My Reality

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to walk in someone else's shoes? While I sit in traffic in the mornings I do this all the time. This morning I saw a lady sweeping the side walk, I wondered what was going through her mind and what reality she faced. What did she worry about when she woke up in the morning. What she felt as she stood there humbly sweeping the sidewalk.

I realized again I complain too much. I have a good job, friends, family and hobbies. I can afford to express myself creatively and I get to dine out when I feel like it. We seem to be so dissatisfied with our 9-5 jobs, but we forget the person who is begging for one on the street corner. In Afrikaans we have a word that sums it up nicely - onvergenoegd. It is the term used for people like me and you. We are always wanting, always needing more.

Last night my mother called me and told me that the people at the elephant farm is now looking for someone to help them with the elephants (train and facilitate contact with visitors). We know the people and it would have been a perfect fit for me. It would literally be my dream job. 6 months ago I was in town and unemployed. I don't know why she told me this, I've been trying to figure it out, but since 7pm last night I've been looking at my finances and wondering how I can quit my job and take the lower paying job as an elephant trainer and still be able to pay my bills.

I don't think it will be possible. I can't give my car back now and say I made a mistake I don't want it - and I don't think the salary will even cover my payments. I still need to make the payments on my credit card. I've just signed an apartment lease for a year. These were things I thought I needed. I thought I was ready for grown up life, and all the bills and responsibilities that came with it, but it turns out I'm not. Nor will I ever be. I don't want any of this.

It turns out I envy the people who don't have any bills to pay. This sounds sick and horrible, I know. But how I wish that I could just not have these things that I've sold myself into slavery for. I work to pay the bills, which I've created to fill the void. So here I sit silver spoon in my mouth crying over opportunities that I can't grab, because I have too much.

Mr. friendly street vendor friend person, thanks for the flower and the smile this morning. I envy you.

Society

 "It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society" 
- Jiddu Krishnamurti 

We live in a world where a 20 year old boy for no know reason walks into a school full of 6 year olds and shoots 20 of them and 6 grown ups. Where a mother drops her 3 and 5 year old daughters off on a New York street with extra diapers, also for no apparent reason. Where  a 23 year old woman in India dies after a violent gang rape. Where a 10 month old baby is raped by her uncle. We find babies in dumpsters, toilets and left out in parks. Or you can just deposit him/her in a drop box if you feel you can't look after him/her.

How has our world become so negligent of those who are the most vulnerable? The little ones who we are supposed to look after? The world we live in is just getting worse day by day. You can read any news website, in any country, in our sick world and it will tell you the same. The world is full of sick bastards.

I read these articles with tears in my eyes most of the time - I actually don't like reading, listening or watching news for that reason exactly. I can't understand the mentality with which these people operate. The mind of a rapist or murderer is a horribly fascinating thing (with extra emphasis on horribly). Why do people do these things? Is it a sense of entitlement? A feeling of power they get from submitting another person to their will or power?

We all know that the victim is someone's child - but we so often forget that the perpetrator is also someone's son/daughter, someone who also had high hopes for their child. Someone fed that child, hugged him and maybe even loved him. Do you feel failure as a parent if your child turns into one of these perps? Do you wonder where you went wrong? Do you also wonder how his mind now got so bent that his sense of right and wrong is so terribly affected? Does he even know right from wrong? What separates the criminals from the rest of us - or do we all have the capacity to commit horrific crimes no matter how seemingly nice we look?

If we all have the capacity for good I assume we have a similar capacity for evil. So what triggers a person to display either of these attributes? I don't know.

In my first year of high school our principle told us a story that has forever stayed with me. He told a story of two brothers who had the same upbringing and the same alcoholic dad, who never cared much for them or anything in the world. The one brother made a complete mess of his life and also became an alcoholic and the other brother became a successful business man - never drank a drop in his life. When asked why they think they turned out the way they did, both brothers answered "because of my father".

We live in a sick world. Let's try our best not to add grief to it, but to rather add a smile or an encouraging word wherever we can.

Happy Ever After

What happens if happy ever after just isn't? How did they come op with the term? Why would one instance make you happy forever after that? We rely so much on our emotions and what we perceive to be happiness, would we even know what it is if it hit us in our faces?

I love fairy tales, with castles and princesses and a prince who just knows that that one girl is the person for them. They've forsaken all others and will be happy with that one single princess for the rest of their natural lives. Most of the Prince Charming's are interesting characters - not because they are so well developed in the story, but because of their complete and utter dedication to the cause of finding a wife, and not just any wife, that one special princess locked up in a tower, or fast asleep, or under curse by apple. Why so much drama to find your princess? No nice ordinary girls in your kingdom?

I think the reason that girls are so obsessed with fairy tales and stories about princesses is for exactly that reason, we want to believe that our true love is out there slaying dragons to find us and that he will walk through fire to be with us. We face a sad reality when we grow up. Most men aren't charming and they're definitely not knights in shining armor on a quest to rescue you. You'll have to rescue yourself, babe.

The reality of the matter is just that you might be swept off your feet by a charming man - only to realize that he has an ex and a past and he turns out to be a complete and utter ass. No one is unscarred by our modern civilization. Everybody hurts. Everybody pretends.

We give way too much of ourselves too soon and when we do find that one person, who might not be perfect, but he's everything you want, you've already given so much of yourself away to people who were curious about you but never really cared, that you have too little left to give and he's not interested in the little.

How do you convince someone that you will not add to their hurt, and how can you be sure you won't? Are we all just shipwrecks floating to the shore, maybe we'll bump into someone we kind of like along the way, but how can we be sure? How do you know when you have found what you've been looking for?

Today

Today, I will hold my head up and be okay. This is my pep talk for today. I will smile even when my face starts cracking. I will even smile at the lady who almost drove into me and then swore at me. I will stand tall and sit upright, with a focus that I do not have today. I will simulate togetherness. Why? 

Because I need to. We need to keep up appearances, see. We can't be broken in a broken world - no one would accept failure, honesty or hurt. No one will love you if you are not perfect. You have to put on your face and keep pushing. My mom used to tell me that the world doesn't stop because of your heartache or pain. Nothing else falls apart, except you. Oh and don't worry, when one thing goes wrong they all tend to spiral.

We have this strange compulsion to being what the world expects us to be. And even if we simulate it all perfectly, we still end up feeling like crap, because it is all just a simulation. Like a character in a fantasy game, or one in Days of Our Lives. Not real.

But what is real? Can we fake an emotion enough times and make it believable, or even real? Can we keep on faking and eventually believe what we've been faking? Can you get so tangled up in the masks you wear daily that you don't know which one isn't a mask?

“No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true."

- Nathaniel Hawthorne

When will we start admitting that we are all shipwrecks? Of course you pitch up to work and you do what you're supposed to, and you paste a smile on your face cause nobody wants to look at a sour grape, but don't be someone you're not. Still be yourself. Don't simulate a character to live as, you are better than that. You have unique talents, ideas, experiences and thoughts? Contribute!

There's a difference between striving to be better and faking already being better.

Back to School

This morning as I was driving to work, I started feeling incredibly sad that the new school year has started and that all the universities will also be starting soon. I remember my first year out of school like it was yesterday - and I would not trade it for the world.

To have the feeling that you have the world at your feet, you can now do any- and everything you ever wanted to do. It is the first year of the rest of your life. That year in which you make all the important decisions. Whether you want to travel, study, marry, marry rich, just have babies, etc. Of course you can change your mind along the way and all your plans won't work out. But you still have that amazing feeling that you can go anywhere and become anyone.

To have to decide what you will be doing with the rest of your life is a big choice. Will you study to be a doctor or just settle for marrying one? Will you be the next big sportsman or the next best thing to it. The world is full of endless opportunities, you just have to grab them.

I thought about my exciting time as a first year student, little in life has compared to that complete and utter exhilaration. Everything is new and shiny.  But we all move on from there and we find ourselves along the way. We lose some of who we were, lose some of who we thought we wanted to be and change into the person we eventually end up being. We all change constantly, but I think those first couple of years on your own are what forms you most. You make friends without influences from your parents or circumstances. Your choices are based on what you have learnt about the world up until now (which is actually nothing) and you judge according to your upbringing.

As I said, change is constant, and I believe it can be radical too. If you take a wrong turn somewhere along the way, you can always backtrack and start taking the better path from that moment onward, it is never too late to change anything and everything.

I think I will always think about this time of year with sadness and look back and wish that I could go back and relive it all and maybe make less mistakes than I ended up making. But those mistakes made me the person I am today: not always bright, but shiny and full of light.

Giving

When dealing with giving I see myself as a water urn/pitcher. I only have a 2/3/5l capacity and a little tap at the bottom. Should I fill myself up with water and never release some through the tap I will soon have no more space and nothing will get in. Should I as a pitcher/urn have cracks none of the water will stay in me, and I will run on empty, with nothing to pour out. But if I'm a good urn/pitcher and I am filled, I do not let myself overflow, but rather have a positive outflow into someone else's cup who have a less.

Now apply the same to grace, blessings and love and everything you receive from above. You have to give in order to receive. You can't hoard your blessings, you have to be a blessing to others. If you don't have an outflow in your life you will stop having an inflow, simply because you do not have space.

Thus we give because we receive, we receive by grace and mercy. But it is all not about who we are, but who He is. So why shouldn't we give some of that which we get in abundance. A friend told me a story of all the shells on the beach, and how he realized that no expense was spared when this world was created - we receive everything in abundance. We are blessed beyond belief! Our cups really do overflow!

"You prepare a feast for me in the presence of my enemies. You honor me by anointing my head with oil. My cup overflows with blessings." Psalm 23:5 (NLT)

A while back I had a day of intense gratefulness for everything I have been blessed with all through my life. Up to the point where I feel I need to be grateful on purpose. I have recently contemplated getting involved in something like volunteer work, but I have little time available and the time I do have is fractured and infrequent to say the least. As it is with most of my friends in the corporate world.

After rethinking my life and situation - also boys and how I choose to live my life. I have decided to start making some changes. I am not going to divulge to deeply into my plan to give back and live without regrets. But I will find an outflow for my inflow of blessings! Hope you do too! May your cup never overflow!

David

This morning my Bible study was about King David. He was a sinner and a saint. But he was also a hero.

Sometimes the true heroes aren't the supermen and women - they are the severely flawed ones who fall down time and time again, but also get back up - and those are the ones I most look up to. David is such a hero to me, he did absolutely amazing things for the Lord but he also fell down (hard) and his sins are written down for all the world to see and judge. Still he kept singing his song and praising the Lord.

"But you, O Lord, are a shield around me; you are my glory, the one who holds my head high." Psalm 3:3 (NLT).

David was the author of most of the Psalms, he wrote them with feeling and truth, but also with authenticity, remorse, regret, faith, love and hope. He wasn't afraid to admit how much he needed God and how fallible he was. He, the warrior who had slain Goliath and became King, admits to complete surrender to the Lord.

"I said to the LORD, "You are my Lord; apart from you I have no good thing." Psalm 16:2 (NIV).

"And he said, The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; The God of my rock; in him will I trust: he is my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower, and my refuge, my saviour; thou savest me from violence." 2 Samuel 22:2 - 3 (KJV).

Another amazing thing about David's story is how God uses his mistakes. Everybody knows the story of David and Bathsheba. They were punished for what they had done, but God forgave them and a second child was born to David and Bathsheba. This child was not a "loser" or "drop-out" but he became instead the wisest King to ever rule. Solomon. Their union which had started out as dirty and sinful, was restored and made holy by His grace.

I have fallen many times. I have gotten back up, sometimes I am ashamed of all the mercy and grace I have received from God (ashamed of how much I have needed) - sometimes I feel undeserving. I have been healed, blessed, restored and made holy. I remind myself that I receive this not because of who I am, but because of who He is. I do not deserve it, and yet He loves me more than I can ever comprehend. His Love is unconditional, unfailing and never-ending. I do not have to prove myself to Him, and I can't even do anything in return. But because I've been forgiven so much and I receive so much love, I must give as well.

"Have mercy on me, O God, because of your unfailing love. Because of your great compassion, blot out the stain of my sins." Psalm 51:1

Circumstances

I have often times heard people say that we are but a product of our circumstances. In a certain way that statement bears some truth, but only up to a certain stage in our lives. After that our circumstances become but a product of us, who we are and what we do.

We influence the world around us (our circumstances) by how we act, how we perceive, and even by how we fail to act. I also believe that we influence more than we are influenced. I have no scientific basis for this belief, but I still hold it to be true.

I love the word influence, in physics the word fluence can be used to describe the energy delivered per unit area. We should all aim to have the highest fluence rate into other people's lives even if it is just a smile, kind word or a much needed hug.

Your self worth cannot be tied up in your circumstances and your influence in people's lives can be great whatever your circumstance. It is difficult however to attach worth to someone who does not attach it to himself.

We are called to live lives of compassion and service, not indifference and selfishness. But you have to learn to love yourself first before you can love others as you love yourself or expect anyone to love you.

Do we create the moments in our lives or does the moments in our lives create us?