WHEN YOU HOLD BACK

Imagine this for me:

You go into your classroom with a brush and a palette. You are having art right now. One of your classmates is sprawled on his desk doing something with the greatest attention. You walk over to investigate. You see that he has been painting. Your look of surprise is unique as you see one of the best works in art you’ve ever seen under your classroom. You look at his face to tell him it’s amazing, when you realize it’s that wimpy kid who everyone makes fun of, or that bully who made fun of you years back. Everyone in the classroom has their eyes on you. You are confused. You literally just walk away without an other word. The boy’s eyes follows you and a vague pinch of disappointment is seen in his eyes but no one notices it.

Has this ever happened in your life. You hold back from who you should have been right then because you were afraid of what others may think. You let other people around you define you in a way that put you in pressure to turn away from doing the right thing! Who knows? Maybe that one act of care and kindness would have let him know that you’ve forgiven him or that you care about him.

When Jesus came into the world, people expected much more from what He said He was. They thought that to be the Messiah He had to be a King, not a poor carpenter. When He talked with sinners( whom the priests said were sinners) and ate with them, He was criticized. But he was King. He was the Son of the living God. That is why he was King. He came to save, not to judge.

When you are not being you, it means you are trying to be somebody else, somebody around you. You think you are being the better you. But the truth is that there is only one you. You are the only person who will ever be the best for you because you are unique. You can’t put your face on somebody else’s mind.

God made you unique. He did not want you to be somebody else.

You can change  though. For the better. But not like in the first paragraph of this post.

You can only change for the better by making decisions based on your morals and values. By doing what you know is right. But most of the time, even your morals suck. That is why we all need somebody greater than our own to guide us. In fact,we need God.

Let me tell you, those people around you, they won’t be there or even remember you 20 years from now. But that kind word will last until that person dies and he will remember you as a someone who held out a hand when others enjoyed him drowning in loneliness and regret.

Today, encourage someone. Lend a helping hand.

As someone said, “Nothing great happens when you hold back”.

MY UTOPIAN DREAM

I am still a student at school. I love my school and thank God every day for the opportunities it gives me. But there are times when I dream about a world where there are no schools. Why? I am not a bad student. I can be good at studies if I want to. But the reason I sometimes think about a school-free-world is because I think that sometimes it kills people. What are you talking about? You are crazy! Well, please don’t stop reading. By the end of this post I believe you will see what I mean.

Before I go any further I would like to ask you a simple question.

Which is the most interesting subject?

Now before I give you my answer, I would like to clarify one of my recent posts. In my post ‘Science and Philosophy’, I implied that Philosophy is more interesting and deserving more greatness because that was how I felt. It does not mean that everyone else should think so. In other words, it was not a generalized statement.

You can never say in general that one subject is greater than another.  Because you don’t have a perfect standard to evaluate them. The very factor that we are all different prevents this standardization.

Well, what does all this have to do with our education systems?

Actually, its not our education systems that are at fault. It’s us. . .

Today, we have this common belief that all those who are not academically ‘well to do’ are idiots and brainless. Well not everyone believes this and the  graph changes from place to place. But it still exists. What led to this conclusion. Are these kids really brainless?

No!!!!

We are all God’s creation and no human being is a waste or in any way inferior. Even the people we see around us who are disabled in some way, they are all valuable and they make a great difference in this world. It’s our conclusions that are wrong.

Look around you. Are all the people who changed the world for the better, kids who got through with straight As?

Nope!

Their situations or their mental composition did not let them to be one.

Most of the people who turned out to be the best in what they do were people who had to take risks and develop what they did best, even when the situations around them discouraged them. They had to take a giant leap of faith even when they did not have any guarantee that it would give them a secure and bright future. They knew they could only be the best by doing what they do best.

And believe me, the world is losing many of its bests because it is trying to evaluate  people based on a poor standard. The best is what helps the world to be its best. Everyone is best at something. If we don’t respect that, and make them believe that they will only be the best by doing something else, you’ve wronged them and you’ve literally killed their unique talents.

So what is my dream?

My dream is of a world where people will be able to do what they do best. A world where people are not labelled as brainless and inferior, but as unique and different. Let us see people for what they are than for what they are not.

Wrong Conclusions

We all live in a world where God put us to enjoy lives the right way. We all strive to earn for ourselves a life that will give us satisfaction and happiness. We Homo sapiens literally hate regret and are evidently scared to death of its possibilities. Sometimes we even go as far as to believe that we are better off than somebody else just because we have money, beauty, talents or positions. We come to conclusions so fast. Many leading to regrets that tend to stay on for a long, long time.

That man you see every day by your door selling fruits , could be just as happy and proud of his fruit cart, as the richest man in the world is of his billion dollar business. In fact he could be having much more happiness in his life. And here we are looking at him thinking how better off we are.

You can’t buy happiness. Why ever not? Well, it’s just because you just can’t sell it. Even if you want to. Happiness is a choice sometimes. You have to trust God to heal you and just let go of your past. The very picture of the sun rising above us everyday reminds us that yesterday is no more. Why in the world should we hold on to it?

We are all in the same boat. Some of us have gone through much more pain and sorrow. But we still are in the same boat. It’s just that somebody got a better seat with a good view.

When you are in first grade Math is so hard, when really its so easy. Our situations and what we’ve seen and gone through sometimes has a great role to play in how we respond to life. You could be devastated about you losing your only job, only to come home and see your 5-year-old kid just as devastated because he cannot find his teddy bear. We are all in the same boat. Sometimes we who have the best seats and the good views should look around our boat to see if there’s someone who needs it much more than you do.

You can’t sell happiness but you could be one in somebody else’s life. So look around today. Give somebody a compliment and be happy to give up your seat to somebody who needs it more than you do.

God bless you.

Silent Music

I can’t imagine a world without music. I can’t even imagine seeing a movie with no background music. Why? Because it is what gives the essence to many of the things we see around us. Sometimes I think about how all those things would have been without the music. It would be like sitting in a café and drinking coffee while everything around you was stuck in mundane atmosphere of a black and white picture. Well that was a bit over the top, even for me. Lets just say it would be like a rock band without their drummer.

I sat and thought about such a situation for a long time and that’s when the thought of a silent music came to me. Well, before I explain, I would like to give you a picture of what I am talking about.

Imagine you wake up everyday to the sound of one of those really old gigantic alarm clocks. You go the bathroom and you put the shower on and hear the crisp familiar sound of water. You go downstairs and you hear the sound of the toaster.

Now imagine all these sounds put into an arrangement with a nice good rhythm. Well, there you go. You technically just made your own music. Every sound you hear and just let go everyday is a musical note. Fantastic isn’t it?

Now here’s what is really interesting. Imagine they were not sounds at all.

Look at a pendulum or a kid on a swing at your local playground. They swing at a constant speed and though not completely, reach back to the point from where they began. In other words they have put into action a silent rhythm in their brain and in the brains around them watching.

Well, that is really weird.

But it’s true. Have you ever felt yourself humming to a tune while doing something? Well, I believe something about the pace at which you were working triggered a rhythm already recorded in your brain. It’s possible. I myself used to try this to give my work a rhythm. I just reversed the concept. When I had to finish up notes I missed at school, I would put a really good song with a great rhythm and give my writing a pace. This really worked for me because I used to get lost in my own thoughts every time I wrote about three sentences.

There is another form of silent music. If you are a trained musician, which unfortunately I am not, when you look at a music sheet, at least some of you will hear the music being played in your head. I strongly believe in this because Beethoven himself wrote his best compositions after he became almost deaf. He knew how those would sound like when he transferred it from the paper to the keys beneath his fingers.

Even if you can’t hear music and even if you are not a trained musician you can still enjoy it. It’s everywhere around you. Hidden. It’s different. That’s all. It’s just as enjoyable as real music because the curiosity you feel when you look for it, already makes it an enjoyable and unique experience. For those of us who really can hear, looking for the silent music around us is a great way to widen our perspective and bring into our music the enjoyable and hidden part which, I believe is in itself a part of the human being.

You’ve been a part of this hidden music for a long time. The same heart beat a baby hears in its mothers womb, sends it to sleep in its mother’s arms . Silent music is all around us. We just need to stop and listen to it.

Science or Philosophy?

Which is greater? Science or Philosophy?

My grandfather taught me the difference between Science and Philosophy. He defined Science as the number of petals in a flower and Philosophy as the beauty of the petals.

According to me, Philosophy is much greater than Science. I believe that our mind has two  parts, a scientific one and a philosophical one.

When we are met with a choice of cool drinks, suppose you have diet coke and the normal coke. Your scientific mind will point out the ‘diet’ part of the coke. But then your Philosophical mind kicks in and tells you to stick with a glass of water and the feeling that you did good to your money and your body.

That was just a joke. Well, maybe.

But here’s another point. I believe you wouldn’t have the curiosity to find out and search for answers if you did not have a philosophical mind. Philosophy shows you the importance of finding the answer to a particular question. I believe it even makes you aware of the importance of science as a way to find answers.

We all live in a 3 dimensional world where we are given the ability to feel something beyond what we see, things that are in a fourth dimension. This may be one of the many reasons why we feel them without limits. Faith, love, happiness, we all feel them not knowing whether or not they have a limit. Being just a 16-year-old, I don’t know all the Physics and Chemistry to give a very scientific explanation. But I would like to point out one small factor we often forget when we evaluate something we can’t see but do feel. We try to define it by dimensions we see. We measure distances, tracks of land, water tanks and big huge buildings because we can see it, its length, breadth and height. Well, here’s the breaking news. We have to define the  things we can’t see with dimensions we can’t see. Well, then you would probably ask me, what about the wind. You don’t see it. Do you? But you see its effect in your surroundings. Take the example of love. When you  give your children a hug and a goodnight, you don’t see the love that passes from you to them. But you see its effect. The kid goes to sleep with a smile. This is what usually helps you to evaluate the potential of an act of kindness, care and love.

You can never define to a complete extent, the love a mother has for her children with science. You can never describe feelings either. Science will tell you how those tears came but philosophy will tell you why it came.

But this doesn’t mean Science is nothing. It is an amazing subject. It allows you to experience life to a greater extent.

Imagine yourself listening to a classical piece by Bach. You will never be able to enjoy the twists and turns in the musical notes to the extent a musician does.

But for me the greatest reason why I love philosophy is because it shows me there is a God.

I learned this during youth group at Church

No animal around us develops using its resources. The nest a bird made a thousand years ago is the same nest it makes today. But humans have changed. Why?

The Bible tells us God made us in His image. God is somebody who created the whole universe. This could be the only reason.

Consider this:

You look at a picture of millions of stars in the night sky and you say: Wow!

A 4-year-old kid looks at the same picture and utters the ‘wow’ with the same awe and wonder with which you do. In fact you both feel an equal wonder about the picture.This is because it is beyond the understanding of you both.

Now consider something that a human being brought about. Take a painting by Pablo Picasso or the Theory of Relativity. You and that kid, believe me, will utter different ‘WOW’s.

Everything around us that we never made, all of that is enjoyed by everyone, the blind, the child, the adult to the same extent. This itself is the proof for a master planner, a creator who is way beyond us.

Everything around us is greater than what we could ever make up on our own.

But the funny thing is we can still enjoy it. Why?

Because somebody made it to be like that, so that we could enjoy it without knowing everything about it.

Wrong limits

We all go through phases in life where we don’t know what’s going on with us. Everything we used to be sometimes seem to go downhill. Every human being is competent and worthy of praise, seeing that we are all different unique in mental and physical composition and as there will never be a perfect system to evaluate us all perfectly. We have to be careful that we never judge a person based on these incomplete standards of quality. We do so usually and many a time we end up with regret when life brings us face to face with them many years later and we see that we judged them wrong. Talent is not specific. You can have a talent that no one has ever seen on the face of the earth. You could be best at what you do in that small area of your life. But you could go unnoticed just because it’s not classified generally as talent.

Today what I would like to tell you is that you should evaluate the limits you set in your life. In the human sense, you as a human being in all your greatest potential is the limit you have in life. The only person standing between you and your success is you. As a Christian, I believe in this. Sometimes your relationship with God is not going well because you are standing in the way. And believe me when God is in total control of your life, you as a human being, regardless of your potential, has no limits. This is something I am still learning.

 No one is perfect. Sometimes we fall down from success not because we are not working hard and trying our best. It’s because sometimes we don’t believe in ourselves and we don’t believe God can work miracles.

You can be the most talented person in your small little world and still just barely make it in life. Just because you don’t believe in yourself. Dedication, interest and work ethic all cling to this one thread. Instead of criticizing yourself for everything you don’t have in life, you could look in the mirror and see that you are a masterpiece. It takes courage to look these things in the eye and make your point because most times you are fighting against  you .

So take of those labels. See yourself through the eyes of your maker. Because whoever you are, whatever be your past, you are his masterpiece. He has already defined you and no one else can, without your permission. Take those limits you’ve set for yourself and let God define them. Believe me you will see wonders sprout into your life.

The Classroom Window

Hello everyone.

Just a few days before, I entered my last year in school. I entered my new classroom took a seat by the window and looked at the reflection of the window frame made by the sun and when I looked closely I saw things I’ve never even noticed when I’ve sat by a window. It was the most beautiful scene I ever saw in my whole life. I was astounded by the beauty of the world around me that I’ve never even took time to think about. When I sat there I got to thinking how blessed I was to be receiving education. I thanked God because I saw his art there. I’ve heard the stories of many a kid my age taking their own lives just because they failed in their studies or because they thought they had no hope.

I wondered if ever they saw the beauty around them, would they ever have made those choices? Life itself is the greatest gift of all. Sometimes you have to go through the worst to become great. It’s just because you were destined to be great that sometimes you have to go through the worst things in life. But when you endure it you are already great.

I started looking at life with a new light a long time ago when I was born again and began a relationship with Jesus Christ. I’ve never been perfect but every time I screw up, he’s there showing me something that will tell me that I am his and that I am whole in him and that my future is secure in his hands. This is not just words, it’s an experience.

This is the small poem I wrote looking out the window that day.

When I Sat By The Classroom Window.

I sat by the classroom window,

and paid my debt in awe to the sun’s glow.

Lines of light connect me to a world beyond,

through wooden frames that my freedom bind.

Unseen perspiration on my nails,

were made prisms, dim and pale.

The light filled every crack and crevice,

and destroyed vestiges of nocturnal peace.

It illuminated my wooden desk,

and made it a colour of dusk.

It mowed the texture that upright stood,

the signature of a saw on wood.

From the wooden frames it took a bite,

and turned my face, half black, half white.

It gave me hope and a better view,

of a world I thought I always knew. . .

 

Have a great day and God bless you. . . .

When you use the situation

Why do great people come from crazy situations? Why does the underdog sometimes win?

Einstein hated the education he received when he was a kid. He was written off as a kid with no brains, except by his math teacher. Einstein never understood why you had to memorize  all those dates of wars and revolutions when he was only interested in knowing why it happened. But this helped him to find his innate ability in Science and Math which may not have surfaced with the potential with which it did.

Imagine a student in a class where he was taught nothing he found of interest.  His lack of interest in what he was forced to study, would result in him finding what he really loved and would automatically make him develop those innate talents with the same zeal with which he would love to get rid of those subjects he finds boring.

And there are times when the student may be so determined to excel that his hard work would result in him finding a love for the subject that did not exist before because he has already reached a level where what he studies is so easy and interesting.

Well, in both cases the person emerges with a talent and potential that he did not have before.

But then why doesn’t everyone become great?

Because most times you don’t funnel your boredom and your hard work  into the right things.

There is a reason why you are in the situation you are in. There is a purpose for your life. So today pray about how to spend your time make sure you don’t waste it. We all waste time. None of us are perfect. But since we never are perfect there is always room to change.

DOES TIME EXIST?

We all are controlled by many a thing that is unseen. One of these is time. Does time exist or is it just a representation you create on a clock, or is it a transitional change of the day and the night? Well if you ask me, time does not exist as we often see it to be. When you stand as a constant at the centre of many factors that change your surroundings, there is a change and you relate it  to time, in our case anyway. But the interesting fact is that it goes on or proceeds without any external force. Time proceeds with each heartbeat . The reality that we age is a proof. Therefore it is a creation. We just measure it with clocks, the sun and the moon. If we go to space, we don’t experience time as we do on earth. I am just 16 years old. I don’t know all about the great psychological-scientific explanations for all this.  But this clearly does the thing for me.

The bible tells us that God is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, which clearly means that God is not under time. I believe God created time so that we could understand his glory through a medium that we could understand.