Making Lives Better
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Times
Today I make new realizations. The people that tell our story are the people that we tell our lives, the people that hold the trophies with us are the people that we run the race with. Life my, friend, is nothing if without people. The stories of our lives will never exist in isolation; they will always be stories of enduring sharing, everlasting giving and unselfish receiving.
When we talk of the times in which we live, we talk of the people that we are living with. It is strange to me that there are many times when we share a seat with people that are living in a time far distant from ours. Couples share a bed and yet the two are living in different times. Then it seems to me that the times can be distant and yet the lives living them are so close.
Times my friend is what I am talking about. There are times when everything less means so much more and yet there are times when even the greatest of things means nothing at all. Those times live with us all the time and yet we all don’t live in them all the time. When we are in love, and I mean with anything, we seem to put weight on nothing at all. Pain, endurance, sacrifice and the many that may accompany us on our love walk will mean so much less. They will be superseded by a greater existence, a greater power, love. They all will seem like tiny children that are a natural result of the love we have.
Yet when we are out of love with those very things or people, we seem to shift the weight of importance. We seem to deem endurance a heavier power than love. Times, my friends change. Imagine then a husband and wife in which one is in love and the other out. The two will share a bed, a life, a family and God knows how much more and yet they will live in different times, and the time that unites them will mean greatly different things to the two of them.
Do you find yourself like that some times? In and out of different times? Well you are not at all alone. That is how we find life. If we were to remain permanently in one time zone, if I may borrow that phrase, I believe life would be very boaring.
But that also is for a particular time zone. We all have to get to a point of stability, which if you ever get to think of it, never happens. Life as we know it never stays stagnant. We keep getting better and it is because of that upward climb that we seem to ourselves and those that will tell our stories that we experience instability. It is a paradox, instability in the midst of stability and stability being the cause and result of instability.
At this point I make the most important paragraph of this article. Maturity is a result as well as a process. There is an instability that blows us out of proportion. It happens greatly and many times too when we are moving to maturity of a certain level. It makes us change our confessions and our beliefs. It almost makes us think that all that we experienced in the past is a lie and that the truth is yet to be discovered. This makes us seem like different people from the people we were when we believed. That is allowed but for a season. At the highest level of maturity, we have mastered how to put even instability in its proper context. We are not different people as the instability that brings in better maturity comes in. but to do this we need an anchor, a force greater than us and of course permanently stable. What will that be for you? What will make you look at things, people and life through only the window of truth? If you seek for the answer, you will find it.
When we listen to people we should be slow to judge and slow to speak. We need to realize that people are constantly on a journey of discovery and some discoveries put previous discoveries out of context only to put them in a better position later on. The person that has stopped discovering is one dead. And we should treat ourselves thus, until a point when we have matured enough to put every discovery in context without displacing the other discoveries of our lives, or orderily putting them in context.
That, my friends, is a much summarized explanation of my recent realization about times. We make them and yet they make us. When we listen to our selves and when we tell of ourselves to those many that will tell the story or hold the trophy with us, we need to let our selves know that we are all learning. And being the better man does not mean that you do not make mistakes. Because only in the summary of life, shall we no know for the first time what truly was a mistake and what was not, who truly was useless and who was not.
The people we meet today and the places we visit are not mistakes. And we can never make them that. I could make this the longest article I have ever written but I will leave all the other chapters for you to write. Times my friends, times.
When we talk of the times in which we live, we talk of the people that we are living with. It is strange to me that there are many times when we share a seat with people that are living in a time far distant from ours. Couples share a bed and yet the two are living in different times. Then it seems to me that the times can be distant and yet the lives living them are so close.
Times my friend is what I am talking about. There are times when everything less means so much more and yet there are times when even the greatest of things means nothing at all. Those times live with us all the time and yet we all don’t live in them all the time. When we are in love, and I mean with anything, we seem to put weight on nothing at all. Pain, endurance, sacrifice and the many that may accompany us on our love walk will mean so much less. They will be superseded by a greater existence, a greater power, love. They all will seem like tiny children that are a natural result of the love we have.
Yet when we are out of love with those very things or people, we seem to shift the weight of importance. We seem to deem endurance a heavier power than love. Times, my friends change. Imagine then a husband and wife in which one is in love and the other out. The two will share a bed, a life, a family and God knows how much more and yet they will live in different times, and the time that unites them will mean greatly different things to the two of them.
Do you find yourself like that some times? In and out of different times? Well you are not at all alone. That is how we find life. If we were to remain permanently in one time zone, if I may borrow that phrase, I believe life would be very boaring.
But that also is for a particular time zone. We all have to get to a point of stability, which if you ever get to think of it, never happens. Life as we know it never stays stagnant. We keep getting better and it is because of that upward climb that we seem to ourselves and those that will tell our stories that we experience instability. It is a paradox, instability in the midst of stability and stability being the cause and result of instability.
At this point I make the most important paragraph of this article. Maturity is a result as well as a process. There is an instability that blows us out of proportion. It happens greatly and many times too when we are moving to maturity of a certain level. It makes us change our confessions and our beliefs. It almost makes us think that all that we experienced in the past is a lie and that the truth is yet to be discovered. This makes us seem like different people from the people we were when we believed. That is allowed but for a season. At the highest level of maturity, we have mastered how to put even instability in its proper context. We are not different people as the instability that brings in better maturity comes in. but to do this we need an anchor, a force greater than us and of course permanently stable. What will that be for you? What will make you look at things, people and life through only the window of truth? If you seek for the answer, you will find it.
When we listen to people we should be slow to judge and slow to speak. We need to realize that people are constantly on a journey of discovery and some discoveries put previous discoveries out of context only to put them in a better position later on. The person that has stopped discovering is one dead. And we should treat ourselves thus, until a point when we have matured enough to put every discovery in context without displacing the other discoveries of our lives, or orderily putting them in context.
That, my friends, is a much summarized explanation of my recent realization about times. We make them and yet they make us. When we listen to our selves and when we tell of ourselves to those many that will tell the story or hold the trophy with us, we need to let our selves know that we are all learning. And being the better man does not mean that you do not make mistakes. Because only in the summary of life, shall we no know for the first time what truly was a mistake and what was not, who truly was useless and who was not.
The people we meet today and the places we visit are not mistakes. And we can never make them that. I could make this the longest article I have ever written but I will leave all the other chapters for you to write. Times my friends, times.
Living In Today
I woke up in the morning and I got this feeling that I was late. I was an hour into my usual wake up time and I was not late for anything but myself. I got to work early and then I begun to realize me. I had left today and was living in a time far from today. But aren’t many of us like me? We many times catch ourselves leaving in a far off tomorrow. We begin to feel like we are not satisfied with where we are seated at the moment and time passes by with many of us doing nothing for ourselves.
A sence of worthlessness begins to sweep over everything we see and touch and we begin to ask ourselves what it really is that we are here to do. I was late today and yet I can tell you many more times when I was late, or I thought I was. Life to me is a series of many things , some good some bad. And because of that very fact, we can never tell what truly was a mistake and what was not until we have left this life for another.
We think of ourselves as beings whose future stretches through time. Yet we always look at that time as brief and so everything we need to do should be done quickly. But again, here I ask another question, how fast is fast enough?
We have seen men that had it all and then lost all of it or lost the most important elements of life, we have also seen men who seemed to never have had anything at all ,all their lives and yet we don’t know how much value they added to life in total.
Some how we all have an addition we make to life, even the wicked man for the day of judgment. Think of the bible talking about God punishing the sinner and yet all we see are the righteous. Think about many things , like political campaigns taking place whaen there is no corruption or economic instability.
We are a part of these things, when the thread of life is finally stretched out, we shall see just how much everything we did or experienced led to time coming to its end.
I remember my morning and I realize that while we strive to live where we are , we should strive to live in a better future. And I should add that we don’t have to worry about that because that time will bring us to fight for what it of greatest value and we shall make tomorrow better. We are never late and yet we are never too early. I believe we are always on time. The feelings we experience and the testimonies of others are all part of the devices designed to move us to where we are supposed to be. Many times I beleive that even our responces to those things could not have been different and yet they satisfy that same purpose.
So why the depression?
For some of us, it is given to have that desire to be better, for some that is simply absent until it will be stirred up to come to life. some men have not strived to be where they are and yet some others have. would things have been different? I don’t think so, I think other wise.
I have written this with no editing or premeditation, just an impulse being responded too. For this reason I know how easy it is to find me incorrect on many grounds and yet in know the opposite too can happen, and that would be right.
A sence of worthlessness begins to sweep over everything we see and touch and we begin to ask ourselves what it really is that we are here to do. I was late today and yet I can tell you many more times when I was late, or I thought I was. Life to me is a series of many things , some good some bad. And because of that very fact, we can never tell what truly was a mistake and what was not until we have left this life for another.
We think of ourselves as beings whose future stretches through time. Yet we always look at that time as brief and so everything we need to do should be done quickly. But again, here I ask another question, how fast is fast enough?
We have seen men that had it all and then lost all of it or lost the most important elements of life, we have also seen men who seemed to never have had anything at all ,all their lives and yet we don’t know how much value they added to life in total.
Some how we all have an addition we make to life, even the wicked man for the day of judgment. Think of the bible talking about God punishing the sinner and yet all we see are the righteous. Think about many things , like political campaigns taking place whaen there is no corruption or economic instability.
We are a part of these things, when the thread of life is finally stretched out, we shall see just how much everything we did or experienced led to time coming to its end.
I remember my morning and I realize that while we strive to live where we are , we should strive to live in a better future. And I should add that we don’t have to worry about that because that time will bring us to fight for what it of greatest value and we shall make tomorrow better. We are never late and yet we are never too early. I believe we are always on time. The feelings we experience and the testimonies of others are all part of the devices designed to move us to where we are supposed to be. Many times I beleive that even our responces to those things could not have been different and yet they satisfy that same purpose.
So why the depression?
For some of us, it is given to have that desire to be better, for some that is simply absent until it will be stirred up to come to life. some men have not strived to be where they are and yet some others have. would things have been different? I don’t think so, I think other wise.
I have written this with no editing or premeditation, just an impulse being responded too. For this reason I know how easy it is to find me incorrect on many grounds and yet in know the opposite too can happen, and that would be right.
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Eradicating Poverty
What is poverty? When we define it as the lack of, we may be correct but not completely. We look at poverty as a state of being or a force that creates or is a result of a form of being. Many time we consider ourselves to be poor simply because their things we deem ourselves unable to do, change or create. I n those moments when we are without the means to, we are poor, or so according to our measure.
If that is anything to go by, the world is one big poor bunch of people; every one finds themselves in desperate need of means to change something once in a while. It may not be that we are eternally poor, but we all get to experience the coldness that comes with poverty. Again, that is by our standard of measure.
But we take a moment and think. What do we mean we say that we are trying to eradicate poverty? We are trying to day that we are working to remove that inability. If that is right, and by our standard it ought to be, we are attempting the impossible. As long as we shall live we will always have an inability to do or not do something. We will always find ourselves in a place of incapability. Then we realize that poverty is not a state and not a result of a state. Poverty is who we are or not.
Please follow closely. When a man has a million dollars we would deem him rich. But what happens when he cannot salvage his marriage or when he is the agent of destruction? I will tell you the answer, what happens is that he too realizes how insignificant his million dollars is, or his wife does. If we maintain that poverty is the inability to, we ask ourselves who is unable. The man is or his wife is, but more than being unable, they or one of them presents that inability. They are the source of the inability. And if you go any further, they are the inability.
When we find ourselves in those desperate situations we ask ourselves where the inability is. And if we find it in us we have not to solve the problem but build ourselves out of that nature. Take this illustration; a celebrity took a slum and built it into a city, he then gave the city to the residents who had earlier on inhabited the slum. Months later, the city begun to rot and the water stopped flowing. They told him they could not afford such standards of living. Devastating, ha? Well this serves to point to something more important, the solution to poverty.
Money
When we think of solving poverty we look to money and we believe that if we just inject money into things and places we would have solved a lot. If the above illustration is anything to learn from, we learn that that is incorrect. People present the habitation of poverty. It is in their attitudes, mindsets, and passions and in summary, it is in their nature. It is who we are if we are poor. So how do we solve people if they are the problem?
I say we educate people. But the other question is with what? Not all information is relevant to solve particular problems. We look at money as a tool that solves poverty, when in fact money cannot solve poverty. I here some say that true we need money to solve poverty. That may be correct but the truth is money will only help people realize just how poor they are.
I am kind of stack at this point. I will add to this article later.
Wait for the continuation and I pray that you have got the point for now.
If that is anything to go by, the world is one big poor bunch of people; every one finds themselves in desperate need of means to change something once in a while. It may not be that we are eternally poor, but we all get to experience the coldness that comes with poverty. Again, that is by our standard of measure.
But we take a moment and think. What do we mean we say that we are trying to eradicate poverty? We are trying to day that we are working to remove that inability. If that is right, and by our standard it ought to be, we are attempting the impossible. As long as we shall live we will always have an inability to do or not do something. We will always find ourselves in a place of incapability. Then we realize that poverty is not a state and not a result of a state. Poverty is who we are or not.
Please follow closely. When a man has a million dollars we would deem him rich. But what happens when he cannot salvage his marriage or when he is the agent of destruction? I will tell you the answer, what happens is that he too realizes how insignificant his million dollars is, or his wife does. If we maintain that poverty is the inability to, we ask ourselves who is unable. The man is or his wife is, but more than being unable, they or one of them presents that inability. They are the source of the inability. And if you go any further, they are the inability.
When we find ourselves in those desperate situations we ask ourselves where the inability is. And if we find it in us we have not to solve the problem but build ourselves out of that nature. Take this illustration; a celebrity took a slum and built it into a city, he then gave the city to the residents who had earlier on inhabited the slum. Months later, the city begun to rot and the water stopped flowing. They told him they could not afford such standards of living. Devastating, ha? Well this serves to point to something more important, the solution to poverty.
Money
When we think of solving poverty we look to money and we believe that if we just inject money into things and places we would have solved a lot. If the above illustration is anything to learn from, we learn that that is incorrect. People present the habitation of poverty. It is in their attitudes, mindsets, and passions and in summary, it is in their nature. It is who we are if we are poor. So how do we solve people if they are the problem?
I say we educate people. But the other question is with what? Not all information is relevant to solve particular problems. We look at money as a tool that solves poverty, when in fact money cannot solve poverty. I here some say that true we need money to solve poverty. That may be correct but the truth is money will only help people realize just how poor they are.
I am kind of stack at this point. I will add to this article later.
Wait for the continuation and I pray that you have got the point for now.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Worth The Fight
When we are standing on the road back home we are always sure we are getting there. We stand with no fears of what may not be or what may be. We have been on the road for the same purpose many times and the same thing has happened, we got home. But what happens when the car breaks down and there is no remedy to this? Do we sit there and wallow or do we pick our languages and trek the remaining distance?
I read a very interesting story the other day. A young widow chose to cling to her mother in law to where ever the mother in law was to go. She chose to ignore the mother in laws please and journeyed long distances back to the kinsmen of the mother in law. What is most fascinating is that she chose to ignore her own land and kinsmen and followed almost blindly.
This story makes me realize how vital is for many of us to understand what is of greatest importance. There are times when it seems pretty obvious we know what we want and that we truly love it. Then there are times when it is not clear we actually love it. In those moments we actually spread our scope of comparison to greater horizons. We seem to be in search of some better thing out there. Something that we may not really know but we are sure it is not what we have at our hands. We may even be ready to leave what we have for what we are not sure of.
Think of the visions we have, the jobs we get, the schools we go to, the university programs we enroll for, the people we get married to. Many times we find ourselves tired way too early and we opt for something better out there. We believe ourselves to have done all we can and that the person should have known what to do all the time.
There are people that have stood and watched as the vision they once treasured vanish and did nothing. It vanished and they later got to realize that some other person perfect what they once worked upon. The pain is not comparable to the agony that they face for rest of their lives.
The things we love will not always glitter but even in the times of gloom, they are worth fighting for. That is as simple as I can put it. I wish I could explain any further but my friends know exactly what I mean. Have a lovely day my friends.
I read a very interesting story the other day. A young widow chose to cling to her mother in law to where ever the mother in law was to go. She chose to ignore the mother in laws please and journeyed long distances back to the kinsmen of the mother in law. What is most fascinating is that she chose to ignore her own land and kinsmen and followed almost blindly.
This story makes me realize how vital is for many of us to understand what is of greatest importance. There are times when it seems pretty obvious we know what we want and that we truly love it. Then there are times when it is not clear we actually love it. In those moments we actually spread our scope of comparison to greater horizons. We seem to be in search of some better thing out there. Something that we may not really know but we are sure it is not what we have at our hands. We may even be ready to leave what we have for what we are not sure of.
Think of the visions we have, the jobs we get, the schools we go to, the university programs we enroll for, the people we get married to. Many times we find ourselves tired way too early and we opt for something better out there. We believe ourselves to have done all we can and that the person should have known what to do all the time.
There are people that have stood and watched as the vision they once treasured vanish and did nothing. It vanished and they later got to realize that some other person perfect what they once worked upon. The pain is not comparable to the agony that they face for rest of their lives.
The things we love will not always glitter but even in the times of gloom, they are worth fighting for. That is as simple as I can put it. I wish I could explain any further but my friends know exactly what I mean. Have a lovely day my friends.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)