Making Dreams Come True

Success in life is hardly an attribute of talent but an ability to chalk a dream and work about it twenty-four hours a day and seven days a week. Success is a product of perseverance, devotion and imagination.

The road to fame is open to one and all. No single person can ever be its sole occupant. Most people whom society later worshipped were icons of total failures in their initial ventures. This list includes Edison, Einstein, Lincoln and Gandhi amongst others. All these people were driven with one goal - a passionate madness to achieve their cause. They shared intense commitment and fascination about their preoccupation. They knew that initial ridicule is part of any story. Each of them-faced difficulties that could have broken any mortal's backbone but they survived because of belief in self and because of the confidence and goodness of their cause.
In life, as in death, what is important is time and time is an extremely limited resource. For time, the President of the United States of America and the beggar that crawls on the road are equal. Time also stands as the only resource that God provides for free. Any free resource is liable to be misused.

To succeed it is important to realize that time can not be earned by not going to bed but by ensuring that you do your homework for the day. Neither should a frosty January morning or a scorching May afternoon be the cause for you not doing what you have planned to do. Success is an adventure - infinitely rewarding and hypnotizing. You cannot achieve it without valuing time. When you start rewarding self-every moment as a gift, life shifts its focus from waste to continuo improvement. And when that happens, success becomes your mistress.

Let the World Know Your Goals

There is a crazy assumption that many people make with regards to the execution of their goals. They keep their goals closer to their heart, closeted in the comfort of enjoyable body temperature. They work hard, sometimes sincerely, but generally secretive hoping to attain their dreams.
Is it a good practice not to involve people in your goals? Is it because of lack of trust in others or because of lack of trust in self? Do secretive maneuver generate greater confidence or greater comfort? Perhaps there are no clear answers. However, one thing is clear that there definitely is an element of doubt or suspicion in people who do not share their goals.
The process of hiding anything is difficult. It forces a greater consciousness and suspicion in human character. There is a continual uncomfortable feeling causing one to believe that somebody is following you. There is a strange fear of sudden exposure to a mocking reality. There are unnecessary doubts.
If you suffer the tendency of hiding your goals or intentions, then check whether it is helping your stand or harming your resolve. If you are capable and it is not your fears that force you to play it safe, then aren't you wasting your resources in the wrong direction?
Let the world know what you want. It will help you to put in your best and make the maximum use of time. Strike at tasks with lightening intensity, without fear or consciousness. Sincerity in your desires will soon show. However, do not make life difficult by worrying about the rewards at the moment of action. Just strike. And when you strike, let your mind know nothing but the target. Concentrate like a corpse -- do nothing else but the task at hand. Sincerity in your actions will soon mold into rewards. If you can do the basics right then there is no way in which you can suffer or have any grudge against fate.
Coming back to the original point of letting the world know about your goals. Will you be able to concentrate on work if you are keeping your goals twenty thousand leagues below the heart?
Is anything that stops you from concentrating or putting on your best worth your company? Why not send this limiting factor to your success to the grave?
If you can be earnest with your resolve and decisive in your action, then the best is bound to follow you. Is not that your real goal?

Generation Gap

When I was young, I had the firepower and the arrogance to ignore the advice of my parents. I believed that parents had become pessimists by years. They had seen a little too many colors of life, and turned a recluse. They seemed to irritate me - always repeating their talk as if truth and experience were their bastion. I would always feel irritated that my parents never gave me a chance to speak my concerns and whenever I forced them to hear my opinions they would laugh and ignore. The result was that I stopped caring for their advice whether or not it was sincere or practical.
As years flew by and I entered forties, I realized the golden truth in my parents saying. They were gone by now and I missed them badly. I wanted to be scolded and I repented having taunted them for their slow demeanor and practical submission to reality. Since they were gone, I was left free to advice my children. I worked harder to advice them - nearly everything, which I had heard from my parents but which I did not implement myself would be part of my lectures. When my children would not listen to me, I would get irritated - more so at the fact that they are going to suffer my way. This thought would suffocate me. I would then try to force change on them and perhaps turned more of a dictator. I found my children running away from me and today I am pained when they talk to strangers and silently ridicule me.
If only now aged and ignored, I could travel back to the days of my youth, I would realize what a generation gap means. For each generation, it is important to explore life in its own way. No matter what suggestions or advice is forced, teenage and youth is meant to be its own airplane. The only way this bubbly-phase of life listens is by becoming a friend, by letting them have a feel that while their excitement and ideas are valid there may be many more ways to complete a task. Without advising, a cooperative involvement goes a long way in strengthening relationships. Parents who could be a friend to children invariably find parenthood easy. They also don't have to worry about generation gap!

God My Best Friend

Religious books and leaders of faith all have a well-defined image of God and generally each of them argues to surrender everything on the altar of sacrifice. Being materialist and confused, and therefore ambitious, I have a slightly different reason for faith in God.
To me, God is a friend who helps people to define and refine their belief systems. God symbolizes to me the ultimate power watching my deeds (or depending on the frequency, misdeeds!) and yet not making a public mockery of my mistakes. His authority and subtlety of expression allows me to dispense half-hearted promises till those promises lose their mettle or till they turn firm and become my resolve.
God is my perfect friend, a listener with infinite patience, who never interrupts my cribs how many a times I might narrate them. He bears all my agony in all those small and big moments of suffering. God knows, just like I know, that my crib is against myself, against my ability to complete the promise that I make. Sensing my own unpolished desperation, God leaves me alone - never answering my irritation at His seeming unresponsiveness. As those moments of doubts (when my statements change like whirlwind) wither away, time tells what a fool I have been.
Yes desperation, dejection, humiliation, and temporal loss of hope occur to us all. My belief in the friendship of God ensures that I am not alone in those tender moments of doubt, insincerity, and insecurity. Need I ask more from any friend?

Connection of Fate with Parents

I am a firm believer in the concept of fate rewarding life. While hard work is important and planning is a must, I feel a bit of luck is important to color our fate. To me, fate is the effective amalgam of what happens to us as a result of all our actions and beliefs.
Fate, I believe, is both pre-decided and continually being created. The pre-decided part of fate, to most extent, stems from our parents or guardians. As a child, the values I developed stemmed from the environment in which I lived. The most important element of the environment that children experience is from their parents.
The state of one's parents, the material possessions they have, the emotional balance they maintain and the cumulative happiness they share decide the net environment at home. The value-system and the aspiration-index of a family are also defined likewise. As a child, I had like any other child, but limited choice in setting the agenda. My initial growth and development were not really in my control. My tears, as much as my laughter, were a result of my parent's attitude, their limitations, fears and concerns. To some extent those initial days stoned my character - optimistic in public and critically evaluative and terribly bore in private.
When I recall my childhood and as I try to experience the pleasures and pain of growing children, it becomes evident to me that the ambitions which a child develops are often a reaction to the inspiration and dejection experienced in early childhood. By the time, a person realizes what he or she wants, fate seems to have turned a stone. An illusion dawns that one has turned too old to change - at-least the innermost joys and concerns have bonded the basic framework of one's character. Sometimes, I think, this is caused by a choice-less birth in a family entrapped in its own story.
In retrospection, I think, the only way I can change my fate is by going forward and positively participating in the fate of my own children and the people who value my opinion. In return, I guess, as gratitude, my fate shall move my way.

Say No To Excuse

It is not very difficult to find an excuse. Anybody who tries can always find a valid excuse for not completing the assigned task. At most times, it does not even hurt and the judge does not seek any further explanation.
Excuses are part of human heritage and have continued both as tradition and as fashion. The rich and the poor; the weak and the powerful; the dictator and the peacemaker; and the doctor and the patient are all martyrs of excuses. People have got so used to excuses that they have benchmarked their expectations after discounting the initial excuses.
However, it needs to be asked who gains when precious time is spent in creating innovative excuses? The answer is nobody. The horrible truth, on the other hand, is that excuses snatch from us the opportunity to become a better human being.
Excuses begin by shirking work and end in fearing that even if tried the work shall not be done. The greater one gets used to making excuses, the more impotent he becomes to change. Gradual desperation builds in the system and this with time enflames the self-pitying spirit. Soon the excuse-maker feels despondent, miserable and worn out. The relations also start getting impacted. People who do not want to waste time shirk from continuing relations with Mr. Perennial Excuse.
The worst phase in a habitual excuse-maker's life occurs when excuses have become established in the physche. The person becomes afraid of being exposed. He turns a perennial defensive-crib. The result is that people lose whatsoever interest that they had in him. Mr. Perennial Excuse is now a loner -- a certified accredited loner.
Check if you are also Mr. Perennial Excuse. Is it not an unnecessary fight to be unnatural? Why are you running away from life? Life is not an excuse. It is the wagon of celebration. Success and failures are part of it. Be frank and admit the truth. The day you do so excuses will be a dead phenomenon.

Charging Hope

To feel better, people try different stunts: change the color of curtains, the direction of object placement, and friends. However, it is important to realize that you are not going to get any better by decorative changes. What you need is something greater, something stronger, and something eternal - such as changing the color of the filter using which you see things. What you need to invest on are the thoughts that make you feel better and thoughts that let you grow confident and speak straightforward.
You need to make a stand and consciously work to break the wall that dams the natural enthusiasm of the heart. You have to let the heart gain control, conviction and strength. A cheerful and vibrant heart makes a sincere and productive mind.
A cheerful heart requires a commitment to move out of the small transactions of the day and enjoy life with the limited things that you have. When you become committed to live the small moments, the larger moments order themselves. You start relishing life and its bounty. You find happiness and hope itself becomes a friend.
However, how do you generate hope? Simple. You have got to sincerely believe in yourself. Always tell yourself that tomorrow is going to be your day. Finally, when sure of what you want and why you want, as a trick, you can still go ahead and change the color of the curtains, the position of objects and if required your friends. Hope may get cheated and visit you sooner!

Trying to Cheat Hopelessness

Hope to me is a treasure that can unlock any difficulty. However, I must admit that I am human with my own share of questions, doubts, fears and concerns. I have only by experience, especially caused by failures and the episodes that I want to forget, realized that it is difficult to remain hopeful all the while. Yet, what fun would life be if you cannot be charged with hope?
I struggled a lot to find an answer and though I have still not found one, I have found a workaround. It is a funny way to cheat hopelessness. I have made a compromise to provide hopelessness room in my space but at a time that I wish. It was decided that whenever I work, dream or talk with other people it shall be hope that serves as my companion. Similarly, whenever I sleep or am vague and non-committal, it is hopelessness that shall play the shot.
Now, whenever I talk with other people and whatever transactions I encounter, I bask with hope. Hopelessness returns but when I don't need it. I am working hard these days to graduate into the next phase of life when I could charge hope to kill hopelessness. Till that time, it is the conscious commitment not to fret in the company of other people that charges me to enjoy life. Any other time, I let life be natural - a mix of imperfection and confusion bonded by hope and beauty!

Learning from a Child

Have you ever noticed the intensity and energy that surrounds a child? Is not that electric? As we move into the third millenium, which promises to be the millenium of hope and intellect, it will become more important than ever before to learn from children.
The strength of children lies in their quest to learn. They are never tired of asking basic, absolutely elementary questions. Till the time the thirst for reasonable explanation of questions is not satiated, children do not stop repeating their questions. They never give up. They ask questions again, each time with as exciting a resolve and shine in eyes as the first time they asked that question.
The reason why children can ask any question zillion times is both fun and the desire to learn. Every child enjoys repeat explanations and variations in tone and pronunciations and different explanations of any content. Children do not cram things but weave patterns that allow them to learn the learning style. Besides the fun that is generated in repeat asking of any question, children can repeat their questions because they do not have anything to defend. They are not adults with half-understood ideas and a cent of a desire to apply correction.
Children do not have established filters of mannerisms, common sense or frustration that force them to pretend as socially acceptable. They are simple and sincere and have a straightforward objective that is to get the solution to their questions. Since they are not afraid of any retribution or harm and since their supposed reputation is not at stake, they ask questions, which the average adult discards as silly and elementary.
It is unfortunate in a sense. Children will not suffer if they do not get the correct answers or if they do not understood the answer. The adult, however, will definitely suffer and may end screwing his happiness. He may lose his job by not understanding issues (which at most times can be corrected by asking repeat questions). If the adult is fortunate and does not lose his job, then by not getting the correct answers he definitely loses the potential to rise in life.
It is never too late to be like the child. Like children enjoy the sunshine and carefree spirit. Greater still, learn from children how to enjoy asking questions. Don't ever give up till you get the answer. The third millenium belongs to those people who can explain the answers.

For a Nine Nanosecond Fame

Some people nurse the powerful belief that fame lies in doing the unbelievable. They push themselves to the ocean to prove their beliefs and perform all sorts of acts that could gain publicity, power or social (non)-acceptance. To achieve fame, some people will run nude on the road while other may marry under water. Some socialites will organize the best party of the century while politicians will generate media outrage with needless hunger strikes. The idea behind each act is to gain instant publicity -- nine nanoseconds of fame.

In a rapidly deteriorating value system and in the absence of true leaders and saints, life in the present age of consumerism is becoming more depressing and paradoxically exciting then what it used to be. Normalcy is boring and, therefore, simplicity is out of fashion. Innocence is passe and the know-all-do-nothing excitement is the in-thing. Naturally, spending a whole life to achieve small tasks such as discovering a new molecule or building a world-class educational institution is pure intellectual talk.

An age of spontaneity and madness longs for instantaneous recognition. Naturally, nine nanoseconds of coffee-table talk in the sweet garb of fame helps a life well-lived!

Why Kill Yourself?

One day I decided to kill myself. I don't know what made me make that decision but I was sure that I had had enough of this world and that it was time for me to transgress to a better world.
After making the decision, I was curious to know why do people kill themselves. Actually their reasons for committing suicide were not important to me but still I wanted to know how many people felt the same. It was a Sunday morning and I went ahead reading the newspaper, perhaps the last of my life. There was an interesting Ad in the newspaper about a suicide prevention group called "Why Kill Yourself". I picked up the phone and dialed their number. I knew I was sure of my decision, but I still wanted to know if anyone had any logical arguments against my decision. The phone rang several times and I heard a recorded message, "Good morning! This is one of your friends that you have never met. We are really interested in talking to you and about your reasons to die. Unfortunately we are closed for the weekend. Please call us back between 10 A.M to 4. P.M anytime from Monday to Friday. Bye."
I burst out laughing. I could not control myself. Here I was, about to put a gun on my head and pull the trigger and they tells me to call back between 10 A.M to 4 P.M on a week-day. Then I walked to the mirror and stared at the reflection. The reflection spoke to me, "Look, you can't get the solution to life before 10 A.M in the morning or after 4 P.M. in the evening, and never on a Saturday or Sunday. Why don't you hang on for a while and see if the world has any more laughs to offer. Don't cancel your trip to the cemetery just postpone it. And who knows tomorrow you may get more opportunities to laugh."
And that's what actually happened. I discovered that there is more to laugh about than to cry. After-all the world is a colorful asylum, where the wise are locked up and the insane are running free. Why not I turn insane and live and enjoy life!