Tag: Nelson Mandela

Awaken The Greatness In You

Achieving Goals, Happiness, Health, Success, The Pathway To Fulfilment

Once or twice in a generation there are born people of greatness. People like Nelson Mandela or Martin Luther King come into the world and make it a better place for us all. The difference between us and them is that we often are waiting for people like them to turn up and save us. This is not likely to happen. Therefore, we need to save ourselves.

Not an easy task. The problem is in thinking that such greatness is something people are born with, but history shows us that people of greatness are molded by the circumstances they are in and the decisions they make every day to respond to those circumstances.

Even though Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 27 years he demanded respect from the Prison Officers every day. That was a decision made once and kept for 27 years. Seth Godin has written a blog post every day for many years and has now posted over 7000 blog posts because he made the decision decades ago that he will write a new blog post tomorrow. Once decided no more thought needs to go into it, because he knows what he will be sharing with the world tomorrow. This takes discipline no doubt, but it can be done, we just need to decide.

There are many in the world who go through difficult times, and I am not dismissing these difficulties, I am saying that you choose to see yourself as a victim or as someone who will take ownership of your difficulties and make them better, in whatever way you can. If we think of ourselves as victims and wait for someone else to come along and save us, this does us a disservice to our own abilities.

The future you is capable of extraordinary things, if you decide that you can and work on fulfilling that belief every single day. You are your own saviour. Your circumstances, though challenging, can mould and awaken the greatness in you, if you believe it is possible and live up to that belief every day.

Looking For Clarity

The Pathway To Fulfilment

When speaking about how he felt when he walked out of prison after being imprisoned for 27 years, Nelson Mandela said “As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn’t leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I’d still be in prison.” This to me is a powerful reminder that holding onto hatred and bitterness can cause us pain, and forgiveness can bring about freedom.

This moment of clarity that Nelson Mandela had as he walked out of prison to be a free man defined how he would later lead South Africa, as its President, towards unity and reconciliation. Sometimes in our own lives we have moments of clarity that are like epiphanies and these should be cherished and be explored, because they can define how we continue to live our lives.

The decisions we make every day on how we should treat each other, how we should conduct ourselves, these are important decisions to be made. If we feel, however, that trying to find such moments of clarity is too difficult then we can look to those people greater than ourselves for their moments of clarity. We can look to people like Nelson Mandela and others for examples on how to live through what we are living through, and how to thrive.

Divisions Create Conflict

Happiness, Success, The Pathway To Fulfilment

There are many divisions in our lives and this week, more than most, we turn our attention to them. On Thursday it will be 11th November, the date the First World War ended and peace was declared. On Sunday churches around the country will be holding Remembrance Services.

World Wars, and armed conflict of any kind are horrific in their nature and take a toll on humanity. We also have smaller more personal conflicts in our own lives which are born out of division. Any time there is an Us and a Them there is a division and there is some form of conflict in every division.

During this time of Remembrance let us strive to heal the divisions in our lives by removing the need for a Them and including everyone as Us. When we see people as human first we are better able to use empathy and resolve issues.

When Nelson Mandela came out of prison where he spent 27 years of his life he realised that if he continued to hate those he incarcerated him he would never be free. He later led his country, as President, to forgive and heal after the atrocities of Apartheid. He was a remarkable man, but we can each try to heal the divisions in our lives and use examples like Nelson Mandela as a beacon of hope, hope that it can be done.