If they can't kill your dream, they can't kill you

“Here comes that dreamer. Let’s kill him and throw him into one of these old cisterns; we can say that a vicious animal ate him up. We’ll see what his dreams amount to.” – Story of Joseph

 

All dreamers have haters. A young Joseph had his brothers, MLK (Jnr.) had Jim Crow, and Mandela had the entire apartheid system. Who is yours?

 

Before you go looking for enemies, hold on a bit. Chances are that they are not really after you. It is the dream in you they are after! They hate you because you dream! Imagine that MLK's speeches were titled, "I have no dreams!" He might have lived longer that way.

 

They want to kill your dream because they cannot imagine a world where a small you can achieve such extravagant dreams. They cannot imagine that you deserve to attain so much that your accomplishments alter the fabric of the world they know. Why should you be allowed to shake them out of their mediocre comfort zone and redefine the meanings of things around them? Why should they let you reconstruct what business as usual means to them?

 

My thoughts: If they cannot kill your dream, they cannot kill you! Well, technically. The point is that you are more than just your breath and physical existence. You can live beyond your time on earth because your very essence lives in your dreams. Be firmly rooted and founded in your dreams so that when (not if) opposition comes, you and your dream will survive it. Here are 5 tips on surviving dream attacks:

 

1.  Keep your focus on your goal
2. Allow like-minds to help you
3. Refuse to be distracted
4. Review and restructure your goals at intervals
5. Adopt a defense mechanism

The Power of Your Will

Tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus. Our bodies are our gardens to which our wills are gardeners. – William Shakespeare

I like the story of three young men – Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego – recorded in the Bible. It tells of a time the great king Nebuchadnezzar commanded that a statue be made of which his subjects were to bow and worship. We get into the story after the young men refused to bow and were reported to the king.

Nebuchadnezzar said to them, “Now if you are ready, at the time you hear the sound of the horn… fall down and worship the image ... But if you do not worship, … you shall be thrown into the middle of a burning fiery furnace. And who is that god who shall deliver you out of my hand?” The trio had never worshiped a god that was not God and they were not about to start. So “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego said to the king, “…We have no need to return a word to you on this matter. If it is so that our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, then He will deliver us out of your hand, ... But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods nor worship the golden image which you have set up””.

I like that statement. Did you see it? Let me show it to you again: “We will not”. What an awesome statement! It was not the king’s decision to make- nothing he could do would make them change their minds. Interestingly it was not God’s decision to make- he didn’t need to do anything to make them decide this. It was their decision and theirs only.

The biggest gift we have is our will. We can say, “I will” or “I will not”. This separates us from the other forms of life in the planet. All successful people know how and when to use their wills. They will to read and research. They will to give up negative habits and pick up great ones. They will to be successful and not failures. If you do not learn to access the power of your will you will endlessly remain stagnated in mediocrity

Conviction...

He who stands for nothing will fall for anything. - Alexander Hamilton (Author)

I used to be a coward. Whenever someone challenges me over some things I may have done, I stammer and stutter through my answers. This leaves me with that sense you have when you have failed to defend yourself or the things you hold with high esteem. The lifespan of my happiness was as long as my prevailing ideologies face no challenge because the moment they are, I grapple without success in standing my ground.

In that state I lacked conviction. That firm belief. That strong opinion. That gut feeling you can stake even existence for. It is the reason for doing a thing that is sure to keep you at that thing no matter what comes your way to move you otherwise. It has been the driving force of all human civilization as far back as the birth of the history book.

A person without convictions is flesh without skeletal framework. When people do not stand on convictions firmly they get blown off to other paths at the whims of others. Every person you meet is a salesperson of an ideology. Everyone wants to pass on what he believes, understands, by whatever means is available- verbal or otherwise. If you do not have strong convictions, you really have no choice than to buy from one salesperson or the other.

The place for knowledge: knowledge is what conviction strives on. A strong conviction comes as information is fed into the heart. For conviction to be built into a structure that cannot be easily surmounted it has to begin with the seed of information in that thing and as it germinates, it has to be nurtured by way of information in that same thing. When you feed your mind with countering information, you set your baby-conviction up for certain death because, “if a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand”.

So buildup the information base of your conviction; feed it; fuel it; give it air- that is what all that have made impacts and enjoyed their days did.