Never Cliché

Dear …………………………,

I saw a great movie today. A beautiful one.

The sun’s almost down here. The birds are all returning to their modest abodes. If every day was a movie, then this would be a very cliché ending. But yet this is beautiful. Every day is filled with ephemeral clichés that we seem to enjoy with a satisfaction that makes no sense at all. Stefan, haven’t you gotten tired of seeing the sunset, the flying birds, and the full moon? You’ve been loitering on this earth for 18 years. But no, you still enjoy them. They still make sense to you.

The movie I saw today ended with a cliché. And yes, I would have liked it to surprise me, but it didn’t. But yet, it was beautiful, full of meaning. Today, films are trying to survive. Everything is becoming cliché. Around a lakh movies are made every year. New clichés are made every day. Playwrights and directors are rocking their brains left and right to find something new.

Why do I never stop loving a good sunrise? Why do I never get bored with nature?

Is it the acceptance of my unawareness of many of the delicate details I have yet to see? Maybe.

I have a feeling that a cliché becomes annoying only when you are aware of a better possibility. If this is indeed true, then it is the limitations of my imagination that makes me fall in love over and over again with nature, love, beauty and another human being.

And that, I find extremely beautiful. In a world that keeps changing in time, I find it comforting to think that my sheer oblivion to an alternative for many things and my sheer inability to form one, makes what is there everlasting and beautiful.

God, you have indeed painted your glory in the skies and in the most minute vestiges of nature. I can’t find anything to replace it.

Yours,

Stefan

 

 

 

A great quote

Hey guys,

Just wanted to drop in and share with you a great quote I just read over at the blog of one of my dear friends, Stuart L. Tutt. It just brightened up my day 🙂

‘You will also realize that despite the fact you can’t find pants that actually fit you, your body size is perfect. It is exactly that way God designed you to be. You will eventually come to terms with it.’ – Stuart L. Tutt

Go check out his blog at https://stubaby777.wordpress.com/

I’m sure you’ll be inspired. God bless you all! 🙂

Freedom

 

Freedom.

It’s a word we all have our own idiosyncratic views about. It’s a well debated word too. The world we live in today, is in many ways, connected to what we perceive in this seven letter word. True freedom is what we all strive for in many ways. So, yeah, it is a very interesting topic, one of colossal significance.

What do you think of when you hear the word ‘freedom’?

Do you know what I think when I hear that word?

I picture myself being able to fly. I imagine that sheer energy that comes from being able to do something impossible. I imagine the joy at the prospect of something that limits me being stripped away. Yeah, we all can relate to that. What we see when we hear the word ‘freedom’ always has something to do with our limitations. And that’s no surprise. After all, freedom essentially means ‘being free’.

Freedom is something we all strive towards because we believe ultimate freedom will make us happy. But will it? Is our idea of ‘freedom’ a soup of fallacious ideas that has fooled our sagacity?

That’s what I was thinking of, a few days ago, when I looked out the window and saw a bird flapping it’s wings in pure natural majesty. If I asked that bird what picture comes to its mind when I say the word ‘freedom’, what would it say?

Would it talk about swimming in an ocean?

That’s something it can’t do, right?

Well anyways, it was a moment of epiphany for me.

The truth is that the value we give for what ounce of freedom we have, is in many ways based on our knowledge of our own limitations.

If you were born without any limitations, how in the world could you value freedom? The concept of freedom would not exist for you. It would be a joy you’ll never know. Not because you are not free, but because you do not know what a limitation means.

Why do we need true freedom if we can’t enjoy it?

I believe you feel true freedom, when you are limited but agree and see your limitations as a necessary part of your life, so much so, that you don’t want it to go away. This way, you are aware of what your limitation is, but you also accept it, making it a part of your freedom. When you start believing a limitation is not limiting you,  it no longer is a limitation. And I believe that is where we start enjoying true freedom

I believe we are blessed to be limited beings. For that is what helps us to enjoy what freedom we have.

 

 

 

Trophies

‘Talent is plants that sprout from seeds of passion.’ 🙂

 

Hey guys!

Yesterday, was an important day for me. You could say it was an emotional one, but it’s a special kind of emotion. The kind of emotion you have when you move to a different house. That feeling of wanting to stay, when you shut that door for the last time.

Am I moving to a new place?

Nope.

I mean, yeah. Kind of.

When I was about 6 years old, I prayed a very heartfelt prayer, sitting in an old auditorium in my school. It was a beautiful evening, but it was an evening I would remember not because it was beautiful, but because of the emotion that passed through me as I sat there.

I sat there, my head down, as all my friends went to collect their trophies. Their feet on the floor echoed in the auditorium, putting me into a sleep, sedating me. I was stuck in time, as everything around me moved. I was happy for my friends, I really was. But I was sad because I did not have a trophy to carry back home.

And on that day, I prayed a heartfelt prayer,

‘God, please help me achieve at least one prize, one trophy, before I leave this school.’

I’ve always thought I was made for something special. It’s not like I’m prideful or anything. I think every person should live like that. My parents always made me feel special and encouraged me and told me I was meant for something great. So from a very young age, I started thinking about my future.

I’ve always dreamed of being great, just like every person on this planet. But I don’t want to be known for just one thing. I want to be an all-rounder. A man of many talents. And I’ve always tried to work towards that. Every two to three years, I add something to my life and I try to see how far I can go. I’ve always loved the change, colour and satisfaction it brought into my life. This blog, is a great example for that. 🙂

As time passed by, I learned to draw, play instruments, speak, write and create. I proved to myself that I could study well too. I didn’t take part in many competitions until high school. When I got into high school, I decided to challenge myself. We have an arts festival every year at school. 3 days filled with competition, excitement and challenge. Those who come up top in the competitions qualify for the regionals. I decided to do something crazy. I went up there and gave my name for nearly everything up on the board that day. If I could scrape through it, I believed I should try it. Those three days, I was running from venue to venue, doing stuff that I’d never done before. But I felt good.

Everything I learnt, I learnt on my own. So they were never professional or perfect. They were the result of the many hobbies I had taken up along the years.

The day the results came, I saw everyone looking at me. Overnight, my name had appeared in a lot of places. I went down there and I saw them and my heart started beating fast. My dreams were coming true.

In the years that came, I achieved things that I never thought I could achieve. I always tried my best to make sure it never went to my head. God had heard my prayer. That was how I looked at it. Giving everything up to him, helped me to focus on the future and not base it on the past. I would enjoy the moments of glory on stage and leave it at that.

My grades really suffered because of the many hobbies I had. Added to that was my dislike of the subjects I had to learn. But I scraped through somehow.

I kept some of my trophies by my bed. They reminded me that I was worth it and also reminded me to thank God for everything good in my life. They always inspired me and helped me to push myself harder.

Now I am out of school. And I know there is something great for me out there. I believe there are many more things to achieve. And I should make room for them. I have to prepare the fields for the rain.

So, yesterday, I did something to signify a new page in my life. I took around thirty trophies and packed them in an Amazon box and sealed it. It somehow felt like moving into a new house. But it was exciting. For me it was a sign of accepting new challenges.

 

Guys, I believe talent is plants that sprout from seeds of passion. And I want you to remember that you are special. And when you believe that your eyes will be opened to a whole new world of possibilities. You start really believing in your dreams when you realise and accept that. For you to have passion for something, you have to believe you can do it.

You can have a talent for anything in the world. It can be anything. Anything from making a good coffee to being an amazing singer. That is why it can change your life. People will see passion in your eyes every time they talk to you. But for that to happen you have to believe you are meant for something great.

Believing that you are special and that you can create a difference is like that moment of inspiration in movies where the hero is knocked out and the villain is laughing. But suddenly the hero rises again, inspired, by something. Sometimes it’s a person, sometimes it’s a memory and sometimes it’s a voice in their head of someone they love, telling them, ‘you are special’. That one moment of inspiration, wakes up the muscles that were sleeping, it floods the entire body like a wave of energy.

That wave of energy in your life, will recruit parts of your brain and your mind that were fast asleep. That’s when talent is born.

God made you to be great. It is a fact. Believe it. It will change your life.

God bless! 🙂

 

What do you think about this? Comment. Share. Be a part of the movement! 🙂

 

 

 

Happy Mother’s Day!! :)

Just wanted to take a moment to thank the mothers who always stand behind us, never expecting anything back. It is their smile that we see first and their heartbeat that makes us feel secure. They made us smile. Today, it is our job to make them smile.

Here are some pics of the old me and my mom 🙂

Happy Mother’s Day, Mommy!!!!

 

Liebster Award! + 200 followers

 

Hi guys.

It’s me. Again. 🙂

This post is about my…no….our… second Liebster Award nomination this year. Even though this post is about the award, this post is also a heartfelt thank you from me to you. A thank you for being a part of this 4D family, where we dare each other to go beyond what we see. I thank God every time I open my laptop and see this blog. I am blessed to be a part of your lives, to be able to influence people I’ve never even met. This is exciting. This is extraordinary.

God bless you guys! You’ve been wonderful to me and to my work and so I thank you.

Here’s to our second Liebster award and 202 followers!

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Stuart L. Tutt, my dear friend, for nominating me for this award. He’s a great blogger and an inspiration to me. You can visit his blog at https://stubaby777.wordpress.com/  Make sure you check it out!

Okay, now let’s get right into it!

 

Here are the rules:

If you’ve been nominated and you choose to accept the nomination, write a post about the Liebster award in which you:

1. thank the person who nominated you, and post a link to their blog on your blog.
2. display the award on your blog — by including it in your post and/or displaying it using a “widget” or a “gadget”. (Note that the best way to do this is to save the image to your own computer and then upload it to your blog post.)
3. answer 11 questions about yourself, which will be provided to you by the person who nominated you.
4. provide 11 random facts about yourself.
5. nominate 5 – 11 blogs that you feel deserve the award, who have a less than 1000 followers. (Note that you can always ask the blog owner this since not all blogs display a widget that lets the readers know this information!)
6. create a new list of questions for the blogger to answer.
7. list these rules in your post (You can copy and paste from here.) Once you have written and published it, you then have to:
8. Inform the people/blogs that you nominated that they have been nominated for the Liebster award and provide a link for them to your post so that they can learn about it.

Here are 11 random facts about myself ( I will try my best not to include any from my last Liebster Award 🙂 )

1. I am a Christian
2. I love old music.
3. I  love planes. I’ve been a fan since I was a small kid. I used to play the Microsoft Flight Simulator a lot. I mean a LOT. They are so beautiful, so free you just want to be a part of them.
4. I collect the packets my guitar strings come in and hang them all over my room :). It’s a bit weird but I like it. It inspires me.
5. When I was a kid, I tried to make my own submarine ( in case there was a tsunami, though that would never probably happen with us being a good way away from the ocean. lol. ) 🙂
6. I hope to do a concert on the Niagara falls someday. ( I’ve never been to Niagara Falls though ) 🙂
7. I like vintage cars
8. I love to sing in the bathroom
9. I play the a few instruments ( the guitar, the piano, the mouth organ, and a little this and a little that of some other instruments)
10. I don’t like video games that much. ( as of now) 🙂
11. I want to do a TED talk one day

My answers to Stuart’s questions:

1. What would be the one thing you would tell your younger self, if you could go back in time?

Ans: God’s in control.
2. What is your favorite verse in the Bible and why?

Ans: Wow. That’s a hard one. I believe the Christian life is not about our love for God but God’s love for us. So, I am going to go with the famous John 3:16. 🙂
3. What is your reason for starting your blog?

I’ve always worked towards being an all rounder instead of working towards being anyone in particular. If I can’t do something, it’s ok. But I try. Blogging was something like that. But I loved writing and I thought I should use it show people how I saw the world. And it was pretty cool to introduce yourself as a blogger to new people.
4. Which actor/actress did you have a crush on growing up?

It’s a secret. 🙂
5. Do you prefer board games or a game of cards?

Board games! I used to play chess and I really enjoy it.
6. What is you favorite breakfast food?

I love eating fruits. So a bowl of some great fruits is an awesome start to the day for me.
7. Do you prefer mustard or mayo?

Mustard!
8. Which TV series can you not go a week without watching?

I don’t watch TV series’ that much but I do watch movies. One of my favorites is ‘Facing the Giants’. I rewatch it from time to time.
9. Have you wanted to do something but chose not to because of circumstances?

I wanted to be a lead guitar player for a band. But I had to study and get a job first. 🙂
10. When was the last time you went out to eat?

About 2 weeks ago, I think.
11. How hard is it to forgive yourself?

It’s hard sometimes. But I remind myself, if God can forgive me, I should forgive myself too.

My nominees:

Teen, Meet God :- https://teenmeetgod.wordpress.com/

Alethea’s mind :- https://aletheasmind.wordpress.com/

I write…..my love story :- https://wcr281.com/

Grief to Life :- http://grieftolife.com/

Life is short, I believe in making the most of it :- https://totalbradnessblog.wordpress.com/

Belle’s Nook :- https://bellesnook.wordpress.com/

Maritime Mac :- https://maritimemac.com/

 

My questions: ( You can also answer these questions in the comments) 🙂

1. Which is your favourite song?
2. What would you name your car?
3. If you could live anywhere in the world for one year, where would you live? ( I wanted to say 1 day, but then that would be silly)
4. If you had your own company what would you name it?
5. Which is your favorite band?
6. Which do you like more: rain or snow?
7. What is your superpower?
8. If you could invent anything, what would you invent?
9. Which is the best book you’ve ever read?
10. Which part of blogging do you like most?
11. What do you want to pray about, today?

 

Thank you guys, once again. You’ve all been amazing. God bless!

 

3 Day Quote Challenge! Day 3

Ooops!

Hey guys, I just wanted to apologise first to you all for doing my Day 3, 2 hours late. Does that still count. I am technically 2 hours and 30 minutes into Day 4. I got caught up with a lot of other things and I couldn’t make it in time. Anyway, I won’t let you down next time 🙂

But I’m still excited to do this.

Here are the rules:

1. Thank the person who nominated you.
2. Post a quote for three consecutive days.
3. Nominate three other bloggers each day.

This is the last post of this challenge. I just wanted to thank 4 very special people for making this possible. If you haven’t checked them out yet, do me a favour and do so. I promise you, you’ll love them all! 🙂

1. Grief to life – https://grieftolife.com/
2.Sunshine – https://kerri-elizabeth.com/
3.Living What You Love – https://rominascorner.wordpress.com/
4.Stuart L. Tutt – https://stubaby777.wordpress.com/

Okay, here goes………….

The last quote of this challenge if from my post ‘Life’s Orchestra’. You can get the full post at https://thefourthdimensionoflife.wordpress.com/2017/05/11/lifes-orchestra/

Life is a song sung by you. It’s up to you whether to go solo or to form an orchestra.

Why I like this quote:

In the post, I tried to make a similarity between how every life is in fact a song and how no life is useless because every song has a listener who will understand and adore it. We all have different tastes. But this particular quote deals with how we produce our song. You can  stand out there on the canvas of time and sing it all alone. Or. You can bring in all those people who love and care for you. Sometimes it’s hard bringing in other people. It leads to a lot of contrasting opinions and preferences and sometimes ends in arguments. But. at the end of the day, you have a fullness to your song. You can’t play all the instruments. Life’s not a recording studio. It moves with time. The only way to put those instruments in your song and make it an explosive work of creativity is to be a team player.

I hope you liked this quote. What did you think of it?

Comment. Share. Be a part of the movement.

My nominees for today!

1. Wordpalblog :- https://worldpal.blog/
2. Quotes, Blogs and a Whole lot :- https://daradgamer.wordpress.com/
3. Jessy :- https://faithandbooks.com/

Have a great day guys! I absolutely love you all! God bless! 🙂