My Cheer Blog-Cheer up and spread the cheer!

In the book of life, the answers aren’t in the back.
Charlie Brown   

Life is a great big canvas, and you should throw all the paint on it you can.
Danny Kaye 

During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people, I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if it needs be it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.
Nelson Mandela 

Look at a day that starts with your Partner serving you breakfast in bed. And as you laze around and get out of bed….and finish your morning routine, and come back to get dressed for work…you find your clothes for work all neatly laid out for you. As you drive to work, you have a clear road ahead, and you sail in smoothly into your office. Half way through this already fantastic day, your boss calls you in and gives you the news that all your hard work has resulted in the company closing a multimillion dollar deal, and you are being promoted in recognition for that. You ask, is this for real? Yes, why not? But could all days turn out to be like this…..most likely not.

Contrast this to another day…..where you had a late night and have to kick yourself out of bed, then scramble to find your socks and underwear, and since you are running late already…hurry out on an empty stomach, only to find out that you have a flat tire. You call a taxi and since it’s peak hours, fret and fume while the cab crawls through the traffic. And you realize as you walk through your door, that the meeting notes and documents for this morning’s project meeting are still lying on your coffee table at home. No brownie points for guessing how the rest of the day went….

Simple every day living….includes both kinds of days. Could happen to anyone……the easy, perfect day and other challenging ones.

Challenge- is defined somewhere as ” Stimulating test of abilities - a test of somebody’s abilities, or a situation that tests somebody’s abilities in a stimulating way”

Yet on a challenging day….although expected result is that one should rise above and pass the test and feel stimulated ( like in the definition), the truth most often, is the opposite. “Life is so unfair”, ” Why does this always happen to me?” “When will I see a brighter day” …..and so on are the likely reactions.

When I am in this state of mind, my source of inspiration often times, is a Biblical character named Joseph. From the old testament….. Joseph’s story talks about how his jealous brothers constantly try to put him down and finally sells him off to slave traders. The story goes on to describe the many adversities that Joseph went through in Egypt and finally becomes the most trusted officer in Pharaoh’s court. In the end, Joseph saves his family from a famine stricken situation and provides for them to live happily ever after.

The same results show through the lives of many famous people like George Washington, Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela……there are so many examples. How do they do it?

One possibility is that they see each adversity as a test of their abilities, to tide over the situation ( in true alignment with the definition above) and that probably moves them into a higher gear and gets them to draw on their strengths, rather than focus on what went wrong during the day, weeks, months,…maybe past years.

Another possibility is that they learn from their mistakes( if the adversities happen to arise out of their own folly), and use that inconvenient/painful experience to take them to a higher level of self awareness, rather than let it defeat their spirit.

Yet again, these individuals seemed to have a really larger picture of life before them, rather than just today, few months or even few years ahead or behind them. A United Free America, an Independent India, an apartheid free South Africa ……dreams and visions which were larger than life…..so in their picture frame….a bad day? Hardly relevant….insignificant, maybe. The big picture seemed to be their driving force, their North Pole and their inner strength.

Some pointers here for us ordinary folks?…maybe! Feel free to add your thoughts and comments.

DT

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 19th, 2007 at 8:20 pm and is filed under Inspirational Cheer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.