Courage is Contagious

Dare to live a life that matter!

I grew up not pleased with the circumstances that I found myself in. I felt too useless and powerless to change my own seemingly fixed fate; “born in poverty die in poverty” seemed to be the inevitable. I murmured and complained and even tasted a bit of depression at a very young age, but I did not know what to call it at that time.

Then after the dark cloud passed over I could see that all these circumstances have carved the person that I am today. What was mysterious back then now it all makes sense. To me it seems as though these events and circumstances where orchestrated to rear me toward success. I mean both the bad times as well as the good ones. They have made me the person that I am; they have taught me perseverance and patience as well as the importance of having the end in view all the way.

I must admit though that this did not happen overnight, I did no sleep and woke up the next morning a person who understands all and who has learnt to deal with anything. It has been a journey but even a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Success is not a destination but the journey itself and every step of the way we can be successful.

I know that many young people are in very severe situations. I would not like to sound insensitive to what others are feeling. I know I have been there, but hear me when I say; sometimes it is not the circumstances that are a problem more than our attitudes towards them and our perceptions of them. When forbidding circumstances are met with foreboding attitudes, it’s a deadly combination. Seems to me we are sometimes happy when we can have something to grab and show as a reason why we did not succeed. Circumstances will always be what we choose to make out of them, stumbling blocks or stepping stones. It’s your choice.

            I have discovered that in order for one to write out his own ending of the story dreaming must be part of his reality. Do you dream is the question, or even better do you dare to dream? In a society that ridicules and tries to nullify people’s visions, do you dare? This kind of dreaming I am talking about is not hallucinating or castle building, but it is a strong desire that translates itself into a vision, a bigger picture of yourself that you will grow into. That’s what I mean by dreaming, seeing possibilities where others only see impossibilities, opportunities where it seems there in nothing but obscurities.

            How can we talk about success without talking about fear, yes fear the enemy of progress? We all have fears and they vary from person to person. Shakespeare once wrote that “Cowards die many times before death...” Dying before death happens even to the best of us. It only takes place when we let our fear dictate what is possible and not. But the courage to act against fear and success is what separates the victors of this world from the conquered.

What about the importance of knowing who we are and why we are. In fact there are two important dates in a man’s life, one the day we are born and two the day we find out why we were born. Knowing you strengths and weaknesses, capabilities and abilities will make sure you end up doing what you are best suited for. Many have chosen wrong careers and ended up leaving stressed and unfulfilling lives even though they seem to have it all. Know yourself, know what needs to be polished, eradicated or modified. We are all becoming, we have not reached the full stature of human development yet, what is important is that we are growing and developing.

                        In all of this we are not alone; we have witnesses along the path to success. Some are cheering us along, while some are sneering at us. These are the powerful outside forces that challenge the very core of our identity and mission as individuals. “No man is an island”, we experience this more often than not. I want us to realize the powerful pressure of all, the “peer pressure” and know how to deal with it. We are to reclaim our lives form the mercy of other, so that we don’t have to blame anyone for what we turn out to be in life.

            I don’t want to sound as though I am in a land of oblivion. Let me also tell you that sometimes or even most times you’ll fall and hit the ground so hard, some call this failure. It is okay, it’s a normal process for those that are moving forward, no one falls when they are all along sleeping or siting.  I have failed before not once or twice, not in small things only but, I have learnt that even in failure there is a good lesson to take home. Just get up when you fall, if you fall again, please get up again.  

            Finally when you have learned to implement all these principles you’ll notice that there is one ingredient that is missing. The question is how would you leave a life that is not only meaningful to yourself only but to others as well? The answer is, “give to others”, I can already hear a young person asking, give what? The answer may seem very sarcastic but it’s a working one. “Give to other’s whatever you have. May I suggest one thing that I know you have? Time, yes time is what we can all give to others and they can take that and convert to any service that they need, from which they can be benefited. Once you learn this, it comes with peace and satisfaction. For it is said, “denying others their humanity is denying your own”.

            I know our fellow young people are in need of council, and not so much from the adults, as much as from their peer, someone who understands their time and language. My message is from the heart; in fact these are things I wish someone could have sat me down and told me at the beginning of my journey. It would have surely saved me many a heart ache. I now take these timeless principles and I place them before high school and college young people, so they can have the privilege I never had at their age.