During your time of innocence as a child, have you been asked this question? Do you then remember the excitement that filled the classroom where your friends’ hands shoot up in the air as they proudly announce their ambitions?
Policeman, astronaut, teacher, actor, doctor, deep-sea diver, dolphin trainer, stewardess, and dancer, you name it. I’ll eat my hat if those feelings of hope, anticipation, and anxiety aren’t now filling your misty eyes!
Now do me a favour and fast-forward that piece of memory to maybe about 25 years into the future. The time: Present. What’re you doing?
Are you doing exactly what your childhood essence foresaw? Or are you marching into your office today thinking “Here’s another day, let the bills be paid”. Doing none of what you predicted, and obliged to carry on because you need to pay the mortgage for your house, car, and for other assorted responsibilities.
Now if you have one or many dreams in your life, and none that you’re actually spending the majority of your time in, then something is very wrong. Stop in your tracks and rewind back to those guileless days. Reconnect with your essence. When you do you may find that light within you, which has resisted being moulded by what the society wanted you to be. The voice of who you have always wanted to be.
Be original. Be brave. Be unconventional. Be freewheeling. Be inspired. Be in love.
On this note, here is a beautiful piece of advice that I dug out from the first page of my PhD thesis.
“You will find as you look back upon your life that the moments when you have
truly lived are the moments when you have done things in the spirit of love.” Henry Drummond
And while I am here, I wanted to share with you what I got up to last night when I was entertaining this thought myself. I sent myself to be serenaded by the voice of a handsome Italian English solo acoustic singer Jack Savoretti. His music was a beautiful blend of acoustic, folk, and pop. Jack’s voice was uncannily like Johnny Cash’s.
And one of the songs he sang had the repeated words of “Better change, better change, better change…” in it. A message from God? I think so. And if the world doesn’t change, why don’t you?
