The Rabbit and the Turtle

Dear loving people,

We are all plunged into a very fast-paced world today. We’re getting used to instant gratification; we press a button and we get instant light and heat; we go online and get instant banking, instant entertainment, instant access to our friends on the other side of the world; we get our food ready-made in packets or home delivery, and we’re fed stories of people’s success that glorify their results.

We see all the stories of people who won gold medals at the Olympics, who created successful businesses, who wrote best-selling books. But we skip through the boring part of the stories of what it took them to achieve their successes.

We skip through the parts of the stories that describe the daily effort it took to keep going, no matter how they felt; the personal determination they put into every step of their journey; the sacrifices they and those around them had to make to get to where they are; and the number of times they had to bounce back when things went wrong. And we just focus on their success.

The result of this focus can be that we start to desire instant success, fame, 5 minutes in the spotlight, we put these people on a pedestal and see them as having achieved something that we could never do, or we start new things expecting rapid success and give up when we don’t get the same results as they did straight away.

Sustainable success doesn’t come easily, quickly or cheaply, but we can all achieve it. We just need to take the real lessons from those who have achieved it and apply them to our lives. Look at the day-to-day struggles those people went through to gain their success, and discover how they overcame them. I have learned that Consistent, effective effort leads to success.

A fan watched his star player perform extraordinarily in the pitch during a football match and then went up to him at the end of the match and said to him, “I wish I could play like you, your passes are computerized you know.”

The ever smiling star replied, “Don’t be like me, rather get to work. Let me tell you what it takes to be like me; it means getting up early every morning and jogging around while others have a nice time in bed. Then you have to practice 200 passes every morning and evening until your legs hurt, until you develop bleeding blisters then you runoff, wash off the blood and get back to the field to continue. That’s what it takes to be like me.” The bemused fan left completely speechless; he had never heard anything like that before.

One thing you should know is that some of the times:

1. It’s not activity on its own that brings success. You can be very active and always ‘doing stuff’, but if you aren’t doing it properly, with the right intention and moderately, it won’t get you anywhere near success.
2. Any activity that cannot take you towards your goal is a complete waste of your time and effort.
3. You need to learn how to do things properly. You need to gain the necessary skills and knowledge and do your activities to the best of your ability.
4. You need to do something towards your goal on a regular and consistent manner, and even if you come across road blocks and tests, you need to pick yourself up afterwards and continue on your journey.

One day a rabbit was boasting about how fast he could run. He was laughing at the turtle for being so slow. Much to the rabbit's surprise, the turtle challenged him to a race. The rabbit thought this was a good joke and accepted the challenge. The fox was to be the umpire of the race. As the race began, the rabbit raced way ahead of the turtle, just like everyone thought. The rabbit got to the halfway point and could not see the turtle anywhere. He was hot and tired and decided to stop and take a short nap. “Even if the turtle passed me, I will still be able to race to the finish line ahead of him.” he thought.  All this time the turtle kept walking step by step by step. He never quit no matter how hot or tired he got. He just kept going. However, the rabbit slept longer than he had thought and woke up. He could not see the turtle anywhere! He went at full-speed to the finish line but found the turtle there waiting for him.

Sitting around, thinking you can leave things to the last minute and then put on a superhuman squirt is not the way to achieve sustainable success. You’re taking a risk that you will have the time to do it, that nothing will crop up at the last minute and that you’ll be able to do a rush job without much thought and that it’ll be accepted. True, you may just make the deadline, but will it really be your best job? Will you really feel satisfied with the quality of what you did?

The way to long term success is to be like the turtle: “Slow and steady wins the race”. It wasn’t the fact that he moved slowly that caused him to win the race; it was the fact that he set his mind to stay in the race to the end and then he steadily and constantly moved towards his goal and never gave up.

Jim Rohn says “Success is steady progress toward one's personal goals”

Are You a Broadcasting or a Receiving Station?

Dear loving people,

You will agree with me that one’s life here on earth is a gigantic episodic stage play. At any one time, you play a particular role. How successful we sail through the hurdles of life thus depends on how well we can play our respective roles along the line. For example, in a given learning process, there is the role of a speaker and that of the listener. You are either a speaker or a learner.

In school, you are either the teacher or a student. Back at home, you are the father, mother or the child. You are either writing or reading what somebody wrote. You are a reader at present reading this article because I’ve been the writer. Role-playing is thus an integral part of human existence.

Thomas Emerson wrote, “It takes two to speak the truth, one to speak and the other to listen.” Orderly speaking and listening are indispensable components of any profitable conversation but then in speaking and listening, it takes a broadcasting station and a receiving station (emitter vs receptor) to complete the process. Once again, we are back to the law of polarity isn’t it? If there is going to be progress or profitability in a given communication process, it will be hinged on how well each of these terminals play their assigned roles.

A broadcasting station that emits the wrong messages or the right messages in the wrong way is as good as no broadcasting station at all. It could rather constitute a danger to the growth of those at the receiving end (the receiving stations.) In the same way, a wonderful broadcasting station with an excellent communication strategy and enriching messages would just be as good as a medical doctor in the cockpit of a bomber jet if there is no receiving station tuned to the right channel to receive the information.

Receiving the right information is as important as acting upon that information to realize positive results otherwise the learning process would have no meaning. Good information received should be able to set into motion the right internal transformational mechanisms that will lead to the right actions and strategies of attaining desirable results otherwise, it becomes another species of seeds falling on rocky grounds as in the parable of the Sower.

Today, we are living in an information era wherein a lot is said in varied formats such that some feel as if were being flooded with tons and tons of information. Rather than subject ourselves to getting ‘drowned’, we have a choice to construct a sort of Noah’s ark and to get inside in time by tuning our receiving stations to capture the right instructions and messages from the right broadcasting stations. Noah succeeded to get all that was needed in his ark because he had tuned his receiving station to God’s broadcasting station. He was there to receive every bit of information and instruction that God gave him and most importantly, he was ready to act upon that information to produce the right and convenient ark. It was only on those terms that he survived the devastating flood.

How many of us today are tuned in to at least one of the numerous stations broadcasting information on how to get your life on rail? If you have read this article up this point, you might just be one of the few but then, how many of us have that burning desire to assume the role of readers, listeners or students to learn what the Chemistry of success is all about? Often than not, some find themselves grappling with concepts that they have not taken time to master? Being willing to learn is a first step to being willing to be willing even when you are not willing.

Self-development and motivational programs have been on for decades now and yet many are still more confused than ever before about what they represent, can contribute to their lives or what true success is all about. Our receiving stations especially in the third world (mostly in the mind) are tuned to other issues. We worry over politics, economics, militarism and false democracy; we cling to and dangle around power; we worry over territorial boundaries while giving little attention to the fundamental aspects of our lives – personal health and success. Corruption, structural adjustment programs and poverty reduction strategy papers blind our vision and rob us of the little energy left that could have been channeled on gainful integral human development programs.

You are certainly agreeing with me that this is clearly a demonstration of what happens when receiving stations don’t get the right signals from the broadcasting stations. The underlying truth is that the only way to get the world economy better is for us to have our own individual economies better.

Taking your own destiny into your hands and working through all huddles to add meaning to your life here on earth requires that you are tuned in to the right stations and receiving the right information being broadcast. You must act upon this information such that it modifies your behavior.

Receiving Stations are there because there are broadcasting stations, if you are not a broadcasting station, endeavor to be receiving station.

Yes!! We Are Celeberating. Join Us

The Carpenter Bee

Dear loving people,

Nature always has a lot to teach us as we grapple with our quest for success. When you stay close to nature, you have a greater chance of gathering lessons from natural phenomena that can change the way you approach life.

I visited my grandmother in the village one Christmas season. On arrival, she was away to the farm so I sat on her veranda awaiting her return. Sitting there in a warm afternoon breeze, I heard the sound of a carpenter bee humming above me. Looking up, I noticed that it was testing the wood of the time-honored roof trying to bore a hole. Each time it did not get the right spot, it moved on. Then it came to an old and abandoned hole on the wood with cobwebs at the entrance. It hovered around it for a while and finally went in.

“At last, it found a safe heaven” I told myself in relief.  Some minutes later, I heard the usual heavy humming produced when a carpenter bee is at work boring into a wooden surface. “It is probably renovating its new found home” I thought. Strangely enough, the bee is a risk taker. It was not afraid of the dark hole it was entering; there might just have been a predator inside that hole. It did not only go in but set to work the moment it took possession of the hole.

How many of us hit the ground running in our quest for success? The typical failure-tendency is to give excuses why things should wait. We are so afraid to take risks, to enter the dark and unknown holes of life. The saying goes, “No sweat, no gain.” Start now or you might join the ranks of those who will lament in five years from now why they didn’t start today.

Now! Carpenter bees are large, black and yellow insects about 25 mm long. They bore into wood to construct their nests. They are capable of drilling a large number of 13 mm diameter holes in preferred sites. They often reuse the same nesting sites year after year. Nail holes, exposed saw cuts and unpainted wood often attract these bees. Porches, garages, shed ceilings; roof overhangs and outdoor wooden furniture are common nesting sites. They often refurbish old tunnels instead of boring new ones.

Given that continued borings may weaken wooden structures, and the yellow sawdust and waste materials may stain cars, clothing or furniture; one technique in managing them is to seal the tunnels they bore. The holes should be plugged deeply with putty or caulking compound. If the tunnels are plugged without first killing the insects, any carpenter bee trapped inside will bore new openings. Yes! You heard me.

The big lesson from this account is that carpenter bees have learned to resolve the obstacles they encounter no matter how challenging by finding lasting solutions to them as they come. Did you get that? When their holes are caulked for whatever reason, they don’t surrender and die inside, that urge to live; to define new paths gets them boring a new hole from within to get out of the entrapment. Imagine the dust and waste they have to deal will to get an exit from inside.

How many times do you surrender in the face of the challenges you must overcome to succeed? How often do you allow troubles to tie you down, to render you mediocre and lifeless? Be the carpenter bee that will not surrender to those who entraps it in its hole but will set to work and bore its way out of the trap.

The Farmer's Son

Dear loving people,

Each blessed day, I try my very best to do what I have to do. What about you? As achievers, we have to do what we have to do to live our everyday lives in a better way. We should strive to be goal-getters and  to get good results commensurate to our effort but, the down side comes in when we become too attached to outcomes (hope I am not getting you the more confused – let me explain). We should not be too attached to the outcomes of what we do, or spend so much time and emotion on controlling a future that can't be controlled. You get the point?

Do your utmost best, and leave the rest to the heavens – consult with it as often as you can, rather than the intellect.  I understood from countless testimonies from very successful people that Wise men and women are not attached to results, but rather live beyond time in the eternal present. Whether the result of our actions is negative or positive, we should not be attached to it (remember our discuss on the law of polarity?). We have to let it go and move on. The essential point is to strive to be empty and to let all things go - let the contents of the mind go - both good and bad - and let the light that illumines the mind flow through us and guide our way. Then we can treat each moment, each situation, as a new beginning. Then, we will be "seeing", hearing, sensing, and feeling from a deeper more open space - with and from our hearts, so to speak.

One day in late summer, an old farmer was working in his field with his old sick horse. The farmer felt compassion for the horse and desired to lift its burden. So he left his horse loose to go to the mountains and live out the rest of its life.

Soon after, neighbors from the nearby village visited, offering their condolences and said, "What a shame.  Now your only horse is gone.  How unfortunate you are! You must be very sad. How will you live, work the land, and prosper?" The farmer replied: "Who knows? We shall see".

One week later, the old horse came back now rejuvenated after meandering in the mountainsides while eating the wild grasses. He came back with twelve new younger and healthy horses which followed the old horse into the corral. 

Word got out in the village of the old farmer's good fortune and it wasn't long before people stopped by to congratulate the farmer on his good luck.  "How fortunate you are!" they exclaimed. “You must be very happy!"  Again, the farmer softly said, "Who knows? We shall see."

At daybreak on the next morning, the farmer's only son set off to attempt to train the new wild horses, but the farmer's son was thrown to the ground and broke his leg.  One by one the villagers arrived during the day to bemoan the farmer's latest misfortune. "Oh, what a tragedy!  Your son won't be able to help you farm with a broken leg. You'll have to do all the work yourself, How will you survive? You must be very sad".  They said.  Calmly going about his usual business the farmer answered, "Who knows? We shall see"

Several days later a war broke out. The Emperor's men arrived in the village demanding that young men come with them to be conscripted into the Emperor's army.  As it happened the farmer's son was deemed unfit because of his broken leg.  "What very good fortune you have!!" the villagers exclaimed as their own young sons were marched away. "You must be very happy." "Who knows? We shall see!” replied the old farmer as he headed off to work his field alone.

As time went on the broken leg healed but the son was left with a slight limp. Again the neighbors came to pay their condolences. "Oh what bad luck. Too bad for you"!  But the old farmer simply replied; "Who knows? We shall see."

As it turned out the other young village boys had died in the war and the old farmer and his son were the only able bodied men capable of working the village lands. The old farmer became wealthy and was very generous to the villagers. They said: "Oh how fortunate we are, you must be very happy", to which the old farmer replied, "Who knows? We shall see!" 

This classic story of the farmer's son is not one of passivity, but rather about how to be free from the limited results of logical efforts – conditional happiness and unhappiness stemming from ignorance which is obstructed vision seeing the small picture devoid of primary causes. 

Whatever bothers us the most are the things we have to let go of; they are reflections of an inner conflict. All of our problems even our health problems are related to disturbances of our emotions.

The best that we can do, is to do our very best - to act from that vast space of great happiness and reflect that as best we can. Always do your best in loving happiness! That feels best!