Something every MAN should hear!

Things i wish i knew back THEN!

My niece is entering her teen phase and she asked me a very interesting question recently about things i wish i knew when i was a teen. This made me sit and ponder on lessons learnt from that very testing time when i was a little miss know it all.

I wished someone had informed me:

That i can do or be anything - That there wasn't limitations set by the world for my dreams as long as i worked hard. Oh and that 9-5 was overrated if i got stuck in something that i wasn't passionate about and that didn't get me excited.

The choice is always yours - Life doesn't randomly happen, in the end we choose what and who you keep in it.  In the end you need to take responsibility for your choices, the earlier to start the sooner you will see different perspectives.

Be different - Conforming to the norm is boring, don't try to be who you are not. Be the original you, not a carbon copy of someone else. So many young people try to be other people and in the process loose themselves to the ills of the world.

Never hand over your power or take things too personally  - If you hand it over now chances are you will go through your entire life doing it too. Walk away from the arguments that you don't see fit to be in and fight for the ones you believe passionately in.

Have faith and start believing while you young - The older you get the more you realise God is actually very real and that if you believed a little more in His plan and a little less in your wants, things may have turned out pretty different.

In the end i think life teaches you what you need to know on the journey!

One step at a time

Endless Possibilities

A few weeks ago I attended my Graduation and before the 2 hour procession  I had a chat with a gentleman in a very long line while hunting down our graduation gowns. He was very kind and listened as my nerves got the better of me, he smiled and very confidently said “don’t worry this is only the beginning of greater things”.

A few minutes later gowns in hand we wished each other good luck and parted ways.

Close to the end of the graduation procession they introduced the Doctorate Candidate, to my surprise this was the very same young man that was in the line with me. Upon his introduction they mentioned that he suffers from Dyslexia  and for the last 11 years has been working towards this mile stone in his life, which he reached (with Cum Laude).

The first humble words from his mouth was “without God this would not have been possible” and as I sat their listening to him recall his journey I realised just how right he was because without Gods grace and the people he sends our way at different trying times many of our achievements would not be possible.

This also had me reflecting on the hard roads we often need to take to find ourselves in this world. On what we need to give up in order to move on; on how we sometimes need to first fail and fall in order to learn and rise.

The message to me was somehow clear that in the end its all possible when you believe a little more and push a little harder.

Let them dream, let them live

I see so many parents trying to mould their children into little versions of themselves, pushing their little ones into dreams that they themselves could not fulfil and forgetting that the child needs to find his/her own dreams in this world.

Kahlil Gibran says it perfectly;

Your children are not your children. 

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. 

They come through you but not from you, 

and though they are with you, yet they belong not to you. 

You may give them your love, but not your thoughts. 

For they have their own thoughts. 

You may house their bodies but not their souls, 

for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, 

which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. 

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. 

For life goes not backward, nor tarries with yesterday. 

Kahlil Gibran

So let us not use our children in this life to live our dreams but rather encourage them every day so that they know they can live their own.   

Let us let them dream!