New Year & one year closer to the dream

re we not thereby undermining any dream, objectives, aims or desires before they were even born? Are we not killing our heart’s deepest longings with a cold, resigned surrender to an imagined external force which determines our way into the future?
On the other hand, although it’s a noble thing to go everywhere with all our heart, it’s no good going anywhere without a map, a vision or a plan … starting with one of where we are right now, so that we are able to figure out how to get to where we want to go.
Focus, attention or commitment is useless without the dream, the picture, the image of the future that we need to see right here and right now.
So powerful is our thought, our emotion, the direction in which we consciously decide to focus our energy, that we can affect and infect everyone and everything around us.
Think of someone or something which depresses you. Note immediately how you feel the drain on your life-force, the dulling of your light – even when you are simply only imagining it!
Now think of the opposite. Who lifts your spirit? What moves you closer to yourself? Who believes in you? What inspires you? What do you do or where do you go to grow, to connect with places or people who remind you what it really means to be alive, to truly live your life?
The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would be enough to create everything we ever wanted for peace, love, friendship, prosperity and opportunity for not only ourselves but, more importantly, for those around us and future generations.
In Zimbabwe right now, the future has been already determined in so many ways by you and me, our teachers and our schools.
Franklin D Roosevelt said, “We cannot always build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for the future”.
Are we adding to the vision by believing and acting, or are we actively taking away from it by complaining, passively declaring our hopelessness in the situation, or committing the sin of laziness?
Love, defined, means work. Work means effort. Effort is what moves mountains. It always has, always will. Laziness is surely a part of the evil continuum, in its ability to stand and watch the wrongs, the injustices, the struggles of a fellow human being without reaching out to make even the smallest difference to one poor, weak, desperate soul.
2007 has dawned. Zimbabwe is one year closer to the dream. Or one year further away from the dream. Your call, your vision. Always.
For me, we are almost at the summit of this mountain; the hardest, steepest, most treacherous part, the odds of surviving the ascent seemingly close to impossible. All is lost, unless we are able to remember the collective dream.
The shared vision of the view we shall see from the top of this mountain is what we call Zimbabwe. Let us live our every day with this mutual purpose to all our actions. The same concentrated energy on doing, seeing and being what we all want in the depths of our being for our beloved country and her people.
Never, ever underestimate the power given you – given for you to make that difference with all your heart and all your soul. Let’s dare to trust all that we cannot see… perhaps that – not what our five senses tell us is real – is the true reality.
Visions and dreams are the stuff that mould the future … always have, always will. Our ability to believe, have faith and to act consciously in the direction of them will determine when and how we get there. There is no question of ‘if’ we get there … simply put, the more of us who subscribe to the final push, the faster we shall all stand on the top, arm in arm, and look back at where we have come from – with pride.
The best way to predict our future is to go out there and create it … right now. Our ability to respond is what makes each one of us ultimately responsible for every unique opportunity or calling to move us all forward … or backwards. I am depending on you. As you depend on me. We at this time, more than ever before, depend on each other.
“Nothing can get in the way when a (wo)man and her/his God confront a mountain”.
Happy New Year – the climb has begun. One step, one faith, one vision. See you along the way – all the way.