FAST APPROACHING 30, WHAT HAVE I DONE WITH MY LIFE?

My birthday is coming up soon, that was just a fleeting thought I had during the week. A more permanent thought or realisation is that, I am fast approaching 30 years of age and that’s enough to make me want to pull my hair out or go hide in some dark closet somewhere and not come out for a very long time. Ok, maybe I am being a little over dramatic.

 

The point is this though, when I was growing up, I had a list of goals I wanted to achieve, things that I wanted to be. I had my whole life planned out; I would finish school by 24, be married by 26 and have my first child when I was 28. This was the course that I was going to take and this was how my life was going to play out. This was before I learnt that we may make plans but life doesn’t always follow what we perceive to be a logical sequence of events. Sometimes in between the plans that we had for ourselves, life really happens. Maybe that is why they say; “life is what happens when you busy making other plans” Is that even a quote or a line from some song? Either way that line makes total sense right about now.

 

So I am turning 27 years in a few days and let’s see how my plans worked out. I completed my degree at 22 and my honours degree at 23. Had a baby at 25, not married and no where near the fulfilling career I had imagined myself having at this age. I didn’t do so badly on the planning front but the truth is, as one ages or grows older, you start to question yourself and where you are in life. How far you still are from doing all you wanted to do with your life, more importantly what significant impact have you made in the lives of those around you.

 

The older one gets the less life is just about living from day to day and surviving. Add children to that equation and you will realise just how imperative it becomes to live a meaningful life and to live a legacy that they can model and live up to, one day when you are no longer around. I cannot think of one person who does not want to live a life that brings them joy and inner peace and one way of attaining that, for me, is to find one’s purpose in life. The problem though is that, some of us are not privileged enough to know right from the start what our purpose is. Take me for example, I know that I have a passion for helping others and that’s the main reason why I chose to study psychology. I want to be able to touch others and assist them to make a difference in their lives. I also know that I have gift of words, writing and putting things in perspective through words. My aspirations have never really centred on wealth, or making money. So how does one take all of that and put it into a logic that echoes what your purpose is?

 

It has never been as important as it is now, to find that sole reason why I was created and why I am placed where I am. Not only to know the reason but to fulfil it as well. It shouldn’t even be an age factor, the sooner we start to ask ourselves these hard questions, the sooner we are able to live in the path that we are meant to travel in. We shouldn’t wait for a specific age to chase our dreams or to create in us the people that we admire and aspire to become. It should be a conscious decision that we make everyday, to not only dream of a certain life but to take active steps towards that life.

 

Contrary to the tone set in the beginning of this blog, this is not about regrets or feeling inadequate or the sense of hopelessness that comes with not achieving what we want or desire. This is a reminder of how time passes, perhaps even flies by without us realising it. It is a reminder that we are created to do more than just survive and that we have a responsibility to find and create ourselves and use the time that we have been given to the best of our ability. To pool together our inner resources and push boundaries and break limitations to become all that we were created to be. For some, the reminder may come from reading this blog. Or as in my case, by an event such a birthday, that’s reminds us, how much time has passed and forces us to evaluate what we are doing against what we should be doing.

 

I wish I could end this blog by saying I have had my light bulb moment and found my purpose but sadly reality doesn’t work with a script. However, I am feeling positive about the future because I have come face to face with my fears. The realisation of time gone by without having done all that I wanted to do. It is no reason to go in depression mode and label myself a failure. It is an opportunity, to search deeper within myself to find what drives me. It is a chance to wake up everyday with the decision to actively work on myself and my dreams. Not because I am fast approaching 30 (sadly) but because that is what I owe the Universe for the gift of life that I have been given.

 

If any of you has not found that drive as yet, irrespective of their age; it is never too late to start over. Where you are and give yourself a clean slate, a blank page and start writing your story over. Not influenced by your past or your present but driven by the desire to be all that dwells within you. To give it that opportunity to shine on the outside and hopefully in the process, light up someone else’s life.

Lessons Are Futile If We Don't Learn From Them

What is it about us, as human beings that make us repeat our mistakes and not learn from them? Where do we draw the line between mistakes and habits (traits that categorise who we really are)? My understanding of a mistake is something that you do as a result of flawed judgement, maybe even a moment of weakness, which carries consequences which aren’t desirable. That you want to avoid doing again at all costs. So why is it that we find ourselves time and again in those paths that don’t yield positive results for us? This is a question that has been bothering me for a while.

 

When do we get to a point where we don’t give the benefit of the doubt, when a mistake is repeated, and the same one at that, on numerous occasions? Why is it so hard for us to stray away from the things that hurt us and more so hurt those around us? I get that we learn through our mistakes, that we must fall in order to rise and that we must get it wrong to know what is right and to do better. The question though is, how many times should we fall before we get it right?

 

Life is filled with experiences that shape who we are, mistakes that make us better beings and our daily interactions are made up of lessons that we need to ultimately be all that we can be. I look at life as a series of different levels that we go through, in that way the lessons we are taught today are exactly what we need to progress to the next level of life. If we fail to grasp the lessons in the here and now, we minimise our ability to cope and do well in the next level that we are promoted to. Our mistakes are supposed to serve as building blocks, they carry in them the lessons that we need to make it to the next step. If we take my theory as correct, it means that whenever we fail to move on from the mistakes that we are currently making, if we continuously make the same mistakes, we hinder the natural growth process that should occur. It means that we stay on the same level of life and we become stagnate. Should we progress to the next level of life, not having learnt what we needed to, we most likely to find ourselves struggling in our promotion. Not knowing how to handle the responsibilities that come with that specific phase in our lives.

 

A lesson is defined as a “learning and a teaching”. Based on this, we can say that from our lessons we learn or we are taught something, whatever it may be. Once we have learnt something, isn’t it to be expected that we do better than we did previously or that we become better than were before the lesson. That takes us back to the title of this blog; lessons are futile if we don’t learn from them. If we still do the same things and we are still the same people, it means that the transformation that was to be brought about by the lesson has not occurred. Knowing something means nothing if it does not change us, how we see the world and relate to others. Lessons should bring us to a standing of knowing right and wrong, in whatever context we received it.

 

I often see people nodding their heads during a church sermon, agreeing with the message being brought forward. At the end of the service, the very people who were nodding their heads in agreement go out and do the very thing that we were warned against. It seems we hear but we don’t understand, we hear but we don’t implement in our lives. We read but we don’t change, we talk but we don’t act. We fail to make the lessons that we come across a part of our make up. In all these instances, the purpose of the lesson is lost to us. It has become meaningless.

 

We are entitled to make a mistake, that is how we discover ourselves, that is how we learn but we should refrain from repeating the mistakes that we have already been through. We should go out of our way to find the lessons hidden in our disappointments and our failures because that will enable us to do better and get to where we want to go. The lessons that we come across should do the work they are supposed to do in us, so we may be promoted to the next level of life. Our lives should not be a series of tripping and falling. As my mother always said, it’s not only through our own mistakes that we can learn; we can look at the lives of others and learn from them as well.” Simply put, I think what she was saying was that, it need not happen to you before you can learn from it. Not taking away that we are all individuals with different paths, some lessons are truly universal. The lesson may not always come through our own fall, sometimes it may be taught by witnessing the fall of someone else, and we still meant to learn from it anyway.

 

It is important to go through life, alert and open to experiences and lessons. One should never be of the idea that they know everything; there is always something you didn’t know that someone else can teach you, can make you aware of. But a man, who believes that he knows everything, cannot be taught anything, even the lessons that they come across in their journey are meaningless because they fail to realise the foundation of wisdom that lies in them. When we refuse to learn, we not only stay the same people but we are more prone to be the people that make the same mistakes throughout our lives. We receive promotion to the next level of life but we fail miserably because we have not grasped the basics of what we need to know. No one person is without flaws and acknowledging that puts you in a better position than someone who goes through life pretending that they have it all figured out.

 

When we acknowledge our flaws, we are more open to learning and when we keep an open mind, we are able to take the lessons and implement them in our lives, to spark a change, to transform us from who we are to who we want to be. The process of learning starts with being aware that we need to learn, being receptive to learning and consciously making a decision everyday, to not only hear but understand and let that understanding guide us. We should not remain prisoners to our mistakes and rob ourselves of the life we could possibly live, if we lived with awareness. Awareness of how our experiences shape us and that at the end of the day, our lives will or should be a result of the lessons we chose to implement in our lives.

Peek Thru My Window

Welcome to my blog.

I decided to call my blog "peek thru my window"because even though I will share with you my stories, experiences, thoughts and bits of my life, one can never truly have a full glimpse of another's life. So it is basically like having a peek into my life, only through the pieces of information that I will give.

Mainly though, this blog will be about life lessons, words of encouragement and hopefully serve as a platform to tell people that which they need to hear. I have realised that alot of us if not all of us go through hard times, sometimes it is not always easy to seek advice or talk about what we are facing. In my struggles I have been fortunate enough to come across quotes, stories, articles etc that somehow put into words what I couldnt say and it has been through the words of others that I have found comfort and the hope to go on.

People such as Inyala Vanzant, Joyce Meyer, Thami Ngubeni, Chris Hill, Bishop TD Jakes and Timothy Maurice Webster have been amongst the people who have helped me grow and helped me gained my voice, simply through using their words and the power that words carry to reach out to others and give me a sense of being.

It may be on a smaller scale but I am hoping that going through this blog, will become a tool or vessel through which others find their voice and re-ignite the dreams that they had given up on. I will pour my heart and soul into all the pieces I write and hope that sharing a piece of myself with you, will touch something in you as a reader.

Enjoy!!!!!!