The Secret Gift

In life we are blessed with people.

In life we are blessed with people who inspire.

In life we are given opportunity. Nobody holds a gun to your head and forces you exceed expectation.

We go through life, days, years and take ourselves to school, training and work without argument.

In life we are inspired to exceed expectation. Despite much speculation, somewhere deep inside ourselves, pressure and belief is self determinant.

I have been inspired and blessed by many people. Rather than compare myself to them, I force myself to rise to their level. They are the proof I need that there is more power in words and actions than merely living passively. They are more proof and evidence that there is more to life and potential is not an inhabiting factor but a driving force.

I am blessed in knowing Megan Hawkins. I have told many people about her. I expect her to be one of the most insightful and exuberant people I know. I dont expect her to achieve high scores, I know she wants to do that herself. She takes the time to listen to me. She has the self discipline to turn off Facebook and bake a cake. Expect that I'm not the only life you will change. Through words, action and belief, she has managed to change my thoughts and insights. Expect the unexpected because despite what she may think or feel, she has changed my life. She has made an uncompromisable difference to who I am and to become.

This is corny and hardly serves justice to how much I look up to you nor how much you have inspired and motivate me and although its poorly written and cannot compare to the way you write its enough for now.

For those who dont believe me, believe Megan's own insight: Veritas


BELIEVE

Self Cleaning Tiles



It takes a certain type of person to know you.


More than once you have mad me angry. Iv seen you as cold and untrue, to a certain degree I resent my callous thoughts. At times I hate you. Its like this dark abyss and all I begin to see is the bad you and the thing you do.


In essence, I begin to be the things I hate.


I have made prejudgments about you, your money, your irrational behavior, your selfishness, your recklessness, your inability to listen, your arrogance, your self-obsessions, your greed.
Only recently have I learnt that I am the kind of person who has to know you.


In one weekend, you have helped me to open my eyes to the kind of person who I should relish in. Removing us from familiar territory has helped me to laugh at your idiocy, and rather than speculate about how you should be, I have come accept that you take pride in who you are. I have never asked you to change. I have never hated what you have done for me. All this time, the thing i really needed to do was understand that you aren't like the 'everyday idiots'.


I am more like you than I let on and it kind of scares me.


But, this is an ode to the dreamer that you are.

Interpersonal Relationships

Ones ability to associate with one or more other people. Those who have boyfriends, girlfriends, romances, mistresses, soul-mates, cohabitation or even casual relationships; you are one of the proud people who 'associate' with interpersonal relationships.
What about those who aren't?

A lack of an interpersonal association can cause a feeling of loneliness. In some ways, everyone is lonely. We analyse situations in order to understand the real reason for association between people.

Is it a question of whether we lack such 'association' or that we aren't given opportunity to experience such 'association'?
I' prefer to believe the second theory. At some point or another, everyone feels lonely. We all want to feel jealous, intimate, passionate and attachment and sometimes lust can get the better of us.

So instead of being diagnosed by psychotic doctors that someone cannot have an interpersonal relationship, opportunity choses to be a stubborn bitch.
Dont forget that everyone wants to be held, fought over, cared for and admired. So dont pretend you dont.

The Chase

A wise person once told me “To assume is to make an ASS out of ME and U”; most of the time this persons actually right.

Life is based on a range of presumptions.
We never really know a definite answer to what the consequence might be. Whether it results in awkwardness or a 'score'. Our assumptions are calculated by how we 'play the game'.

She assumes he likes her
He assumes she'll kiss him
She assumes hes just a friend
He assumes shes screwing with him
She assumes shes just another one of his trophies
He assumes shes up for anything
Should we assume the best or the worst?
Based on assumption, we make decisions. Neither of them is ever clear and most times they might want different things but what happens if they don't?
Essentially, we assume on the basis of the unknown. Though this is true for more than one situation, the chase is a way for woman to test their 'participants'.
Test whether they truly want to play to win you or advance directly to go and collect $200.Woman test their strategy because they dont want to get caught on your house, have to pay up and get no return.

What happens if he wants to make a solid investment? Hes working his way around the board, avoid the ‘mind’ fields, playing his cards right and slowly playing to win you.

A wise person once told me “To assume is to make an ASS out of ME and U”; most of the time this persons actually right.

Money .vs. Shame

A life is most commonly measured by the equities a person leaves when they die.
At the end of one’s life, a person may leave their family with a 2.1 million estate after having worked 180,000 hours in the office and tolerated 62,000 arguments with their spouse.
In the great western ‘pursuit of happiness’, even from birth, we are conformed to believe that the key to benign happiness is a sense of health and wealth. In an evermore consumerist society, the line between enough and excess has been distorted and now, the average person has lost the meaning of true happiness.

Throughout life our happiness is measured by our income, material possessions and objects we acquire over our many year as consumers. If a material possession are considered to be despicable then is the means to which it is measured ‘our spiritual happiness’ not dispensable in itself?

Rather our happiness is immeasurable and only remembered by those to which we have no ownership over and those that are untouchable.
At the end of ones life, they may leave their family with $2 and still worked 180,00 hours of some cotton fields, yet smiled 62,000 times.

Can you truly buy a smile?

Call their bluff. Don’t show anger; they don’t care. Don’t argue back; that’s their fight one. Don’t acknowledge them; that’s what they want. Tonight I have learnt that on court, a player’s emotions are like a second person. This second person is the deciding factor. In the last 5 minutes, when you crack under pressure situations; that is fear playing. A great player will tell you that your biggest defence in these situations is ‘the bubble’. When you play in a bubble; that’s playing with courage. The ability to block out influences is the difference between being good and great. In those last 5 minutes nothing should have changed. I had never wanted anything so much in my life. Eyes for the ball, out for an intercept, up over the shot. So why did I let them get to me? Anger hinders action. In the last 5 minutes, the only player on court should be you. Tonight I learnt that calling their bluff is not retaliating. Had I played by this, we may have won. Had our team played like this, we would have won.

Call their bluff. Don’t show anger; they don’t care. Don’t argue back; that’s their fight one. Don’t acknowledge them; they’ve achieved what they wanted to do. Tonight I have learnt that on court, a player’s emotions are like a second person. This second person is the deciding factor. In many ways this is true in life. Emotions get the better of us. We find that we live our day to day lives out of apprehension, resentment, misery or joy. In the end we all lose. Hide your emotions; don’t let things get the better of you; let them call your bluff. It’s best that these emotions are hidden as a form of defence. People and situations will eat away at you to the point where you act out of fear, not courage. Nelson Mandela once said ‘I have learned that courage is not absence of fear, but a triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who concurs that fear.’ Just as in life and a match, we are all afraid. At one point, you must acknowledge that fear, stare it in the face and walk over it. When your hand is dealt, hold your face. Don’t itch, blink, breath heavier. Call it, check it and then play it; win.

Ever wondered who you’re meant to be? What were meant to do in this life? Times go by and routine becomes a means to an end; driven by our own alter ego, gradually we learn to simply ‘get by’. However ‘getting by’ never seems enough. While on our never-ending searching for ‘enough’, we begin to search for the means; the ways in which we get what is truly enough in our lives. Confused? So am I. So why can’t our so called 'purpose' be simple? What else is there to life? Everything is never enough. Enough, being content, makes a career, family and money seems necessary. Society has this way of playing tricks on you. ‘Consumerism’, consumes us and we begin to blur the line between enough and necessary. Greed consumes the mind like famine consumes a country. Famine, murder, injustice are all secondary to our won wants.

One day we grow up and only then realise that our eyes have been closed; or is this our excuse? There is more to me and my meaning in life. You only need to look as far as a mother with cancer or the orphanages Asia. This need to consume is replaced with guilt. Facing the truths of life and harshness of reality is confronting. There is more to life than wanting more, as others need more. When do I start making a difference and stop making excuses? In the time it takes you to read this paragraph, 318 people have died. In the time it takes you to work out how many people that is per minute; another 9 people are dead. So what’s your excuse?

Huit

In the broad spectrum of human emotion, nothing is as destructive as the emotion of jealousy. Consider anger and upset; these emotions, although undesireable, are not maladaptive. There is no harm in visiting that dark place every now and again or throwing a fist through the air or into a pillow - not only are these normal human experiences, but they are fundamental to our development and essential to being human. Carl Jung once stated, "Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness; the word 'happy' would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness". However, unlike the emotions of anger and sadness, jealousy serves no purpose. Jealousy is no more adaptive or constructive than it is logical; it renders no positive outcomes and is built upon no rational foundation, serving only to deplete our spirits and crush our self-esteem.

Wanting what someone else has only makes us more dissatisfied with what we already possess, and brings us no closer to attaining whatever that magical object or characteristic is. Jealousy undermines everything that we already are, ignoring all the things that make us special and unique; the eyes of jealousy make us blind to ourselves. We cannot possess that which belongs to other people, so why wish to be in someone else's shoes, own someone else's possessions or attain someone elses gifts? And what's to say they don't envy something that you have? We were not made to be someone else, and we cannot be someone else; there is no logic that supports this distressing emotion. In the end, all we can do is be the best version of us that we can possibly be.

- Annonymous

In the great scheme of life we are all a tiny speck. In fact we are a number of small dots; co-existing. Many of us 'dots' will never do anything; become someone. Or so we are told; with little impact on the world, we cannot change the shape and colour of life and therefore provide little meaning to a crowded existence.


So then, whats the point? What happens when our tiny existence becomes invalid?
At the end of the day: every spot is just a speck among many dots. We may not provide meaning or substance but we still manage to somehow co-exist and for some reason or another, that seems to be enough.

One day I lost contact; values, family, ideals, morals, right and wrong. When you’re told by the closest person in your life that they think you don’t love them anymore, what are you supposed to do? Meant to say? Because at the end of the day, did I realise what I was doing? When did it get to a point where normality was blurred? The things which once seemed important to life became trivial and I lost sight of the word importance. I took for granted the importance of surprising them with flowers, asking how their day way, kissing them before bed. Importance now seems to be in my little domain; a room which has become my safety net. Now it hinders me from finding and creating substance.

My problems are somewhat juvenile and irrelevant to the greater good of the world. This irrelevance has created a hole in my house and I have isolated myself so much so that I have lost the meaning of the values trust, honesty and love. I know that I love those that I live with, so why can’t they see that? My issues are no reason to blind them of my love, so the contact I once had is now a void in the contact I have valued the most. Going about your everyday routine, in your everyday mood actually has a substantial effect on those you live with and love. They begin to notice the growing frown line on your head, or the drop of tone in your voice, the way you reply with grunts and pensive laughs. This is not an excuse for growing up.

One day, I will lose all of this; and I won’t be a little girl. The path I have taken recently has made me unconsciously hurt those I value most. So, if I woke up tomorrow and god struck me down with a bolt of lightning, what would I have lost altogether? At the end of the day, importance of love is never been blurred, only hidden from those who need it most.

Custos Morum

Francis Thompson once wrote : “Do you know what it is to be a child?... It is to believe in love, to believe in loveliness, to believe in belief; it is to be so little that elves can reach to whisper in your ear; it is to turn pumpkins into coaches, and mice into horses, lowness into loftiness, and nothing into everything, for each child has its fairy tale godmother in its own soul.” People say that children are the best example of resilience.

They render a spirit, which at one point of another, many of us forgets from within. Children have a strength that older people do not. They simply focus on the beauty in life. As we grow, we become consumed by obligation and things are no longer simple. Like adults, children hurt; they fall over and bleed and miss their parents every time they are dropped off to kinder, but they notice that there is more to life. This resilience isn’t forgotten by people who grow old, it becomes hidden within as they struggle to see the beauty in themselves, let alone the life around them.

Sometimes we can wish too much from ourselves. Along with expectation from others, we adapt ourselves to believe that by simply wishing something will happen or that somehow we will miraculously feel a certain way, our perception becomes disfigured.
A wish to a certain degree can create ambition and desire. A wish to another fabricates the underlying issues which we refuse to see. Sometimes a wish isn’t enough. We’d like to think it is. But a wish won’t miraculously get us a car or a job. We can’t wish that we can be saved. Good things happen to good people. Unfortunately, sometimes a wish isnt enough; it can be the equivalent of an atheist praying to god.

I can’t make things better. As much as I want to, there are something’s out of my control. I can’t make promises and I can’t change things unless you want to. I wish I could help. In actual fact, Id do anything to help, because I don’t know if im the only person who knows you need it. I want you to let me in; to 'pick the pieces up for you'. I wouldn't want to help unless I saw the potential in you. The fact that there is even the tiniest glint of desire to pick up the broken pieces is more than a wish in itself.

WE are afraid of ourselves and the capacity to which unfulfilled wishes can force unimaginable action. We are afraid of the potential to fall short of a wish, or expectation.
Expect this. Your wish is my command.

I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.

-Micheal Jordan

Quinton Fields was a basketball player. he was a son. Somebody's team mate and somebody's friend. I never knew Quinton Fields and guess now I never will. Do you ever wonder what its like if you weren't you anymore? If you where suddenly gone, how would your world react? Whatever you imagine was wrong; there's nothing romantic about death. Grief is like an ocean; its deep and the dark and bigger than all of us. And pain is like a thief in the night. Quite. Persistent. Unfair. Diminished by time and faith and love.

I didn't know Quinton Fields but I'm jealous of him because I see how his absence has effected the people who did know him. So I know he mattered. And I know that he is loved. People say that Quinton Fields was a great basketball player. graceful. Fluid. Inspiring. They say, that on a good night her seemed like he could fly. Well, now he can...

- One Tree Hill

Have you ever wondered what marks our time here? If one life can really impact on the world or if the choices we make matter?

Sometimes in order to move forward you have to go back, in some cases, just a few seconds...

The real danger that comes from loneliness is your mind being left alone, your thoughts crystallize. You can draw yourself farther and farther down the rabbit hole, strange thoughts appear and can soon become the norm. This can be good in a way, you can find out what you believe and think without the influence of “society”, you can start to question basic assumptions about how people operate.

You can, if you observe others, learn a lot. However... your mind tends to grow darker. As socially evolved animals we crave some sort of social stimulation, though the amount differs between individuals....Perhaps there’s such a thing as too much socialization, too much mask wearing because after all with the majority of people we have to wear some sort of mask. Sure it can be extremely thin at times but its still there, weighing on the soul like a lead elephant.

SJ Smith (Thank You Veritas)

I hated every minute of training, but I said, "Don't quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion."

Life is a gamble. You can get hurt, but people die in plane crashes, lose their arms and legs in car accidents; people die every day. Same with fighters: some die, some get hurt, some go on. You just don't let yourself believe it will happen to you.

- Muhammad Ali

My first official blog means I am no longer a blogger virgin. Its taken me almost 2 weeks to work out a name and almost 2 months to initiate the page. One thing became apparent, in the time it took me to start something as small as a blog, is the time I could have actually been doing.

Just goes to show 'facta non verba'
Deeds not mere words.