Closing Pandora's Box

It’s bee a very long time since you last wrote. You write very inspirative post,” said the General.

A few days ago, I decided to step outside into the garden and go looking for bugs. I didn’t get very far as the grass was too long; hugging my shins and almost reaching up to my knees in other places. And so, I sat down a few steps away from the kitchen door and watched. I sat there for over an hour. I saw life, I saw order, I saw determination, and I saw hope. Seeing and looking are two different things, but that’s a discussion for a different day. I was looking at weed filled grass but seeing something else. I’d like to share with you two photographs I took on my phone and you can tell me whether after looking you too can see that which I did.

Next to my leg on the right side was a dandelion and on the left some tiny pink flowers, through which were crawling many little insects. I watched them as they moved about on legs thinner than a single strand of my hair, gracefully scuttling about, almost as if playing hide and seek with me and my phone. But luckily (for me) there was one insect, so engrossed in what it was doing, it didn’t care about what I was doing, and so I took a picture of it.

It is normal for us to be so dazzled by surrounding beauty like of the flower, that we do not even notice the real beauty; the beauty of the effort put in by the miniscule insect to conquer the flower and reach its destination. In the same way in our lives it is those things, those people, that we take for granted who become like the insect in the picture above (do you see it?), that get forgotten in the presence of something seemingly more beautiful regardless of how temporary it is. Yet they are always there, trying and trying again, not giving up on what they believe, not giving up on you because that’s who they are and what they do. (Thank you, my dear insects friends).

They say, blow the dandelion away, make a wish and it’ll come true. And they wish for you to do this and that, so you give and give from the kind depths of your mortal heart, till there seems to be nothing more to give. You are left hanging and it takes so much strength. Hang in there my dear, have faith, grit your teeth together and remember the insect, unfazed by anything around it. The thing about being strong is that no-one asks how you are, or how you feel. So let me ask you now, ‘how are you today?’

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Photograph of insect climbing flower taken from personal photography available here.
Photograph of blown away dandelion taken from person photography available here.

The fear of failure is something that haunts many people. It leaves some people so traumatised that they don't even try. "What's the point? If I'm going to fail in the end, why should I even bother?". There have been many times in our lives that we have failed; a lot of which we seldom remember. The first ever steps we took, were after many times of landing on our backsides. The first ever bike we managed to ride without the stabilisers, was after many times of losing balance and ending up on the floor. The first ever time we managed to float and swim, was after drinking many litres of water while drowning. The first time we hit a home run, or a six, or the goal, was after swinging and missing many times. But we kept going, and today we can not only walk, but run and dance and skip.

While cleaning up some of my stuff that I still have from high school, I came across my school diary. On the deep blue front page, underneath the golden logo it had the words "Vincit qui patitur" written in the same colour. He who perseveres conquerors. Life is full of many decisions, many choices, that we consciously make regarding whether we should invest in something and pursue a particular goal. There are times when obstacles are laid in our paths and we are hindered in our progress. Sometimes it's people who leave us with so many problems and headaches that we begin to question our own abilities. You may be used and you you may be abused by others. Keep your head up high, and keep moving on. Giving up doesn't help anyone, especially as we will be held responsible for our successes and only we will be blamed for our failures. If we never try, we will never know whether we can or can't do something. When faced with a difficult task, rather than wishing it were easier we should wish we were better and strive to be so. "Failure is an event not a person," Zig Ziglar. It's okay to fall, but it's stupid once having fallen a person does not realise why they fell and continues to fall repeatedly, again and again.

I remember posting a PowerPoint presentation earlier which my dad once sent to me. It was full of quotes and examples of many individuals who continued to persevere against all odds and whose names we remember today. "Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all," Dale Carnegie.

Be not afraid of failing and worry not about it. Instead, worry about the countless chances we let slip through our fingers when we do not even bother trying.

In the words of Sir Winston Churchill, "Never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy." (29 October 1941)

Persevere, and you can conquer it all. May you all taste the sweet syrup of success.

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Title: Sweet Dreams - Eurythmics