The End or the Beginning?

I'm about to start the last week of my seven year journey. A career change I embarked on when everyone around me thought I had lost the plot on life. A journey that was filled with hardships and challenges and many lessons learnt. Now, it's come down to the final week. The stakes are high and the challenges during this week are the toughest yet. Just one week more. Survive this and it's all over. It hit me a few days ago but I brushed it aside. It was only this morning that the realisation dawned on me. And with it came a sea of emotions, confusing me, tugging at me here and there. And with it came the stress.

Seven years ago I took a leap of faith and took my first baby steps into an unknown world. It was a journey I started not knowing where it would take me. I changed paths many times. I had to stop and recalibrate my proverbial compass when things weren't working. It was a journey marred by extreme uncertainty but also blessed with luck and elements of success that kept me going. And I soldiered on during those times when I was close to giving up.

Seven years of my life. The same questions that haunted me at various points on my way are nagging at me now. Was it worth it? Or have I just wasted a precious seven years of my life. The best years of my life to reach an endpoint that might be synonymous to an anti-climax.

Recalibration of the mind...

This is not the end of a seven year journey. This is a means to a new beginning.

The value is not in reaching the endpoint - although one of the goals that keep you moving - but in learning lessons and becoming a richer person. I am not the same person I was seven years ago by far. I think back to my life at the start and imagine what it would've been like had I not made this change. I shake my head and think: No. Things are exactly the way they are meant to be. 

I was meant to take this journey. I was meant to endure, fight and rise above. I was meant to become the person I am today and it's all for the purpose of preparing me for something bigger and better. So it's not about the endpoint. It's much deeper and all-encompassing than that.

I am about to start the last week of a seven year journey that will catapult me into the life I am meant to live. Be the person I am meant to be and fulfill my destiny. It's about shaping who I am. It was about healing my wounds and sealing my scars and making me stronger. 

And now, as I take it one day at a time during these final challenges, I will rest assured, looking forward to the fresh start that is awaiting me.

Life is composed of a series of fresh starts, though we might not know it. I'm about to start mine..

How Confident Are You, Really...

Picture this.

You're in a car park and you've finally found a parking spot. You decide you're going to reverse park into it this time. But just when you're about to do the maneuver, another car turns the corner and waits. Obviously you're in its way and it waits. You feel the headlights on you. You feel the driver's restless eyes on you. You feel the other car's engine revving up as it watches you and waits for you to get on with it. What do you do?

You might find yourself cursing silently. Feel a few sweat beads run down your forehead. You might actually try to park the car but then the pressure just gets too much and you drive off in a huff in search for another parking spot. You catch a glimpse in the rear view mirror of the other car, the one that was waiting for you, gracefully back into your spot in reverse. And you curse again.

Or you might persist, against all odds, come what may, you will park in that spot if it's the last thing you ever do. You're not about to back out now. True, your skills are not up to scratch. Despite this you ignore the piercing or glaring eyes of the driver and make excuses for the numerous maneuvers that you are having to make before you finally park the darn thing. You even ignore the immediate aftermath: the screeching of the tyres of an angry and restless driver whose time you managed to waste. Inconsiderate, you think. After all, you would've waited all the same.

Or you might absolutely relish the challenge that you're being presented with. The opportunity to show off your perfect driving skills. Watch and learn, you think to yourself, as you gracefully reverse perfectly into the spot. In fact, the trickier the spot the better the challenge. You think of how you can smoothly reverse with the least number of maneuvers and the whole experience becomes all the more pleasant for you. Nevermind the screeching tyres of the other car in the aftermath. That's just plain rude, you think to yourself, drive off with envy, oh yeah!

Analogously, we tend to react to the challenges presented to us in a similar manner. I found myself in the latter category of drivers this morning, relishing the chance to show off my driving skills in the parking lot. Years of experience gave me the confidence and allowed me to excel in that specific skill. I knew I could do it and I even enjoyed doing it. I wasn't contemplating it or even waiting for it. But when the situation presented itself to me all of a sudden, I could do it subconsciously. In my mind's eye I was already a winner, always alert and always prepared to use a skill that has become second nature to me.

Yet I must admit that when faced with other challenges on a daily basis, I tend to fall into the second, if not the first category. So why is that, I asked myself. Is it because I am faced with something new? Is because I haven't built the confidence yet, still unsure of whether I could do it or not? Is because I am unprepared? It might be a combination of factors but it made me consider what is it that makes us excel in certain situations but not others.

I contemplated the ways we tend to react to the challenges of life. A source of brief enlightenment, I realise that this could be a means for me to work towards and strive to be that confident driver in the third category in other aspects of life. Maybe by trying to attain that level of confidence, I can then become the competent driver of my own life.

Time

I caught myself day dreaming today and scribbling the names of the months ahead down. There was April, then May and June and slowly, I found myself thinking of the months in a curve. It was as if the year was a circle and in my mind's eye I was walking down time lane. It was curving. I caught myself in a curve and halted then wrote this...


I see time ahead of me.
Curving into weeks, months and quarters,
forming a full circle,
making a complete year.
Then spiralling into the decades
that make up my life.

Pick any point in time,
a fleeting second or a moment, and
it's a pixel
in a continuously spiralling canvas,
hovering in mid space.

The starting point was a dot,
the tip of the spiral of a cone,
the moment I was created and told to be.

Our end may not be as harshly finite and defined.
A gentle wisp
like the edge of a ripple,
left to ponder on the time before its time,
and what we made of it and how it came to be.

I see time in a bright shade of grey,
or perhaps violet
and blue
combined,
in moderation to the eye.

I see it in different shades,
in different shapes,
for each one of us
blended
merged to our own form.

Be Who You Want to Be

There comes a time when all you want to do is just find a way to realise the person within you. A nagging sensation that pokes at the corners of your mind will not relent until you do. Distractions are just that and you look at them as time wasting exercises. And anything else that you find yourself engaged in only weighs your heart down further. When that happens there really is only one thing to do. There really is only one way out of this because ignoring it will do nothing more than to exacerbate it further. You need to follow that unadulterated notion and set it free.

The cynics out there might frown and wag their fingers. Impulse can be risky business but so can an unfulfilled life; living to be only half the person that you are.

A job can be one of two extremes - no in-between - it is that dramatic. At one end, a job can be nothing more than the ordinary meaning of the word and a means of gaining one's livelihood. It is that circle of comfort that is stretched every now and then to expand your skills and knowledge but, always, remaining within the confines of that circle. That is what we were taught growing up - get a good job and enjoy the comforts of life. Most jobs falls into this category, even those jobs that feign promises of career glory and progression. I have seen it happen over again, the bright spark wanes and you find yourself settling into your circle. That is usually the reason why most people move on.

At the other end of the scale, a job can be the means to make you explore never-ending avenues of innovation within yourself, as a person and as an individual. The job stops being just a job and instead metamorphosises into a personal goal to allow you to give it all that you can. It is all about personal ownership, being the best that you can and making your job the best that there is. When that happens, know that you have crossed the fine line of being, breathing and feeling entrepreneurship.

Entrepreneurship does not have to be viewed in the black or white sense of starting your own business. Instead, it is a concept and a way of approaching your life and career goals. Ones which you can realise in any sort of environment that you find yourself in. When creativity and ideas, bursting at the seams, yearn to be brought to life, you know that there is no better time. Just be who you want to be; who you need to be. If the circle that you find yourself in becomes nothing more than a limitation, expand and distort it to allow it to fulfill your ideals. And failing that, channel your own path. Here or elsewhere.

I will caveat all this and say that the life of an entrepreneur is not meant to be easy. There will be challenges and brick walls that slam you in the face but think of the alternative. Once you have set foot on that path there truly is no turning back to a life half fulfilled. The setbacks and challenges that you will encounter will multiply your resolve and provide you with energy to encourage you to persist beyond your expectations. That is what realising dreams is all about. It becomes a  matter of survival to be the person whom you were always meant to be.

Good Fortune

I feel blessed these days. Actually, that sounds a bit arrogant. I should feel blessed every single day for the things I have which I take for granted. But I suppose what I mean is that I feel blessed in an overt fashion. When you feel kindness descend on you and touch you gently and lovingly, that is when you feel blessed. The feeling of being blessed and cherished is special.

I thought I should title this posting good fortune because that feeling - of being blessed - is a blessing in itself. Good fortune is subjective. Today it manifests itself in that blessing for me. That small window that allows you to view a unique and special scene, even if it's temporary and you know that you only have a moment to enjoy it. That moment is the blessing of being able to experience something only you can experience. That is good fortune. 

The little things we go through on a daily basis that allow us to become who we are, are symbols of good fortune. The little things that make us smile. These are symbols of good fortune. And most of all, the people in our lives are symbols of good fortune.

A Medley of Musicals for my Life

I have a series of songs going through my mind these days and they all seem to ironically describe my comings and goings. They all seem to have a common running theme too. Change. Self-inflicted change.

I never was one to settle with the status quo. A creative mind needs sustenance and once I find myself in an environment that churns out nothing but sameness, I suffocate and yearn to fly free.

I was introduced to the bold statement of 'defying gravity' by the cast of Wicked. I could relate to it straight away. When you choose to do something bold and against the tide, it does call upon you to make bold statements. It calls for you to have the strength to stop yourself from being pulled down - to defy gravity - that magnificent and all natural force. Imagine the amount of energy needed to defy such a great force. In metaphorical terms, that force usually consists of demoralising notions of the negative kind from those who just fail, and don't even try, to understand where you're coming from. But the only way to do what you most believe in is to give in to yourself and set yourself free. It's about embracing that sense of freedom by trusting yourself and defying the weights that pull you down in the form of maintaining the status quo in the minds of those who just don't want change, don't understand it, don't see the potential in it. And by defying the gravity of those conformed thoughts you become unlimited in what you are able to achieve.

It really is about going your own way. Whether you choose to go down the road less travelled or to forge yourself a new path in familiar territory, it is about stepping out of your comfort zone. Perhaps that is what makes life more meaningful for me. 

But between trying to defy gravity in my frequent auguries of listlessness and while trying to go my own way, I find myself close up with the realities of life.

I seem to be dancing through life, dodging disappointments and savoring moments of happiness one after the other. But, hey, it is life after all and depending on what your internal belief is about it and how it's structured within your psyche, life can be just that, a fleeting time warp that will come to end before we know it. At the other end of the scale, life might be such a precious and valuable opportunity that should be grasped. And while I see it as a blessing and a means of making something meaningful out of, I also see it as a fleeting time warp. I say this with a touch of irony as I strive everyday to achieve whatever it is that I want to achieve, knowing that ultimately with every ticking second everything passes. What really matters is what you end up giving, touching other people's lives and having the ability to create meaning to others' lives. Sadly, the way I perceive it is not how I seem to be going about it to achieve that meaning. So I continue to dance through life, dodging one test after another, trying hard to get to an optimum level of what it means to be happy, to provide happiness, and to give this thing called life meaning.

My recurring theme seems to be change. So, while I continue to dance through life, I try to defy gravity all at once while going my own way. Tough choices but I wouldn't want it any other way.

Just Do It!

Nike got it right: Just Do It! I recall many a wasted moment thinking things over, contemplating an idea or dwelling over the pros and cons of an issue until valuable resources in the idea itself are completely exhausted. You end up with nothing more than a watered-down version of what you really wanted to do. And a run down version of the buzz you initially had. By then you just find yourself giving up on it and moving on. What a waste! So, yes, it truly is about just doing it. Grasping the moment, taking that leap of faith and just making it happen.

An idea takes you by storm. Get out there and make it happen. 

A muse enters your mind and captures your soul, develop it and bring it to life.

I will not just sit there and plot my novel. No, I am going to write it once and for all. Steadily and diligently. Refining it will come later.

Any bright spark that I get will not be murdered before it has a chance to see the light of day just because of financial and feasible impossibilities. Just do it. And by embracing that attitude, things do start happening and you do find the people and resources to give you the push or help you along the way.

Eat Pray Love - My Own Journey

I watched Julia Roberts play Liz Gilbert in the film Eat, Pray, Love today. I have not read the book and I must admit it is not the type of book that would attract me in a shop. I think I must have been mistaken. I thoroughly enjoyed the film and it really did touch me, deeply. I could see many common elements. Perhaps it was the honesty of the character in the story and the way she reached out to women the world over. The audience almost completely consisted of women today. Perhaps it was her portrayal of Italy. I love Italy and I could relate to it in every sense; the food, the people, the language, the gesticulations just everything about it. Her quest for spirituality was something I dived into right after my own little trauma. And of course, the third dimension of love was just a sheer expression of hope. It was a lovely ending to what seemed like a harrowing emotional time for her. I particularly loved what she said at the end of the film. These are not the exact words but it went something along the lines of...

if you have the courage to give up your comforts and your home to venture towards a journey of self-discovery and you accept everything that happens to you on that journey and you learn from the people you meet along the way then the truth will be revealed to you in the end. It is something to truly believe in.

It seems we all have our own little journey of self-discovery. Not necessarily in the physical sense. It could be in one’s own mind. I know I have done it over and over again in my head. Perhaps now is the time to actually follow by example. I spent the last year out of my comfort zone. New place, new people and came back with a new outlook on life. I found myself completely transformed. It was not something I was seeking out. There is a thing about journeys of self-discovery. Change will always be the outcome; guaranteed, every time. There is another thing about these journeys. They are self-perpetuating. One always leads to another, maybe at a different level. I do feel the winds of change calling out at me again. It is only a matter of when I will be off again.

On Being Your Own Star

The film festival has just ended. Sad face. I am hoping this does not mean an end to the cultural buzz I found myself in the middle of for over a week. I am so much more inspired now and my creativity has been set free once again. I want to write, paint, drum away on a piano and sing along to the tune inside of me. What was it about the festival then? Was it just the creative outlet in the form of a film? Was it the stars? I think I know why they are called stars. They do shine. Poise, grace, charm and a certain quality that is just put all together to create a certain magnetism. I wonder if one can be trained to have star-like qualities. Perhaps being exposed to a camera so often places them in that light? Is it the fact that they thrive within artistic circles? There is something about art that touches deep within. It could be that. I felt it too.

For me this year, the film festival was all about the films and the talks. Such inspiration, such an eagerness to actually delve into these stories and be a part of the making. Unique.

I try to keep this creative edge now that it has awakened within me. The key, I think is to find the right outlets, mix with the right people and keep at it. Allow myself to create some of my own magic. Be my own star, even if just for my own pleasure.

I re-ignited my joy in writing again. I had writers block for the longest time and I needed a spark to set it off. The film festival did that to me. It was an old familiarity that felt warm and sweet, almost melodramatic. I came across a bunch of short stories I had written from what seems like eons ago. The writing was raw and young and quite embarrassing at times but it had guts. I had guts; young and brimming with a sense of letting it all out. No fear, just like a child who says what he wills without a thought. That was my writing. That is the essence of what I need to return to then hone it, and hone some more, into maturity.

I wonder if by this time next year I can actually have a role to play in the next film festival. Perhaps by then I would have discovered my own star-like qualities. That would be enough for me.

A Brush with Inspiration

"To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour."

That was all I needed and I held on to those moments of preciousness. It did linger on for what seemed like an hour. I carried it with me - this sudden impact of the mind - even after I had left the train, where I saw this stanza on a poster. I held those words, repeating them over and over again in my mind's eye lest they dissipate. I felt them and tasted them even as I walked into unknown faces and crowds. Time felt like it had stopped for me amidst the hustle and bustle of the morning commute. All I could see in my mind's eye was the kaleidoscope into a different world. It was bringing back flashbacks from my very own auguries of innocence. I did remember seeing the world in a grain of sand. It was ethereal. I could almost smell a wild flower and as I held on to the endless resonance of those notions and words in the palm of my hand, I walked in slow motion to my destination, heavy with a feeling of knowing but more so of inspiration.

"A robin redbreast in a cage
Puts all heaven in a rage.
A dove-house filled with doves and pigeons
Shudders hell through all its regions."

I had to look up William's Blake "Auguries of Innocence" to read the rest of the poem. It was the first four lines that drew me in and all I could find myself doing was to echo their effects in my head over and again. Analogy has a strong role to play here. Words that spoke to me persuaded a latent freedom. Free-spirited acknowledgement gained momentum and now the possibilities were endless.

"A dog starved at his master's gate
Predicts the ruin of the state.
A horse misused upon the road
Call to heaven for human blood."

"The wild deer wandering here and there
Keeps the human soul from care."

"He shall hurt the little wren
Shall never be beloved by men."

"The wanton boy who kills the fly
Shall feel the spider's enmity."

"A truth that's told with bad intent
Beats all the lies you can invent.
It is right it should be so:
Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know
Through the world we safely go.
Joy and woe are woven fine
A clothing for the soul divine.
Under every grief and pine
Runs a joy with silken twine."

"He who mocks the infant's faith
Shall be mocked in age and death."

"He who doubts from what he sees
Will never believe, do what you please.
If the sun and moon should doubt,
They'd immediately go out.
To be in passion you good may do,
But no good if a passion is in you."

It is mother's day today. If it were not for my mother I would not have cultivated the breadth of mind to be inspired by words such as these. Imagination might be a dangerous thing for some but creativity cannot thrive without it. Paying attention to the world around us and noticing what many take for granted was only possible by having my mother in my life. Happy Mother's Day to all mothers and to my most special one in the whole wide world.

*dedicated to my mother