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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Life without any limbs but no limits at all, amazing

A friend emailed me pictures of Nick Vujicic this morning, an Austrailian congenital amputee who leads a normal life, at first I didn't believe them and thought they were photoshopped until I visited Nick's site. Nick has no limbs but goes on to achieve everything else that he sets out to achieve and his biggest goal is to be independent - regardless. And watching his video of his typical day, you'd say he surely is already achieving that as it is.

Then I asked myself a question: with everything that I have and more mobility, why is it that I always put for tomorrow what I could do today. Many of us do that. Day in day out, but Nick is not - he kills it today. We're waiting for the perfect day to come for us to achieve our goals - to start working on them. And that day isn't coming because it was yesterday and the next one is today. We're waiting for something extra to happen before we start working on our goals or living the lives that we really desire - and I'm hurting to be in that league although I'm working hard on it. But Nick doesn't wait for any extras. He kills it. And is leading his life there way he desires and helping others at that. See this video below and be inspired and check his site to very how realy it is.



This video material is not my own and is entirely owned by Life Without Limbs, www.lifewithoutlimbs.org. Visit Nick's site to see more pictures, audio and video clips - and may be even recommend him to come speak at your organisation.

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"Judge of a man by his questions, rather than by his answers." - Voltaire

Personal integrity

I've been slacking a lot on my big dreams/goals. And for some reasons, it's only lately that I get worried about it. Perhaps because my life has reached half-50 and I wonder: will I be able to to do in the next 25 years what I couldn't do in the past same period? The thought races my heart, to say the least. But it all boils down to my integrity. My personal integrity. That I haven't been honest with Izz regarding his committments and desires.

They say the simplest things in life are the hardest to achieve. And it's the simpler goals that I've always had for some time now that I'm not putting serious effort and action behind. And those goals, although small, cost me the opportunity of getting closer to the bigger dreams - and personal triumph (more like inner bliss).

A goal as simple as waking up at 5am to have my 'me' time for 30 minutes - thinking, reflecting, introspecting, meditating, appreciating and laughing at myself (silently of course, lest my wife things I've gone bollokous on this whole 'my enriched life thing' - can inject serious positive energy that can lead to better consistent action. I could shed all the bad acid in side me with that alone.

I think a struggle with making ones actions integral with ones goals is that it's always easy to not do than to do - mainly because we don't believe in the reality of our own big dreams. The incentive doesn't seem tangible. Again, it's always easy to not honour something at its due date and time, because 'it's my goal,I set it, so I can postpone it for later on'.

But at work, if the boss set a goal with strict deadlines for us - no matter how novel and difficult the task - we always deliver, for fear of being penalised and labeled incompetent, with incentives compromised.

But with our personal goals, there are really no visible, tangible penalties, hence the constant procrastination. I pity myself for being in that league - which I'll bade farewell soon. And hopefully, with this expressions, mine will be a changed goals lifestyle with repacursions if I don't stick to it. Ones my dance goes with my internal tune, once the two are congruent, I believe I'll shed the bad load and be happier. Now that's personal, inner harmony. It's integrity.


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"Judge of a man by his questions, rather than by his answers." - Voltaire

Take your relationship for service

In life, anything that gets used (that has utility) needs to be serviced. It needs to be serviced especially to avoid a point where it needs to be fixed. For things that need fixing are broken things. And when things are broken, like your car, they need major major service, new parts and longer work time - and the bill is denting. I wonder then, if relationships, since they do 'serve' a purpose - as in they get used - ever need service. Or whether we wait for a break-down and get reminded that we should have been servicing them all along every so much distance to avoid an expensive and dirty overhaul.

It hit me last morning that relationships, like cars and everything else we use or depend on for our life during our days, need service. And as part of that service, they need energy injected constantly in them to carry on for the next few hundred kilometers before another service.

I was thinking last night about what could make (or already makes) good service for a relationship. I won't claim to get it right. But on recalling my observations from different conversations and go-abouts, I figured the following qualifies, at least, as good service depending on whether the relationship is of lovers or just-friends:

• Going out together. Be it for a walk, eating out, partying, visits and shopping - call it taking out the relationship for a fresh breeze.
• A no-nonesense period, say a week, a month or may be less or longer, depending on where the relationship is. A no-nonesense period could mean that during that period, all the troubles, the baggage, the bad and the ugly (if any) don't show up at the door at all. Only peaceful time gets to dance. Here's a metaphor: When people mourn, they respect that time and keep all the over-excitement and shouts off. In reverse, with a no-nonesense period, all the smiles come out - deliberately. After such a period, you may be so revitalised that there may be no need for going back to square one.
• A nonesense day. All the baggage, as opposed to the no nonesense period, comes out (more like you bring it out). All that which was held inside and hidden and not communicated, has a platform to take the spotlight and shine. Then, as it is about to shine, it gets panelbeated before bed time. No panelbeating, no sleep 'til morning comes. Call it a forced clean sweep - spring cleaning the relationship throghout the four seasons.
• Conspire against monotony. Anything that gets overused in the same way over and over again, bends in a certain direction and takes one dimension. And to bend it back to any other direction, you need to break it. At that point, you may be breaking a once beautifully adored relationship. How about conspiring to break the monotony all the time instead. Otherwise, "I find that we have become boring and I think we need change in our lifes. I've found someone. They make me laugh the way you use to". Ooops! I guess as humans, we are creatures of variety and change, as much as we are of habit.
• Install an external mechanic to the relationship. When all 'shit hits the fan' so hard that egos and personal pride cloud common sense in resolving issues, then take the relationship to the external mechanic who will obviously bring in a fresh and different view on the issue. And from that, things may cool down.
  
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  "Judge of a man by his questions, rather than by his answers." - Voltaire

Procrastination solution, sorted with my grandmother

The answer to my progressive problem of common procrastination, a chronic lifestyle disease shared by so many of my generation, lies where I never thought. With my unsophisticated grandmother. You see, grandma, 'Bamma', as we admiringly being referring to her since we could speak, never procrastinates. She never puts what she could do today for tomorrow. Or what she could do now, for later.

'Bamma' - shangaan for mothers (yes, in plural to pile that respect) - is of a generation that toiled. A nation that got it right when it came to the work ethic, to personal triumph, to meeting those goals, to delivering, to commitment - personal loyalty. The old woman was born in 1933.

I'm not surprised that the old woman wakes up nearly at the same early-bird-catches-the-fattest-worm hour each day (unless ill-health pins her down to bed - genuinely). She often says, "I can't just sit around with my hands and do nothing. I need to do something". More like her hands are itching, that she must scratch them with some chore. Some work.

She is just like my wife's grandmother, Mmalasi, of the same generation, who died three months ago at 97 - born in 1910. She was still keeping her early bird lifestyle and work ethic. She mantained the zero-procrastination, zero-laziness attitude to her last days.

My generation. Me to be precise. I postpone on my big dream today, chronically. That defining work. I put it off for tomorrow. And like grandma always says, "tomorrow is promised no man". And in deed, that tomorrow to assault on my dreams, to put in the work ethic, the hours, the sweat, never comes. Because it is not promised me. Not in the sense that I would die today. But in the realistic sense that what I couldn't do today. What I'm postponing today, I'll just as much procrastinate tomorrow.

But it is definitely promised my grandma because she itchces everyday, every hour, to get hold of something she can work on. She will either be sewing something, grabbing that broom and sweeping up the crab in the yard and more. And it is this sweeping, as I saw my mom sweep this morning, that I thought I should do what Robin Sharma said in his international bestseller book The Greatness Guide: 'Do a clean sweep of your life'.

And that's exactly what I've started doing since I came to the village yesterday. Reflect, intro-inspect, preserve the good, burn the bad, and sweep 'em. Then attempt to duplicate the spirit of the generation of 'Bamma'.

And perhaps I'll start on writing that first novel. Write that business plan on my women's lifestyle magazine. Go on my first international trip. Buy that dictaphone to do research on my novel. Buy that business plan writing book. Wake up at 5am as I always aspired to. Go to gym as much as I desire to. Go on those runs the way I use to at Rhodes. Do that Postgrad Diploma in Marketing Management. Do that MA. Make those calls to lure my first PR clients to my company. In short, to demonstrate some commitment to my best life by doing today, what I could do today. Doing now, what I could do now.

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"Judge of a man by his questions, rather than by his answers." - Voltaire