Author: Simone

I look up to the sky
And now the world is mine
I’ve known it all my life
I made it, I made it!
I used to dream about, the life I’m living now
I know that there’s no doubt.
I made it, I made it!

Kevin Rudolf – I Made It 

Today I went to church after not having been there for two weeks! Yes this has been a recurring problem for me. However, I witnessed the induction of my former Principal as Chalice bearer after being given the Bishop’s licence! She had retired a couple of years ago from the school I teach at and I thought retirement meant taking things easy. After all she had accomplished so much and ended – some may say – at the pinnacle of her profession. Well apparently not for her! I was really happy for her because she was embarking on a new passion; a role I had never seen her in before and who knows maybe at one point she had never seen herself there either. But it is a role that affords her the opportunity to say, “I made it”.

Here are some questions for you today. How many of you can say right now, I’ve made it? I have done everything there is to do and I have everything I need to have and so that’s it. Well if we have achieved something we always wanted to achieve that’s great but do we remain satisfied with that?

For many, to “make it” means success but there are many persons who “make it” on a daily basis, but once the thrill of making it is over, they are left feeling empty and immediately have to set a new goal to capture that feeling again. It eventually becomes a cycle that may last their lifetime. So it begs the question: can we be satisfied with what we have already done. Will there always be a need to conquer new heights and reach just a little further or even charter a new course?

My answer is YES. It’s okay to reach the success you dreamed about yesterday today and look forward to a success you haven’t fully formed, but is in the process of being crafted in your minds eye. If you think about the fact that we do not die immediately after we achieve whatever we initially set out to achieve, then you will realise that wanting more and dreaming of more is not a bad thing. Once you have achieved it there is nothing else to fine tune, you cannot erase the experiences of that past and start all over to get the same goals. So it’s natural to want to achieve something else to jump over a new hurdle or break down even more barriers.

There are persons who have remained in the same job for many, many years and that’s a great accomplishment. However, that does not have to be the road we all travel. Change is constant and as we get older, we too change. When I was younger I wanted to be a nurse and so many other things. But the older I got, the more I realised what I like and what I don’t like and because of that my ambitions changed. For some person one passion can drive their entire life and for others there are many that they want to explore and neither avenue is more gratifying than the other. They both have their worth, because the person associated with each path follows their God given idiosyncrasies.

Success comes not only from being focused on one path your entire live but from knowing that you pursued that thing or those things that represent your passion or passions. Its better to have made it many times over than to have never made it at all

The discontent that lies in the human condition is not satisfied simply by material things.

Derek Walcott

Too young or not too inexperienced or not…

Have you ever been told you are too young or too old? If you have then what was your response? Did you accept this reasoning as valid for your life and just went about your business? Well being told that you are too old or too young is one of the great tragedy of many persons we see around us. The tragedy is in the fact that we have been conditioned to think this is true.

We may hear many stories of persons who accomplished great things in the latter part of their lives or when they were ridiculously young. We have dutifully been impressed and categorise them as the real G.O.A.T. We feel good because we have heard their story but when we think about us being just as great, the safe line to use in our situation is, “it’s too late for me”. When I was younger, I boldly or foolishly suggested to my grandmother to divorce my grandfather. I was of the impression that she would be a lot happier without him. Instead of receiving a spirited lick from her, she instead said in the saddest and most regretful voice, “it’s too late”. with those words I felt the deeply held pain she had been careful never to show me and I wondered how much she must have suffered and was suffering because she felt her life was rooted with this man.

I have always been told I was a very precocious child and I know I was but that precociousness was well and truly beaten out of me. I was told I was ‘dry eye” facety ect. However, I realise that displaying those characteristics, was not a bad thing on their own, but they required proper guidance and nurturing. My grandparents were of the generation where “children should be seen and not heard” and so instead of being taught how to properly channel that precociousness, it was stamped out as a matter of course.

Nowhere in Between

I do not believe it is ever too late for doing what you want nor do I believe it’s ever too early. I believe that things happen and change is possible when it is the right time. if you have the physical and mental acuity then it can never be late. Often times we talk ourselves out of experiencing the best of ourselves, the best life we will ever have because we believe, or society has told us we are too early or too late. Therefore, we spend our lives in a kind of purgatory, never truly feeling as if we have arrived. We always feel as if we are perpetually in transit, never able to truly fit in anywhere. To accept that it’s too late or too early is to give up on yourself, your dreams and your happiness.

Fight Back

You fight back against the tide by being determined in the face of naysayers or challenges. when you accept that no one can determine your manufacture or expiration date but God, then you are already equipped to succeed at whatever you want to succeed at. However, the challenge lies in remaining motivated to do what you must to realise your potential at any age. Ignite your own flame if you have to and protect it from the ravages of doubt and fear.

Biology gives you a brain. Life turns it into a mind

― Jeffrey Eugenides

I’m not a medical doctor nor a medical student and the focus of this blog is not on giving insight on brain damage and its effects. However, I was recently confronted with the phrase above and I was intrigued by it. How can this apply to me and better yet, how does this apply to each of us and how we operate on a daily basis. The context I heard the phrase in had nothing to do with biology and everything to do with the mental state of individuals.

According to Science daily:
brain damage or brain injury is the destruction or degeneration of brain cells. It may not but can lead to long term impairment or disability, but depends on the location and extent of the damage. Another interesting thing is that the extent of the damage depends on the extent of the trauma experienced.

What impact do you have?

If we think about our own impact then we need to consider if we inadvertently bring trauma into the lives of others. Most persons would like to think that everyone they make contact with, are left with a positive impression and are impacted positively, but this is dependent on how damaged we are when we meet them and how much we have allowed traumas to control us.

With any relationship we bring our previous baggage along for the ride, whether we are fully aware of it or not. Not only do the meanings we create from our experiences shape who we are, they also impact those we choose to have relationships with. If we view our experiences as mostly negative, then we have shaped our lives and interactions to be mostly negative. It is true that our thoughts can limit how people see us and how we treat others. The result of which is that we end up leaving others with a piece of our trauma based on their interactions with us. We all have experienced loss, we all have faced challenges that have led us to question our choices and our purpose. However, how we choose to see these experiences will have a profound impact on our lives. Do we choose to see them as a gateway to something greater or a stone that blocks us from achieving the best of what is waiting for us.

Brain in Recovery

We all have traumas that we are in a constant state of recovery from them and recovery will take time. However, it is important to acknowledge those traumas so that we can deal with them. Reading a little more on the brain I learned that the brain is not static but has what is know as [brain plasticity] and has the ability to perform [functional recovery]. As a result we do not have to be limited to a bad experience but we can change and evolve for the better because of them. However, we have the power to determine if we ever recover. If we are unwilling to take the first step in doing so, then the change will not come. It therefore means that if we remain in our damaged state then it is because we have chosen to remain there. Being a positive influence is based on our ability to take the journey on the road to healing. Change your mind to change your condition.

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

1 John 1:8

The scripture above reminds me every time I read it that it’s really hard not to sin. But it’s hard for anyone to be around persons who think that they are better than others and that they have a right to be critical . Being righteous means being morally right, good or excellent. I know that when I rank students profile for their report card everyone wants to get As for excellent, but its always a question of do they deserve the rank. Then there is self-righteous which means, seeing yourself as superior to others, being holier-than-though or even hypocritical. No one therefore wants the title of self-righteousness based on those descriptors…

Sorry… We are all Guilty!

Even as I write this post I am being critical of others. The good thing is that I know this, I acknowledge it as a fault and I am committed to working on being less so.

The shocking thing is that we are all guilty of being self-righteous. When we take credit for doing something, then we forget the words Jesus spoke in St. Luke chapter 17, especially verse 10 where Jesus instructed his disciples:
So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.”

It’s hard for many of us not to take the credit when things go well and everyone is telling us how wonderful, or how great we are. When things are not going so well then it must be someone else’s fault. We are the innocent victim of this person or that person. We had absolutely positively definitely nothing whatsoever wrong. I am sure by now you get the sarcasm but just in case you missed it, I’m pointing it out. Sometimes we go too far. We begin to think that we are in a battle with God and he has allowed us to be in the terrible position. Often times it is easier to blame others when things do not work out in our favour.

then there are those who casually sit in judgement of others. We all have done this, so please do not try to remember that one friend who does this nor should you look at the person close by. We can judge others because:

1. We have never lied
2. we have never done a thing, a day in our lives that we are NOT proud of.
3. we have never killed, stolen anything
4. to avoid this list getting longer, in essence we are good through and through.

As a result, we have earned the right in all or in some situations to be judgemental, to tell everyone else when they are not doing the right things. But woe unto the one who tries to tell us that we also fall into that category.

Passing Judgment is not being righteous, it simply proves that we are not perfect that we have flaws that we hide behind when we judge other. While we can be intelligent, generous, kind, patient and forgiving. We are also, vacuous, mean, unkind, impatient and very unforgiving. It’s just that we often times refuse to acknowledge our imperfection. Though making wise judgements can be good when we need to be critical of certain situation, we are often times too quick to cancel people we feel in some way are lacking based on our finite assessment. For all of us who are quick to cancel others, is that always the only choice we have?

I recently came across a [blog] that listed 13 signs you are a judgemental person and sadly friends I am terribly judgmental. SoI want you to look at the list below and see if you are. If you are, don’t worry, we all have the opportunity to grow and change and just keep in mind what Romans 3 verse 23 says:

For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God

13 Signs You’re a Judgemental person

1. You believe that everyone is out to get you.
2. You expect other people to be consistent all the time.
3. You struggle to see beyond a person’s flaws.
4. You easily skip to conclusions.
5. You struggle to tolerate ambiguity and uncertainty.
6. You’re intolerant of people unlike you.
7. You’re generally pessimistic about life.
8. You tend to believe people are either ‘good’ or ‘bad.’
9. You struggle to truly appreciate or see the beauty in others.
10. You have low self-worth.
11. You feel anxious around other people.
12. You’re suspicious and untrusting.
13. You have a strong inner critic who judges you.

Don’t be caught on the wrong side of right:

“There’s never been a true war that wasn’t fought between two sets of people who were certain they were in the right. The really dangerous people believe they are doing whatever they are doing solely and only because it is without question the right thing to do. And that is what makes them dangerous.”

― Neil Gaiman, American Gods