Impossible?

             

It’s always seems impossible until it’s done. Sound familiar? Does it make you think of the things you hesitated on at first but turned out quite well? Well, It does that for me, more importantly it makes me think of the many things that are not impossible  . By the way, I have quoted this from Nelson Mandela. Coming from a man who lay his life to do the impossible, I have no doubt it is true. When we conclude something is impossible, it’s because we think of all the things that could go wrong, forgetting that we are the authors of our destinies.

            Henry Ford once said, “Whether you think you can, or you think you can't--you're right.” The universe gives you what you are thinking. How confusing! How many times do we give up simply because it just doesn’t familiar? Well, hold on because nothing is impossible; not even the invention of the time machine. If it can be conceived, it can be achieved, no matter how impossible it seems at first. Don’t take it from me, take it from the guy who made one of the automobiles in the train era.

            How is it that some people are so enlightened and somehow can do practically everything? Albert Einstein, who is also a legend, has an answer. “Logic will get you from A to Z; Imagination will get you everywhere." Some people call it thinking outside the box or creativity but imagination is its proper name. In business, for instance, data, spreadsheets, pie-charts can say a lot about market prospects but imagination is what really captures the market. It’s all about giving consumers what they didn’t know they needed but actually needed.

            In her book The Secret, Rhonda Bryne stresses the importance of visualizing the things we want before we have. Well, visualization is just another term for imagination. When logic doesn’t have answers, imagination almost always has them. People pay for ideas, businesses buy visions. Courses, degrees are all just tools to sharpen the imagination. I may sound too idealist but we live on planet which was created by word of mouth, not concrete.

            Too many times we get engrossed in details that will get us to the next step and that’s fine as long as we have the ultimate destination in mind. Funny thing about imagination is doesn’t matter which field it is applied in. A programmer may need to know a couple of programming languages, an engineer will need a lot of physics, an artist will need lots of canvas but these are just tools, they all need imagination to get to something useful.

            Your mind, my mind is a powerful weapons my friend. I’m actually afraid of it. It can build an entire civilization or ruin a whole nation. It’s the factor that turns the impossible to possible, it is the factor that makes some extraordinary. Life would be amazing if all we had to do is sit and imagine. Well it still is amazing, because everything we do or say sharpens our imagination.  It’s time to get dreamy….:D

Totally insane!

            Every great person was insane, every great person is insane. Atleast that’s what we  think of them. Let alone mad scientists, who had the highest level of insanity. Take examples of Michael Faraday, Isaac Newton, Plato, William Kamkwamba, Mark Zucherberg, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein you mention them. If we know them, it’s because they did something so rational that the world once laughed at them. It’s almost as if irrationality is our definition of insanity.

            Albert Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. I might sound insane; taking a definition of insanity from a supposedly insane person but perhaps somewhere within the lines of insanity arises sanity. There are insane people in the world but we accuse the wrong people of insanity. Somehow, we have come to think that conviction and insanity mean the same thing.

            Real insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results, it is putting ordinary efforts and expecting extra-ordinary results. Insanity is doing nothing and expecting results. It is doing what is expected than acting out of intuition. Great people on the other hand are not afraid of rejection by family, friends or kinsmen; partly because they are really crazy but mainly because they know what insanity really is.

            All through history, change makers were deemed insane. Jesus was labeled a crazy drunkard and he turned to be the Messiah, Plato was considered crazy, it happens that he now defines all our politics, Marie Curie was dubbed crazy for combining womanhood and science, guess who ended up with two Nobel prizes. William Kamkwamba was already labeled crazy before he brought electricity to his village. At this point I’m starting to think insanity is actually not an offense. If someone calls you insane, it’s a modest way of saying you are probably going to make history and I can’t stand it.

            I’m insane, because I dream a lot, and I have a knack for doing what I’m told not to.  Better insane than dull; After-all insane people define civilization. I don’t mind being labeled as that kind of person anymore actually; I think it’s a compliment right now. I believe everyone has some sort of insanity waiting to be unlocked. Afraid of being insane? Join my ride, let’s make life amazing!

One step ahead.

            Someone once said ‘Life is 90% preparation, 10% presentation.’ It sounds like such an oversimplification at first, but when you come to think of it, it’s true. We spend nights and nights at school preparing to present an appropriate answer in the exam or the interview, we spend hours perfecting the killer power point for potential clients, and we spend years at work preparing that heavy retirement plan. Maybe the percentages may differ, but life is just a combination of various proportions of preparation and presentation.

            We spend lots of time learning and preparing. We should, after all we are born knowing nothing at all. We prepare until we are comfortable enough. There are two kinds of comfortable I know of; lazy comfortable and progressive comfortable and there is a major difference between them.  When you are done with a task and don’t feel like doing further, that’s lazy comfortable; when you are done with a task and are excited to do more, that’s as you expect, progressive comfortable. You are on the right track if you comfortable in the latter way.

            Proactive is all about asking the right kind of questions at the right time, gambling on the possibility that something good will come out of it. History makers made history because they didn’t get ‘comfortable’. Isaac Newton for instance was a student at the University of Cambridge yet not the typical University student. The university closed down for two years due to plague and Newton saw not an opportunity to chill but time to conduct experiments and fill our Physics textbooks.  Point is he took the chance and time to do something completely something.

            If there is anything I have learnt over the relatively few years of my life it’s that something is better than nothing. It’s better to feel bad than to feel nothing at all. It’s better to do something than to do nothing, because it’s the only way forward. It’s better to ask a silly question than to keep silent, better to try a weird activity than nothing. Being proactive means doing something when nothing is expected. It does tend have a rewarding effect, whether it be a conversation or a job offer.

             President Barack Obama once said, “The best way to not feel hopeless is to get up and do something. Don’t wait for good things to happen to you. If you go out and make some good things happen, you will fill the world with hope, you will fill yourself with hope.”  I find his advice quite self sufficient. Nothing in life is certain, we simply hope for the best. We can’t just sit and hope; we can’t afford to get comfortable.  Life is amazing and all, but for it to be really amazing you have to do something, prepare.

           

One life.

            

 You are the next Albert Einstein, with technology that is yet to be revealed I have seen you with all those prizes in your hands, and achievements that will define a century. Ok, that’s not true but you could be. After a bit of thinking, I just keep landing at one conclusion, resonance.

            “I was like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”  This is my favorite quote of all time by Isaac Newton. Not only does it involve the beach but also it makes me think of the future Newtons who will discover ‘pretty shells’. When you go to the beach you see different things. Some notice the shells, some notice sea creatures, others notice at all, but that doesn’t mean we should all see  shells. Diversity has beauty in it, but it isn’t meant to be a distraction. We all see different pebbles, have different problems.

            We are easily distracted from seeing the pebble in front of us most likely because we want to see what everyone else is seeing, or maybe our pebble is just too scary, either way we are not responding to the universe. Having read the biography of the mathematician Julia Robinson, I’m confident that there is only one approach to pebbles.  Forget Isaac Newton, Da Vinci and other weird people you find in every textbook. It’s time to work on your pebble; it took Julia almost a 20 and more years to solve the Tenth Problem.  It may take two years, 4, 10 or even a lifetime, it’s that feeling of accomplishment in the end that really makes life worth it all.

            There is a big difference between what we ought to do and what we want to do and most often we find ourselves doing what we are obliged to do. We are too easily distracted by what we see in others that we forget to ask ourselves if it’s what we really want. You can fake it, fool everyone that you are enjoying but you definitely can’t fool the universe. The universe responds to energy. It responds to passion, it is that simple.  History keeps reminding us that.

            We often hear the words, “Don’t take anything fore-granted, you might loose it” . Well, how about don’t take yourself fore-granted? You will definitely loose yourself.  You have one life, one chance, to make it all happen. Others’ spots are already taken, The universe doesn’t need another Albert Einstein or Steve Jobs. The universe needs YOU. You are amazing!