so something extraordinary, one like me is much grateful and wish for the world to bow and learn then go on to share with anyone willing to receive. That way, all of us can become extraordinary human beings in our own right, like you have been Madiba.

Links of a celebrated life:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KfH727Rcvg&mode=related&search=
http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2148834,00.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8r2Osw5Hxk
http://www.news24.com/News24/MyNews24/Your_story/0,,2-2127-2128_2148512,00.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2xGDr_P_uc&mode=related&search=
http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2147996,00.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hz4oPzzXMU&mode=related&search=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqAhjT_d8fQ&mode=related&search=

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Smiles and laughs half the stress

The best thing, the best unique defining quality of us humans is the smile. And with equal measure too, the laugh as part of our nature is also definitive of what we are and why we are so unique in the animal kingdom - and survive without forseable extinct. These two qualities alone, although they are not, by default, traits, truly keep us going and safeguard us from exploding, what with all the rage and stress that swirls inside us sometimes. So make sure you treat these two qualities today as best as they do deserve to be treated. Use them.

The obvious dawned on me the other evening after my area had gone without water for more than 30 hours, and as if that was it, electricity just dimmed out - there we were in the middle of the most powerful capital city in Africa without the basics: water and lights. We were reduced to the dark ages, as one neighbour put it: "back to those days again hah." And with him, my wife and I chuckled, finding the whole situation funny. We laughed at ourselves that we live in the capital of South Africa in a 'lifestyle estate' (so the sales pamphlets claim - I still need pratical proof), but alas, no basics.

My point is simple: take time, during difficult situations, to step back and laugh at the whole thing for a moment will you. And as everybody around you is stressing and falling into instant, but self-induced depression, smile at them. Offer them a free smile and watch what happens. The whole situation starts to look different.

Take time to smile and to laugh. That's the best medicine for so many inner human malices. When you smile, you're turning a frowned or otherwise indifferent face in to a beautiful emotion mirror. That emotion will be reflected in the person you are in contact with. It's reciprocal. And if not, smile anyway, it does your heart and face good.

Laugh. Laugh and laugh a lot. Laugh silly at the problems that you have. Not that laughing as a natural process will naturally wipe away the tears or the problem. But can you honestly tell me that it doesn't make it seem smaller or make the mood lighter! For me it does. Laugh with those around, you're flexing your heart's muscles when you laugh. You're exciting it.

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I am what I am

I am big, big as the Himalayas where my fathers played seek and hide on;
I am big, big as the Kilimanjaro that my forefathers medidated on;
I am big, big as the fists of the freedom fighters that fought on;

I am beautiful, beautiful as the sun kissed dunes of the Kalahari;
I am beautiful, beautiful as the moon whose light caress the valleys of St. Lucia;
I am pretty, pretty as the lilies that drape the curves of Tanzania;
[read the rest here]

PS: I've just launched a new blog in the izzonline stable, a poetry blog, an inspirational poetry blog. So do check it out here to see my very first inspirational poem on the Africa, the beautiful father, the lovely mother of all continents.

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Forgiveness purifies your heart to keep more love

Forgiveness, amongst many of us, doesn't make for an easy quality to posses. But what is a good quality if you can't - or better yet - don't want to practice. A trait which when faced with the most difficult of interactions we hold back, brand new in our hearts, without bringing it out to feel the elements? May be most of us do forgive in our days. We forgave that 'miserable' fellow who has done us wrong. But the true test of the depth of our forgiveness quality only truly comes out when those who've hurt us the most ask for our forgiveness or more commonly, their hearts cry out to ours to be caressed again as human hearts, that we give one more chance for love prevail. It's when it's most difficult to forgive that we most need to.

Dr Martin Luther King Jr. said it better: "The ultimate test of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and moments of convenience, but where he stands in moments of challenge and moments of controversy."

Now for you, in moments of challenge, a challenge to forgive when forgiveness is most needed, where do you stand? (And it's most needed when you deny it). I wonder where I'd also stand. Will I stand on the side of my ego? Will I stand on the side of hatred - allowing its acid to consume me one piece of my soul at a time?

It's a very difficult and tricky situation to forgive those who hurt you the most in today's world, especially when you have to forgive them once again, and the third time too. People, including some voice in you, will label you a doormat. But I managed. I forgave at least two people who hurt me repeatedly, and the feeling now: Pure Relief. My heart is relieved of a burden that was pulling and dragging me down each and every day, silently and unbeknownst to me - until a scratched a bit deeper.

Forgiveness, difficult as it was, has had a mutual benefit for I'm definitely a better person now and my heart is a house of love. And hatred, once more, has been denied recognised residence in this heart. It will enter only by invasion and such invasions will also be fought out.

In your heart, and in the most meaningful and genuine of ways, forgive someone - regardless of the events leading to the pain. It will only make you a better person and grow the love in your heart and lessen the acid of hatred in it - something with the potential to consume you.

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Tolerance may reduce conflict

Today, people would do anything to defend their own point of view. Their individual opinion. Personal opinions are good because they maintain individuality amongst us, but at the same time they also tend to manage to find a way of dividing us, at which point we start harbouring bad energy against each other. As much as they contribute to diversity, individual opinions, especially if fought for with tooth and nail, can make us feel sidelined if not accepted, or at least acknowledged by others.

There are times when one has to fight for the right of their opinion, and when one has to let it go. At best, let the grey area be the common opinion. We have to learn to allow compromise to prevail, especially in situations where opinions clash with the potential to ignite personal or commune conflicts. What that means is that when engaged in personal or commune fights over whose opinion must go forward, we must teach ourselves to see the line at which the need to be more tolerable and less defensive starts.

In many relationships, it's often the respectable and non-aggressive individual opinions which lead to cracks that may start conflicts. Especially when both parties refuse to be content with tolerance, whilst busy fighting for 'my way' under the disguise of the 'the right way'. In that situation, try pulling back, being less defensive and in fact, tolerable and see what may happen.

The wise are those who accommodate the ideas and views of the others - and those who do not engage in costly personal wars motivated by egos.

Of course, there're times when one has to go over the nile to protect their opinion, even if it meant with their last breath. This situations, in my own 'personal opinion' - which I'm not going to defend - is that they are very rare. At most, when you become less defensive, the other party sees no point in fighting a person who isn't fighting or defending themselves for that matter. Think of the non-arms engagements of Mahtma Gandhi and Dr Martin Luther King Jr., they demonstrated more love and tolerance of their 'enemy' than picking up destructive arms.

How about being known for fighting for your opinion and defending it rarely, meaning other people understand that the only time you fight for it is because you know dead sure your opinion is for the general good of everyone and the only 'known' solution to a problem! I must try that the next time I'm in a deadlock-confrontation.

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Coffee cups and life

Came across this interesting parable through the stumbleupon tool once again. I enjoyed reading it and I hope that you can also take away from it as I did.

A group of alumni, highly established in their careers, got together to visit their old university professor. Conversation soon turned into complaints about stress in work and life. Offering his guests coffee, the professor went to the kitchen and returned with a large pot of coffee and an assortment of cups - porcelain, plastic, glass, crystal, some plain looking, some expensive, some exquisite - telling them to help themselves to the coffee.

When all the students had a cup of coffee in hand, the professor said: "If you noticed, all the nice looking expensive cups have been taken up, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it is normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress.

Be assured that the cup itself adds no quality to the coffee. In most cases it is just more expensive and in some cases even hides what we drink. What all of you really wanted was coffee, not the cup, but you consciously went for the best cups... And then you began eyeing each other's cups.

Now consider this: Life is the coffee; the jobs, money and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold and contain Life, and the type of cup we have does not define, nor change the quality of life we live.

Sometimes, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the coffee.Savour the coffee, not the cups! The happiest people don't have the best of everything. They just make the best of everything. Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply. Speak kindly.

Obtained from: http://space.businessballs.com/index.asp?bawl=222
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Conversation with Paulo Coelho

Not exactly answered my 'direct' question wherein I asked at which point does one stop being nice and becoming a doormat or laughing stock - this was regarding the degree of tolerance one must reserve especialy when interacting with others. Nevertheless, Coelho's message is insightful (probably because I'm a fan). See Paulo Coelho's response below and my email request:

His response email

Dear Israel,

I write from my life and am inspired by all that is around me. My readers are part of my life and a main reason I continue to write, therefore I must express my gratitude to you for your continued support. Continue to follow your dreams, wherever they may lead you. The great blessing of life is... the existence of tomorrows, and ...having dreams to realize. Everything in life has its price. This is what the Warriors of the Light try to teach. A Warrior takes every opportunity to teach himself. Faith parries all blows. Faith transforms poison into crystal clear water.

Paulo Coelho
www.paulocoelho.com
http://www.wariorofthelight.com/

My request email:

I am great fan, I must say that the insight that you impart through your books is invaluable and I make sure I retell the story to my non-reader friends so the lesson can ripple.

My question:
Most of your teachings are about righteousness and how to follow one' s heart. And more so, the respect of all beings around and within us. Now, what happens Mr Coelho, when you do all the best that you can to be better in your community and interact humanely with others, especially your friends - and they throw it all back in your face. Remember that there are many people out there who don't see the value in values that govern human nature and interactions.

There are friends, whose friendships we value a lot, but they do things that hurt us and knowingly so (lately I told myself that I will do what Jesus did: "forgive them for they know not what they are doing", but won't that make a martyr of myself? And Robin Sharma says that a martyr, and this is also a general definition that I share, is one who tries to achieve something of some sort (mainly good) and gets terribly burnt whilst at it, and most of the time, loses their own strength that should sustain them for the next fight they probably could have won.

I'm still young, but to date I've forgiven many people, close and strangers to me, after they'd hurt me too bad. And my question is, if a line must be drawn at all, at which point can it be drawn? Will our hearts tell us? Will a higher energy impart such judgment into us giving us wisdom to do it in the least retaliant or belligerent manner?

I'd gravely appreciate your prompt answer on this, in detail, if you can spare a moment please. PS: Great unconventional work with The Witch of Portobello. I enjoyed the teachings, especially, of the Bedouin.

Although a great in his own right and extremely busy, Coelho manages to steal a minute to interact with his readers - that alone makes him good times more in what he does. Many busk in the success and avoid the 'small people' in life.

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Impossible is nothing

I rarely become a fan of TV ads. At most, whilst I use to spend more of my life in front of the telly, they annoyed me because they'd break the attention to some interesting movie or reality show of something of some interesting sort. Ad time was surf time for me. My thumb would frantically press the remote in search of channels not on a break. But there's this one particular ad I like. Especially considering my current state of mind. The ad, so simple, yet its message so captivating, is the Addidas ad. It's a solo feature of David Beckham, the guy whose name and wife is synomous with international football.

Why is this ad interesting? Well, essentially, David Beckham speaks a bit about his challenges and running towards his fears from his teens to become the icon he is today. He fearlessly declares that 'impossible is nothing'. And that alone, is the part that got me so hooked on the ad - I'm now searching for it on the net (if anyone has, throw it my way).

That may just be an ad by a clever copywriter with intent to bait thousands of customers and haul out their money (which, for Addidas, is obviously not impossible). But it's reality that the stuff we fear the most in this world is the stuff that we tell ourselves that it's impossible - we and those around us label some of our dreams impossible before we even go for the kill. We fear to try it out lest we fail and the result: wallowing at the bottomless pit called sorrow. In fact, we were born to take up on challenges face on (or which ever way you prefer).

We were meant to walk to our greatness not because were're running from mediocrity (that which we ran from, runs towards us too - that's how fear operates), but because were're answering a call to greatness. And impossibilities encountered along the way, failures that beat us down the ground along the narrow paths, only mould and teach us to take a different approach or persist more and more.

Impossible is nothing, I came to realise that truth first hand this past weekend when I set out to do what I hadn't done before in my entire life: dry fast for a flat out 48 hours (2 days) without food or water. Zilch of that. And with doubts and thoughts of impossibility in my mind, I thought I'd fail. But I did it, amidst aching muscles and splinterring headaches. And during that fast, I had inspiration to create and start writing a fable which will go on to change peoples lives all over the world. I plan to finish writing it end August and soonest a publisher is found, release it early next year.

"Impossible!". Errr, what's that, some urban legend perhaps?

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The source of today's personal and commune conflicts

I was experimenting with my stumble tool of stumbleupon.com, what an amazing resource. The websites and blogs that I've discovered since trying out this tool have let me to bits of extra useful knowledge. And a moment ago I came across this, which provides deep insight into the personal and commune problems experienced today:

The paradox of our age

• We have bigger houses but smaller families;
  more conveniences, but less time.
• We have more degrees but less sense; more knowledge but less judgment;
• More experts, but more problems;
• More medicines but less healthiness.
• We’ve been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble in crossing the street to meet our new neighbour.
• We built more computers to hold more copies than ever,
  But have less real communication;
• We have become long on quantity,
  but short on quality.
• These are times of fast foods but slow digestion;
• Tall mean but short characters;
• Steep profits but shallow relationships.
• It’s a time when there is much in the window
  But nothing in the room.
  
  His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama.

Think upon this if you may.

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Exhilaratingly spooky and freaking dumbfounding

Those are my words describing my mood this morning after realising that I’ve made my first step to greatness by leaping or rather rocketing out of my sheepskin that I’d worn for over a decade. A decade of mediocrity and sorrow, and of course, mixed with fun, growth and love too. The challenge that comes with this infinite liberty will be extreme, but I hear a voice inside me say that it’s “okay”. That “the internal elements of such extremes are only there to guide you and mould you into what you’ve always desired to be”.

Immediately after seating at my desk here at work, I called my wife to share with her my ‘super natural’ anti-climax - (‘super natural’ because it was so difficult to arrive at this starting line), I’d believed that the start will be super natural. That some super natural force will come to me to help me get to the start.

But what I shared with my wife on the phone were news of a simple yet beautiful feeling of peace and quietness from within me. That the battles I’d embarked on for over ten years have now summed up to mean something: an arrival at a start called ‘the responsible path to greatness’ – and a least travelled one at that, for many do still wear the sheepskin that I’ve just shed (although it was shed over a longer time and I still have to peel off the itsy bitsy itching and annoying remnants her and there).

Let me not say too much of what happened in the last 24 hours but that on trying to fish meaning by sharing with my wife my insight, we both deduced that I made the call during the hour of 7am and I’d planned to dry fast so that I can shed off this sheepskin for good and commemorate a deeper connection with the joy, peace and birthpower from within me – the fast is on 07.07.07. The metaphor in that was oceans away from my mind and heart, but my wife simply said 777 is conventionally a jackpot.

There you go – 07.07.07 is the starting line to the thin path to greatness and infinite joy for me and I plan to share every moment of that with people along the way!

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Eight principles of fun

I struggled to stay awake as much as I battled to sleep. I was (I'm) busy siphering through my mind to see if there're any good ideas that I can run with besides the other stuff that I've managed to not achieve by far. But my effort-muscles are getting stronger each time and I'd believe stronger on the right thing/focus/path.

As my idea-fishing in my head was going on, I diverted a bit and stumbled upon an interesting site with some amazing stuff that captures quite a number of that stuff which really matters but always put on the back burner. I'm happy to share with you the Eight Principles of Fun - exciting multimedia presentation. Check them out at this link: http://www.eightprinciples.com/ and remember, do share with a friend and contacts.

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This too shall pass

Life gets busy. Life gets tough. And in the midst of it all, we get hurt by various things in our lives. Be it because someone we love and respect has let us down, loss, temporary setbacks, sickness, disappointment or dreams and goals that we keep procrastinating – all this can and do make up part and puzzle of our days.

During such soul tormenting times we just feel less the marvels that we truly are. We feel that life and our fellow humans are unfair and we lose the hope that got us this far and through other bumps in the past. But if you think of it, whatever significant bump you find yourself against, it will pass. Like others before it, this too shall pass.

In 1998 I was briefly hospitalised after my body was arrested by a rare seizure of some sort. The acute pain put me in some state of near-paralysis and I couldn’t walk – although I could try, I caused myself monstrous pain. Got to hospital with my mother, who seemed to be in equal pain at the view of her son’s anguish, and I was told that I would never father a single baby in my life. That whatever happened, has managed to deny me the opportunity to reproduce.

As you can imagine, the pain grew a hundred-fold as it was elevated to emotional torture than just physical by the Cuban surgeon’s sad breaking news. To say the least, I was the saddest man on earth during that period – or so I thought.

After some days, I was home recovering from an equally painful operation, I was told by someone very close to me that what happened means I must just give it up. That there isn’t a point in living any longer. At that moment, when I heard those words, I swore to myself that I will make things great for myself. That this too shall pass and I will make things right. The person who told me to give it up would be shocked to learn that the bad patch did pass indeed, although at that period I believed it never would. And today I enjoy the beautiful love and smiles of my two wonderful daughters, princess Talia and princes Nalika.

So, whatever you’re going through today. Right now. Just know one thing for sure: this too shall pass.

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We fear a 'thing' called nothing - laughable hey

Yes, fear stops no man. Fear, because it isn't a physical blockade standing tall and wide like the Great Wall of China, doesn't, in fact, stop any person - we stop ourselves. As people we choose to believe that fear stops us from doing this and that, from achieve our heart's desires. Fear is pure melancholy and no more. It's a feeling like any other and we can either choose to embrace it or let go of it and just be. The saddest thing is that after our brave, wonderous and adventourous child days, we become encultured, as adults, into embracing, and in fact, instilling fear into our once beautifully bravehearts. If you think of it, what we fear is in fact not there. We fear a 'thing' called nothing (wuuu, wuuuuuuuuu!) - isn't that laughable!

I feared so much to put down the first word of my novel - for years. The reason I feared was because I felt somewhat that I wasn't good enough. That I couldn't cut it (although no one told me this, I told myself that and it became a self-fulfilling prophecy). That I had to wait for something extra first to come and attach to me so I can become greater, a genius with some holy manna-type inspiration falling into my head to knock me into a 'capable' genius. But I thought hard and long about it. Searched deep and thorough.

The truth hit me: that those who put down their first words weren't geniuses. They weren't hit by some manna-type seed from up above. They started because they chose not to judge their future based on learnt and self-imposed inhibitions. With my deep-search, I realised that what I most fear isn't there. There is nothing. Just a smokescreen of melancholy in my mind that I invented over the years as life knocked me left, right and centre (and down too). But the only person that can knock me up is me. And with that, the first paragraph to my most debatable, bestseller novel was cast. And alas, fear, as I'd imagined, is nothing but a coward I invented. It wasn't there to stop me.

The reality of the situation is that everything else I need, every single resource that I need to sojourn into my dreams and capture them is already in me. It was there the moment I was born - just like you. Great people came to this earth like you and me. With no clothes, special hammer and chisel, etcetera etcetera. Just the natural resources inside each and everyone of us that we choose, which in turn assist us to either seize the moments in our lifes that come as windows of opportunity or to look fear in the eye (what eye?) and show it our heels.

David Taylor asks in his book, The Naked Coach: 'Can you walk into a maternity ward in a hospital full of newborn babies and honestly point to me the ones who are failures?'. I'll leave you to answer that one.

Perhaps we can both agree that our failures are learnt, so much as they can be unlearnt, if not, perhaps they can be used to inspire us to run forward, for if we've made fear this much strong in governing our lifes, then its anti-thesis, Courage, isn't getting invited to the party by us. How about the instant fear spookily cuts in, we invite Courage to come to the stage as well?

Remember one thing: What we fear is not there. We fear a 'thing' called nothing.

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The law of karma - good comes back to good

You know what, life is beautiful when you take care of the small things. The small things that matter that is. It makes it all worth the while to walk this earth amidst the trials and tribulations that instill shiverous fear in us. On 25th June I wrote an entry called "Say hello to someone different today and tomorrow". That stuff isn't bullshitism. That stuff about remembering your friends and thanking them for being such. About warming someones heart with a good but genuine gesture of love. About remembering the people who helped build your character along the way, in their small or big ways, and saying to them "thank you". Because the truth, the undeniable - albeit somewhat ignored truth - is that as you walk this earth as the person that you are, you carry with you in your character the marks of those who participated in crafting you. Or to be more specific, they participated in helping the genious and greatness in you come to dance.

Why am I saying it works and it's imperative? Because I tried hard as I could to live up to it. I did say the good hellos, I helped the colleague, the stranger, and I appeased and in fact visited and lunched with at least one of those who had most hurt me. And believe me, the calls I made to the teachers in my former schools and my university touched hearts - and the reciprocating "thank you, you made my day" humbled me more than it did its receiver. And I was surprised that the receivers said that at the drop of our telephonic conversation, they have a special, long-waiting call to make.

All this beautiful karma tapestry is simply explained by what I came across on Deepak Chopra's wap on my phone, chopra.com, wherein it is quoted as 'Spiritual law of the day': " The Law of Karma... Every action generates a force of energy that returns to us in like kind. Choosing actions that bring happiness and success to others ensures the flow of happiness and success to you."

Go start a revolution. Or is it 'loveolotion'?

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Understanding discipline in order to be disciplined

"Discipline is a necessary spell we create ourselves to focus our energies on what is the right thing to do and is also important - then doing it," Izz.

Discipline is a very significant word in the human vocabulary. From a community point of view, it makes us live together in harmony or at least aspire to. It makes people behave in better ways that acknowledge the need for common existence - without discipline, everybody would do as they please and somewhat, a chaos point would be reached pervasively and our relations with others would be a mess. But my interest in this word at this point is more on a personal level. Personal discipline. It is this, albeit not alone, that makes great people that: Great People. That makes succesful people a success. That makes lovely kids lovely. That makes the alchemist, a master. That makes you and me marvellous in our desired ways or just downright mediocre - depending on which side of the descipline fence we choose to stand on.

I've chosen to stand on the committed side of the descipline and do what I set out to do - I try to make it consistent. I really try. And boy is this tough. The hardships on this side of the fence would make one swear it's not worth it - that one should just be on the lounging side and just throwing up their feet and waiting for life to happen whilst embracing mediocrity (we do embrace it by virtue of not choosing to be great).

But I can't pick the other side of the fence - which I lived at for long enough and all it's done for me was play games with my soul and live me right where I was since choosing that side many years ago. I wonder which side you stand on. The committed side of the discipline or the lounging side (which can be chosen by virtue of not choosing the other).

Courtesy of dictionary.com, I pulled out the following meanings of the word discipline:

• Training to act in accordance with rules
• Behavior in accord with rules of conduct; behavior and order maintained by training and control
• Trained habits that separate the wheat from the charf, whilst keeping the charf as that: the charf (my own meaning)

What I like about those meanings is that they echoe what we all know for sure: that discipline, because it gives us so much more than it can ever take away, comes with training. That for us to be disciplined, we need to train ourselves to live our lifes in certain ways that speak of greatness, and oppose mediocrity.

The best part of these meanings is that we can set our own personal rules to live by, whilst adopting the universal rules of successful and great people. At best, we will be disciplined if we have set ourselves a life's vision and mission. In that way, we ensure that what we do daily is getting us closer to our vision. In other words, we live the mission of our life - and if we're not, we know that our discipline is lounging and we will become mediocre people as we watch our dreams wallow in the lost wind.

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Focus is important when catching dreams

This past was a very productive weekend. The post effect of productivity is a lighter heart and clearer mind. And that is embraced too, by bliss and less soul torment. On the weekend, I cleared some of the baggage that inhibits me toward an action-oriented life. For I had my many goals and dreams, which I wanted to make real at once with one energy. But on some spontaneous, albeit significant, and rare conversation with my life partner, I was told unapologetically that I waste so much energy shooting at many a star instead of concentrating it first at one star. My wife simply told me: "focus on your biggest dream that you had for a long time, and that is writing, which you're good at (she's nice to me, I know you may think differently)."

When I went to Rhodes University, after hearing of it by pure chance in some paper ad ('best journalism school in Africa' - it screamed) whilst in that back-of-the-world village, the goal was one: Go learn how to sharpen your writing skill for straight four years - and when you finish, write that killer-award-winner novel. I got there, and realised they don't teach you to write novels but rather to write (journalistic) - and the choice is yours what you do with that.

So, with my wife's weekender words in mind, I got reminded that the top of my dreams list was always crowned by one: Write a damned good novel. And I caught a wake up call that I better refocus and waiver away from some other somewhat good but distracting brand new dreams (put them off and start on this one biggest dream first). It's good I had that came-natural talk, which made me realise that I was starting to stop to see the bull's eye and my heart's appetite wandering about unguided.

Nothing wrong with focusing on many dreams, but if one of them is not taken serious enough with the laser attention it deserves, how come any of them be alchemised to reality? Think of the imagery of the alchemist. He needs to put one raw iron at a time into that furnace. For each of them needs enough heat to give in and be moulded into masterpieces.

So it is with that insight that my focus will be heavily on writing, sharpening and mastering this skill as I work on my novel and/or other books. In fact, I was already on the right way with my thoughts on two books before this weekend even cut in. But it was only yesterday that I bought a novel called Wizard of the Crow by Ngugi wa Thiong'o just to oil and rev up the machine.

If you aren't catching your dreams well yet, if you can't alchemise them and turn them into reality, how about you refocus and go big on that one long-standing dream that's so close to your heart? Would that be a bad idea? I'm trying it out.

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