Eyes on the prize

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There is no feeling as hopeless as the realization that you have very little choice in controlling the chances you get in life. Do you determine your destiny or your destiny is usually already pre-determined? Or is it a bit of both?

During our freshman years in campus we all had our own dreams and aspirations that we set out to achieve out of life. Flash forward 10 years later, life does not really go down as planned, or does it? The ones who thought would get married are still in between dates and miserable, the outgoing ones who would naturally land a good deal are busy being jack of all trades. I can bet we each know someone who was good in accounts class but found themselves in marketing industry because that is where an opportunity opened. The universe may at times seem like it plays the cruellest jokes in our lives, and even when the tough gets going you somehow start ‘adapting to your fate’.

The control enthusiast in me, is learning and adapting, albeit slowly that most things in life will be determined by chance and there is very little I could do to control it and that is just the way of the universe. And I just have to trust, that all should work out not for good but for the best. For instance, while learning to swim an important lesson is that you have to trust the water to hold you up while floating. So if the universe is God’s, and everything in it his, myself included, I have to believe that the dreams I have and have envisioned he did not put there in vain, neither can he be so unfair to give me what he knows is not suitable for me.

However that realization does not equate to giving up on our dreams, once your eyes are on the prize there should be no holding back. In Swahili there is a saying haba na haba hujaza kibaba – little savings go a long way. In the end all the efforts you put will culminate to something substantial, a theory which we can apply in all spheres of our lives. After all who was it who said you cannot have it all? Aren’t we descendants of Abraham who through his faith was promised blessings in abundance to his household?

Do not settle for what comes your way out of desperation, or the feeling that you could be running out of time. I saw a certain poster that challenged me, if you were told your life will be exactly the same in the next 10 years would that make you happy? Then why are you so scared of change? The grass on the other side will always be greener, but at your own pace, chase your dreams regardless of the circumstances. When all is said and done something got to give in the direction you work towards. It is like the same universe that had been giving mixed signals in what you were requesting, finally starts decoding your message, and yielding opportunities which you thought maybe were just not meant to be.

Whether you determine your destiny, or your destiny is already pre-determined, or it’s a mixture of both, could be a debatable issue. But what am certain of, in the words of renowned World Hero Nelson Mandela, there is no passion to be found playing small, fight so hard till fate accepts defeat.