Never Say Die

Watching the Australian Open semi finals and grand final taught me self belief.

This month has been a topsy turvy one, one where I had to pivot twice. I felt lost. I didn't have a vision. I was planning, testing, and going back to the drawing board, and I was learning. However, I had no strong belief. Belief was something I had in bursts, but I had lost it in a dead end job. It was something I had in the past that I was trying to relive, but work had slowly grated away at it.

This year I started to listen to the advice around me and trusting myself again. I read about the relentless hard work put in by Snoop Dogg and Kanye West in the studio. I was emboldened by the powerful sermons at church. I saw inspiration. It's clichéd, but if you follow your passion and focus on what you love to do with a burning desire and a no-quit attitude, then success is inevitable.

A study of thousands of successful people found that grit is the one characteristic that is the predictor of success. Grit is the perseverance and passion to achieve long term goals, having the stamina to stick with your future day in and day out and working hard to make that future a reality.

Seeing the top tennis players in action helped me relearn the concept of self belief. Belief in oneself is what separates the winners from the losers. There was never doubt in the eyes in Djokovic and Nadal as they closed out their finals. They believed. They fought. They won.

Dreams of The Mortal

At night I wax poetic. Semi-conscious musings. Perceived clarity.

As humans, we have a longing to express. To be near another body. To touch. To satisfy. Lustful urging. Human connection.*

As you grow up you face your mortality. It was something I never wanted to confront, but with age comes an acceptance.

When you are young you think you are invincible. Bruises from a football match always heal. However, the exuberant leafs of youth gradually disappear. Replaced with the first signs of aches and pains where there were none, tiredness, wrinkles, scars, hair loss and grey hairs.

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Memories flash. Looking back through all my friends. Times in the past. With age comes a sense of wisdom. It teaches me that nothing really matters, there is no point getting worked up over nothing.

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God always comes to mind. Last week when I hit 666 friends on Facebook, I suffered the biggest loss I ever had ($11k versus the next closest of $3k). I pondered over whether it was the supernatural.

At night I prayed. Tingling and goosebumps spread through my body like never before when I uttered the word 'Bible'. I called out to Jesus in prayer. I felt Jesus more than as long as I can remember. I prayed for a fruitful 2012. A seed being planted to blossom into a large tree with it's shade benefiting many.

My goal is Olympic gold. My goal is to do good. My goal is God.

But how can I trust God? Unanswered prayers come back to haunt me. Maybe I was not righteous back then. Honestly, I don't know. What about now? Has anything changed? Deep down, I still feel the scars and hurt of the past.

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And the omnipresent question arises. What happens after death? If there is an afterlife, will the people I love be there? If my family and my friends are not there, is there a point to living forever?**

* Males and females want each other. Most of our energies in our lives are devoted to this. More than half of songs are written about this. It is a lust for love. Of the four basic needs of fight, flight, food and family, family is the strongest in the modern developed world.

** Imagining an afterlife is like imagining another dimension. It is trusting in an unknown quantity known as God for an unknown future. I do not know what the point of serving God is if there is no afterlife. I find it hard to comprehend how people from different times would exist together, what they would know or remember or not know or remember, where they would live, whether the world they know would exist, whether their body would exist and if so what age the body will be, how people would live and enjoy their existence, and whether their loved ones and animals would exist.