Here is a couple of shots of our young fella asleep with his new found friend. He has quite literally swept her off her feet, dragging her around with him most of the day. She doesn’t seem to mind, although I am a bit worried that he is putting way more into the relationship than she is. I would expect him to have a crush on a girl at 15 years of age but 15 months??..
To expand further on the I have a Dream post, there is an excellent post on Steve Pavlina.com entitled “How to discover your life purpose in about 20 minutes“. If you are feeling lost or confused about where your life is going or just want to explore your emotions this is a must read.
Craig Wilson
Those famous words spoken by Martin Luther King Jr. on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in August 1963 had far reaching consequences for all of America’s people, both coloured and white. Martin Luther King was a visionary, a brilliant man that never gave up on his dream no-matter what adversities he and his fellow man faced, which included jail time. His intelligence shows in his speech when he said “In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds.” Martin Luther King knew what he wanted and also knew the right way to achieve it!
I am sure that he could see in his mind a country of eqaulity but I do wonder whether he could see that his actions and leadership would result in the Civil Rights Act being drafted just a year later or whether he could see the Nobel Peace Prize that was awarded to him two years after that speech. Judging from what I have read about his character I think that he would have expected these successes and would not have been surprised by them, excited but not surprised.
There are so many lessons that we can learn from Martin Luther King and his famous speech. If you are young(ish!) like me and weren’t around or need a reminder of what exactly was in that speech there is a copy here. We all have dreams for our lives, maybe not quite as history making as Luther King’s but just as important none the less.
That brings me to my first point, never let anything or anyone steal your dream from you. The dreams that you have for your life are personal and nobody has the right to criticize you for having them. Many people will try and it is usually the people that have no satisfaction in their own lives that will find fault with what you are working towards. One way I find useful when dealing with people who criticize what I am doing is to ask myself is that person going to provide me with what I want out of life? No way!
There will always be obstacles to overcome and if you keep your eye on the prize these obstacles will be put in their proper place. A small obstacle that I am facing at the moment is that I can only sit at the computer for about half an hour before my back pain becomes un-bearable. Maintaining four websites takes time but I find if I take small naps when the pain is bad I can virtually work around the clock! I realise this pails in comparison to the obstacles other people face in working towards their dream, but I think it shows that if you can be a little bit creative and think outside the box no obstacle will be too big. If you need any more inspiration to go after the dream you have for your life think of the challenges that Martin Luther King faced, he virtually had to change the way that society thought about the black people, to most people this would have seemed insurmountable.
So how do we become passionate about our dreams instead of just leaving them in the back of our minds and saying “one day I will do that” or my favourite, “when I win the lottery!” I am far from an expert on this subject and I wish I had the answer to this question that would work for everybody, however I can tell you how I went from living day to day with no real purpose to someone that is going to make my dream a reality. Even though I had no idea what my life goal was, it crept up on me and slapped me straight between the eyes!
While being laid up at home with a back injury it occured to me that my focus was all wrong. Previous to this I had thought that it was my job to be out working my backside off to provide financial stability for my family. My ten year old son changed my thinking in about two seconds flat. He said “Dad, when you had the business you never did anything with us now you do lots of things with us and I love it and I love you dad”. A simple statement with a lot of feeling and it had me close to tears. He had never spoken about his feelings like that before and obviously he felt very strongly about the subject. We also have a 6 year old daughter and a 15 month old son and there is no way I am going to put them through the same situation. My dream, my focus is now on providing financial stability for my family without me having to leave the house so the kids and Belinda will know that I will be here for them at all times.
I think what your life goal comes down to is what stirs your emotions to a point where there is no turning back. For you it may be a red sports car or the home that you have been dreaming of or spending more of your time with your loved ones or retiring at a young age. Whatever it is, it is worth every ounce of your energy if it stirs your emotions so much that it is a done deal before you even begin. Sure, plans will have to be made and put in place to get you to your goal but if you have the results firmly implanted in your mind, I believe that you are already half way there!
Craig Wilson
I wrote this article earlier this year when I was trying to drag myself out of a period of feeling down and I still refer to it to keep my thoughts on the right track. I hope that you can understand the message behind it.
Look for the positives in every situation.
I am now a strong believer in looking for positives in any and every situation, although sometimes it is very hard to convince yourself that something good will become of your bad experiences. One thing that comes to mind is loosing a family member, there is very little positive thoughts in your head when such a tragedy occurs. Getting fired from a job is another thing that can really shake your foundations - so to speak. It is only natural to grieve for a loved one and that needs to take place, but at least we can find comfort in the fact that they no longer have to deal with the pressures and problems of day to day life. I recently lost an uncle to cancer and although I was shattered when he passed away I was also glad for him as he was suffering a great deal. To see a strong, fit and healthy man waste away in a matter of months is heart breaking. He leaves behind two young sons which makes me realise how cruel life can be. To be alive and have no quality of life would have been much worse though, as so many people with illnesses have to endure. One positive was that it was all over very quickly and I know he will be resting in a much better place than here on earth. Probably making everyone laugh if I know my uncle Maurice!
When one door closes another opens.
How true is that saying? You get fired from a job or go through a divorce or a relationship breaks down and it feels like your whole world has come tumbling down. You get angry at the person who fired you, blame your partner for all they have done wrong and probably go searching for reasons why these things should never have happened to you. Everything happens for a reason, if only we could see this at the time. I got fired from a job many years back and initially I was fuming. Why did they do this? How am I going to keep up with the bills? I was not happy! When I look back now though I see exactly why they fired me. I was treating it as a job to fill in time. I was not interested in it at all but I had no idea of what I would ideally like to be doing. My boss must have seen my lack of enthusiasm and knew I didn’t really want to be there. It was a dead end job that would not have taken me anywhere and I knew that and yet I stayed there for over four years! To cut a long story short I did figure out what I really wanted as I was hunting for another job and I started a Motor Mechanics apprenticeship. I loved the work and recieved an award for excellence when I finished. Talk about a turn around! Life was once again interesting and enjoyable. I went on to start my own workshop and would still be there if my body could keep up. Sure beats that job I was fired from!
Wouldn’t it be good if we could see that door open when the other one closes? I think alot of the time we get caught up in the emotion of it all and fail to see the next door or it is too far away to recognise. A little bit of faith is a good thing here. Faith that there will be that opening door, faith that in time something positive will come from the situation. Instead of burying our heads in the sand and blame everyone else for what has happened I think we need to focus on moving forward and be on the lookout for the next door that opens. When I first injured my back I used to lie in bed at night and get myself so worked up about what I was going to do to support my family, what I am going to do if my back doesn’t improve and I would often not be able to sleep and would feel all my back and leg muscles tense up. In the morning I would be like a bear with a sore head! I was suffering from sleep deprivation, I was in more pain than when I first went to bed and the poor kids where getting an earful for looking at me the wrong way and thankfully Belinda didn’t leave me. Luckily I recognised this self-destructive behaviour early and pulled myself out of it. Instead of worrying I decided to do something about it. I had always thought a website to help DIY mechanics would be a good idea so instead of just thinking about it I did it. I had no idea what I was doing but so far things are looking promising. So out of what I thought was a hopeless situation came another opportunity that had I not given it a go I would have never known how much it helped turn my life around.
I sincerely hope that if you are reading this and are waiting for your next door to open that you can apply a little bit of faith and continue on looking for it even when it seems very far off in the distance. Out of nothing can come so much if you have your eyes open and an open mind. If I can successfully run a website then you can surely do anything you put your mind to as well!
Update : Autofix.com.au, the website that we started for DIY mechanics is still going strong and growing every month. We rank No. 3 for online auto repairs in Google search which is great considering I didn’t know a computer from a t.v. set 12 months ago! Just goes to show if you put your mind to it you really can achieve anything. Believe in yourself and you will be astonished at what you can achieve.
The inspiration for this blog came from, believe it or not, a trip to the airport and I wasn’t even the one boarding the plane! Yeah, wierd I know but let me explain. It was around 7 in the morning, absolutely teeming down with rain and we had a 30 minute drive down the highway to get to the airport. The amount of traffic was horrendous, made worse by the weather we were having and we had several hold-ups where the traffic was at a standstill. Sitting there amongst all those cars made me think, where are all these thousands of people going?
Of course dummy, they are going to work! Going to their job. This realisation made me think who in their right mind would be out here driving in these conditions, probably going to a place they don’t want to be at and why is there so many of them and look at their faces, not one smile to be seen. It was one of those defining moments in life for me, the penny had dropped and I realised then that I had to focus on what I could do to prevent myself from winding up in the same situation.
So why wasn’t I going to work on this day? Well this has been where this whole ‘live life to it’s fullest’ thing has started for me. I will try not to bore you with the details but basically I had my own mechanical workshop and in 2005 I suffered a back injury which lead to closure of the business and me being laid up in bed for the best part of twelve months. I had suffered two herniated discs and six vertebrae fractures which took what seemed like forever to heal. I am glad to say that the worst is behind me and cortisone and anesthetic injections into the base of my spine every couple of months are keeping most of the pain away. I live for the day that I don’t have to take any sort of pain relief though.
In the 18 months or so that I have had at home I have realised what life is all about, or what life should be all about. We had our third child on the way when all the drama went down and I have been around him from day one. I wish I could say the same for the other two. Every day is full of new adventures and discoveries for the little guy and being able to witness him growing up is worth every dollar that we have missed out on and then some.
Speaking of dollars, financially we have had a huge struggle. We went from earning a good living to relying on what little assistance the goverment is willing to give us. This has added stress to the household and I am sure the healing process would have been quicker without the constant worry of how the bills were going to get paid. One thing owning our own business did afford us to do was to pay heavily into our mortgage, which we did and still have a roof over our heads at least. We have a couple of other websites which are starting to turn a profit but we have a long way to go to make a living from them.
So that is my story and hopefully gives you an idea of where I am coming from, figuratively speaking. My ultimate goal, my passion is to not have to re-join the rat race and follow all the other sheep to work and to add another dimension to it when we were in business I had a goal to be a millionaire by the end of 2010 and that goal has been re-instated. Over-ambitious? Maybe, but you will never know if you don’t push yourself that little bit further to make your wildest dreams a reality.
In a nutshell, Escape from the Rat Race is a way for me to track my journey to my ultimate goal and if by sharing this information it changes the way you look at your life and you start working towards your dreams and goals then my goal of helping other people get out of the rat race has been achieved also.
While I figure out exactly how I am going to achieve these goals I am going to write some posts on what I think is the first step - changing your thinking from an employees mindset to one of a person who is completely in charge of their own destiny. If the will is strong enough the opportunity will present itself! Please stay tuned.
Craig Wilson