An inspired life is a passionately lived life. I aim to educate and inspire using practical, empirical and spiritual insights with occasional food for thought.
Twitter: @lessonsilearnt
The story of the pearl is quite an interesting one. Pearls are formed from a defense action (adaptive
immune system like function) to a potentially threatening irritant such as a parasite inside the shell or an attack that injures the tissue of a shelled mollusk. The mollusk then creates a pearl sac to seal off the irritant and the membrane deposits or secretes layers of calcium carbonate over the irritant. This process is repeated many times until a pearl is produced and this happens over a couple of years. Perfectly round pearls are rare to find and so are fine quality natural pearls, which are deemed rare jewels whose values are determined in the same way as precious gems subject to size, colour, shape, quality, surface, orient and luster. What is the point to the story of the pearl? Life is not much different from the story of a pearl. Not every high flying successful person has had it easy sailing to be where they are. Most have grown through life by creating counter measures, defense mechanisms and immune systems to irritating situations, some even painful and
threatening. Every difficulty and challenge is an irritant that needs to be covered in a pearl sac with secretions of positive words and encouragement until it is totally covered up and a pearl comes out after a while. There are business empires founded on difficulty and irritant issues on someone's personal life or on society in general. It is how we look at things that determines our destiny. If an irritant is something we cannot get over, it can pull us down, but if we can get over it and cover it with our zeal and passion for life and overcome it, we will rise and create something of more value. How do you overcome irritants, get the right input into your difficult situation, especially the positive kind. Get the right speech on your tongue and you will rise above it. Remain confident that you will overcome and believe in yourself and you will become a highly prized pearl after you have engulfed that irritant. When people see the result of your private fight against odds, adversity, difficulty and battles you face in life, they will only admire the value they see without knowing the struggles you have been through and the time it has taken for that value creation process. Nothing of sustainable value happens overnight, black gold (oil) develops over years, diamonds are a result of rock, carbon extreme heat and pressure and the pearl is a result of years of fighting an irritant. Keep calm and create value for yourself.
Oprah Winfrey once said "Be thankful for what you have, you'll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don't have, you will never, ever have enough”. After an insatiable episode of human nature, there is contentment that also pervades the way we live. I have met people who have never left their village, town, city or country and have come to understand it as normal. They have always stayed where they were born and never really felt the need to see anything outside that. They are content with their life as it is. I have spoken to people who do not have a passport, travel is not their plan. Does it mean this person is not as goal oriented as one who has traveled? I do not think so. Within that space of contentment in the little, one will find goals thriving within such a person. They are pursuing their dreams within contentment. Being insatiable does not necessarily mean one is not content for there are areas of contentment and in-satiation within one person (#human complexity). Contentment to one is in-satiation to another and vice versa. I further look at a water tap, I think to myself, yes a tap can drip, but it doesn't mean that is all it can give. It can give more. Also, the tap can be tightly shut but it does not mean it is now disconnected from its source, it still is connected and can at any time pour out water. All it takes is a trigger, a hand to open that tap and water starts to flow again. If I was the dripping tap, what would I be thinking. I would probably be thinking that yes I am releasing small drops of water now, but I am connected to the source and so I can release more at any time when needed. We all need triggers to get our taps running, but sometimes we are content with who we are and what we have achieved, and it does not take away from the massive source of whatever we have and can do for ourselves or for others whether around us, or far from us. The tap can be opened and we can start once again pursuing something. Our lives are punctuated by contentment in a start - stop - continue manner, where the tap closes and opens when the right moments and triggers come about. We all have reservoirs that we are connected to, in form of experiences, mental capacity, talents, gifts and our passion centers. While we get content in certain areas and during certain times, our reservoirs are continuously there to supply as needed when the triggers come around and we start pursuits of something else, Be it starting a business, philanthropic endeavors, climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, or other personal exploits, once the trigger goes off, we move into our destiny. Find part one of this article here
Everyone who drives in Africa will know of the people that stand at traffic lights and make many a driver angry and annoyed as they try to sell you something or give you promotional material of some sort? Of course there are also those who try to clean your car before the light turns green (call it instant car wash), whether you like it or not. Well I had a different experience last week as I opened my window to receive a red rose with a note saying " do something nice today for a total stranger". What an action oriented and pleasant surprise as well as food for thought!! Believe me or not, I tried to look for a website or telephone number because I thought these were marketers who would have put their contacts there for me to maybe peruse their products or something, but I found none. This is is what motivated me to write about this incident. Doing something good for someone with no thought of something back in return. Do we still have this in our world? Well I can testify that we do after my experience of the day, but maybe we do not have enough of such incidents or people willing to be the one doing it. This is a great humane wave to spread around, for people to just do things for strangers without expecting anything in return, but leave the next person feeling warm and fuzzy inside and still believing in humanity and oneness. There is a lot of strangers around you who can receive something from you, and it does not have to be of value and not necessarily money. A smile seems expensive these days so giving one could be a good thing for a start. Allowing someone to go first in a queue? Stopping to ask someone if everything is well with them when they look stressed, confused or disoriented, offering something priceless to someone. Whatever it is let us do it as a challenge to do something nice for a total stranger today and comment about the effect it makes. I recall giving a young boy from the street, "street kid" as they are called, a pair of old shoes more than 10 years ago and to this day, whenever I drive past where he hangs around in town he comes to have a chat with me without expecting money from me. What have you done for a stranger lately? Have a great day.
Andile "Given" Sibanyoni , received a police officer's burial at his funeral in March 2015. Andile was only 8 years old when he died, but had held on to the dream of becoming a metro police officer so dearly that it was made "reality" for him for a day in 2014 while he was alive and then finally as he was honored with a police officer's burial by the City of Tshwane. More than 100 metro police officers went out to the small town of Piterskraal, Mpumulanga, on the day of his funeral to pay Given their last respects. The Tshwane Metro Police Department (TMPD) ceremonial unit, (a drill team, choir and band) performed and sang alongside community members at the funeral. Andile left a great lesson for people who carry their dreams lightly and think they can never achieve them. Dreams can come true whether you are dead or alive, as proven by Andile. Andile lost his battle with cancer but had always wanted to be a metro cop and specifically to ride the police motorcycles. In November 2014, his dreams were made reality when he visited the Metro Police Department and spent a day in the life of a metro police officer thanks to Reach for a Dream. Reach for a Dream representative Mpumi Mlambo said the day's parade was an indication of just how big Given's dreams were.Reach for a dream believes in the power
of dreams and has made it its mission to help children fight life threatening diseases while reaching their various dreams and the story of Andile is one among many. If a young man like Andile could carry his dream to such an extent where he got a whole metro police department to honor him as a real cop, how much more can we do to achieve our dreams? This is just my short story today to encourage you to hold on to your dream and pursue it with all you have. Someone relevant will notice your efforts and support you to reach that dream.
Can the words fun, interactive, health, music and climbing stairs ever be used together? Well in Stockholm Sweden it is reality. The stairs leading out of the Odenplan subway in Stockholm were overnight transformed into a giant functioning piano keyboard under the premise that applying pressure on each step would play a musical note. Having filmed the behaviors of commuters previously, it had been noted that people preferred to use the adjacent escalator next to the stairs rather then the stairs. In an attempt to bring fun into getting healthy and exercising, Volkswagen sponsored this initiative and the next morning, the results were unassailable. More people opted for the black and white stairs to make music while climbing up previously strenuous and snubbed stairs. Commuters found the concept intriguing, fun, exciting, different and worth their effort and hence took the challenge of the stairs rather than the escalators. In total 66% more people than normal chose the musical stairs over the escalator.
This initiative caught my attention both from a innovation and mental behavior perspective. What the mind views as pain will be avoided while that which is viewed as fun will be sought out. This is undeniably true if one looks at what people do repetitively. We try to minimize strain in such actions that everything becomes automated in our lives. When there is an element of mystery, fun and intrigue in anything, this becomes enough motivation for someone to do it with some level of enthusiasm. Removing monotony is one way of innovating fun into what we do daily and trying to keep an interest in otherwise actions that would seem like hard work. Good lesson on how easy something that feels heavy, difficult and hard can become easy when your mind sees it differently. Everyday e face potentially difficult situations and people, but if we change how we view them in our mind, we can climb those obstacles with ease and create a melody while we do.
