One Strong Belief

I believe that where there is no way, make your own. Too often, we are discouraged by what we perceive as lack of opportunity but opportunity exists wherever you create it. Sometimes the psychological barriers to success are as insurmountable, if not more so, than the physical ones. I believe what inspires me most in my thinking on this particular subject is the experience and example of my own parents. They arrived in the UK with not much to their name, but more than some, and built for themselves a life that benefitted not only themselves but their family and the community. They had aspirations that were modest but worked and pursued them as if they were big. And, in fact, for the time, for people of their background being first generation immigrants, they were pioneers in their own little way.

The will to succeed for myself and the world is inherent in me. It comes from always being conscious of my heritage. It comes from knowing that there were those before me who died for the opportunities that we waste today, failing even to recognise them as such because we have too much as a result of having done little. Thanks to our ancestors, whether they perished crossing the Middle Passage or in the trenches of the Somme or on the cotton fields of America, we live better than ever before. It’s time we recognise that and take up the revolutionary mantle.

Opportunity is where you take it or make it. This is my belief. So when one door closes, which it inevitably will, carve out a nook and keep on chipping away until there’s nothing left standing between you and the other side.  

Today

Today is better than yesterday but not as good as tomorrow.

Fifteen minutes to live

How do you condense two times 15 plus four years into 15 minutes? The word ‘sorry’ springs to mind. Sorry that I won’t be able to enjoy another beautiful day on this beautiful earth with all its horrors and tragedies. Sorry that I won’t get another chance to walk in the sun and be warmed and comforted by its rays. Sorry that I won’t get to journey to faraway lands to meet faraway people whose lives are so very different yet similar to my own for, at the end of the day, we’re all human after all, some for longer than others for when my fifteen minutes are up, I cease to be. That doesn’t void my previous existence though, and, in fact, I’m comforted by the thought that my passing makes way for someone else to come into existence. I just hope that I can leave the world a better place than when I entered it, for my nephews and their relatives to be. 

Life has been a wonderful challenge. A constant battle and a constant pleasure. For, as the saying goes, how can you appreciate pleasure without first having experienced the bitterness of pain? That makes the good things all the more sweeter. And there were plenty of good things to accompany the plenty of bad. In fact, the good far outweighed the bad. 

Thank you for the music. This isn’t a reference to Abba but a heartfelt appreciation that, while alive, I inhabited a fully-functioning body whose five senses were in perfect working order allowing me to experience the world in all its fullness. And music for me is the pinnacle of pleasure. Thank God for music. Thank God for family, my nuclear one at least. Mum, dad, brother, nephews, boyfriend. Not to mention the uncles who stepped into the breach when my dad was prematurely taken from us. He is irreplaceable but they were stellar substitutes and for that I’m grateful. 

My mum. Not even fifteen lifetimes would be enough to sum up my debt to her let alone fifteen minutes. So all I shall say is… 

And to all those I offended, I apologise. Not least to myself, for I spent a lot of time admonishing rather than forgiving myself and moving on. And as I move over to the other side I can honestly say that I’ve enjoyed every minute of my last fifteen and every year of the 34 that preceded it. To those who remain, have a blessed life.