WHERE THE BEAUTY LIES.

All of us long to be beautiful. We believe it will gain us attention, praise and fame. If you show me a person who does not want to be beautiful, I will pay you. Seriously.

Our life is a highway. There are people who live on the fast lane, while there are people who keep to the side while others swish past them. There are people on great cars while there are people on lawn mowers. Well riding on a lawn mower is technically impossible, as is using it on a highway. Well, just humour me for a few minutes.

As I was saying, we define our pace based on the cars around us. You could be the fastest car on track until somebody else comes by, gives you a cheeky smile and overtakes your now ‘late 20th century’ car.

Keeping that in mind, let me tell you where the real beauty lies.

Imagine one of your friends is extraordinarily beautiful. He has just one problem – pride and a very domineering behavior. Another one of your friends is not a winner in looks  at all. But he’s always there for you and values you and your company.

Who will get the attention?

At first glance, the first friend will be the winner. But believe me when I say that in the long run, he’s going to get a lot of attention he doesn’t want.

The second friend, though he’s not good looking, will earn for himself many an ear. He will receive the positive attention many would give anything for. Because of his character, you will strive to find beautiful things in him, which will make him beautiful on the inside as well as on the outside. In the case of the first guy, you will fight tooth and nail to convince yourself that he is not beautiful. Which will take away the beauty he already has in your eyes.

Well this is what it all comes down to:

You become beautiful when you make others around you feel beautiful.

When you look at a flower, you define its beauty by what you see. It’s not the same with a human being. A flower can’t think the way we think. It can’t talk to us like others do. This is why we define its beauty by what we see. But in our case, we can talk. We can hurt others or lift each other up with our words as we choose. We have the freedom to think and act and it impacts the way others see us. In other words, it impacts our beauty.

God made us to love others like he loved us. His creation shows his love for us. Wherever you look, you see beauty and the ‘genius’ behind it. Why should we be the ones to disrupt the beauty around us? Why should we be left out of the beautiful beings God intented us to be? Our happiness itself will give us beauty. Why is it that when you laugh, lots of good hormones are released in your body? It could have been the other way round. Why not some bad hormones? Why were we not created so? It is possible, though you may say I’m crazy. Someone up above intended us to be happy. Someone wanted us to laugh. Someone wanted us to be beautiful. 

In the Bible, Jesus says, ‘By this the world will know that you are my disciples, when you love one another as I have loved you’.

Love one another. Be beautiful. Show the world where the real beauty lies.

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.

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.