Desire

Dreaming is a man’s job; achievement is a labourer’s.

Everyone dreams. They have goals set up in life, from less important ones to immensely crucial ones; ace the French baccalaureate, get a job by twenty, and expand the garment business. But there are a few who have what it takes to achieve what is known as ‘eternal glory.’       

Sometimes it seems as if the whole universe is involved in a conspiracy against you. Obstacles emerge, boundaries appear, and suddenly the things that seemed within our hand’s reach seem to be miles away, guarded by an indomitable force. Everyone starts to create hindrances in your way; unexpected conflicts, unforeseen circumstances arise. It seems as if there is no way to achieve your goal, fulfil your dream.

I had read about a concept similar to the above-mentioned one, in a book.

‘The accommodator or giving-up point: there is always an event in our lives that is responsible for us failing to progress: a trauma, a particularly bitter defeat, a disappointment in love, even a victory that we did not quite understand, can make cowards of us and prevent us from moving on. As part of the process of increasing his hidden powers, the shaman must free himself from that giving-up point and to do so, he must review his whole life and find out where it occurred.’                                                                     

At some point in our lives, all of us reach the accommodator; the stage of giving up, when life becomes too hard to go on. We are plagued by conflicting emotions of unworthiness and bewilderment about our very existence. That’s where the similarity ends, because all of us tend to portray our own individuality as well as originality at this point. Some people silently acquiesce to fate, trying to console themselves that maybe this was destined to happen. They blame their destinies, even though they are fully aware that every man can change his destiny, if he is willing to do so. Our destinies, or Personal Legends, were designed by God, not to make all doors close on us, but to tell us what its like to live in a world of possibility, success and hope.

Those who always secretly nurtured a romantic, novel-like death slit their wrists and spend their last moments on planet earth lying in a gory pool of blood. Others engross themselves in the latest soaps and meaningless chit-chat with their mates, trying to shake off that weird feeling in the pit of their stomach, trying to deny the complexity of life.

Relatively, some people are indignant; they curse fate, they swear at God, they go to their colleagues houses and tell them what a bitch life is, they shout, they yell, they endeavour to let out their anger in various ways. To sum it up, they do everything except for admitting that they just didn’t try hard enough. The only difference is that instead of bearing it without a word of complaint, they grumble at the top of their voices, but still do not pursue their dream. The truth is that they are afraid; they are plagued by a paroxysm of timidity, they are unsure of their abilities to fight the problems. So they forget all about their dream and their struggle and loose themselves in a cacophony of sounds and monotonous routines.

The third kind of people is the brave ones. They roll up their sleeves and prepare themselves to tackle whatever lies ahead; no matter how complex, no matter how hard. They are ready to take the heat in hopes of the fulfilment of their dream. That’s real struggle. That’s true boldness. That’s fierce passion.

Only a few actually make it through the seemingly never-ending storm without getting drenched. There’s no one particular way to comprehend this life and its purpose. For me, it was finding the inner core of my manifested physical life – spirituality. That was the key to my personal legend. Only when I came to understand that there wasn’t a God ‘out there’ but there was one dwelling inside my soul, was I able to feel the Its incandescence that dazzled my intellect and the sheer light that illuminated every speck of my spirit. And now I am at a stage where nothing, absolutely nothing, can shake the foundations of the realm sunk in profound silence and utter perfection that I created within myself. For I am a believer; I have faith in the gears of karma, the sacred geometry and the alchemy of creation. I have faith in the silken strands of sand, the rebirth of the Phoenix, the presence of the Zahir. And above all in have faith … in myself.


Let me narrate a story of a person in search for his dreams; a symbol that portrays the ‘labourer’ hidden in all of us.

‘The man is sick of his life; nothing seems to work his way, it’s as if the angels have turned their backs on him. Desperate, he seeks advice from a wise guru who lives in his locality. The guru takes him to an archaic museum where statues made out of mud and clay, are preserved. The guru stops in front of a particular sculpture; it is protected by a thick sheath of glass. He raises his fist and brings it crashing down towards the glass. At once, the glass shatters into a million little pieces. The guru reaches out and picks up the sculpture, he turns to the other man and says, ‘the sculpture was my dream, the layer of glass was the obstacle, and the blood on my hand is the effort I made. And a combination of the dream, obstacle and effort is my destiny.’

Henceforth, no matter how difficult everything seems, don’t be afraid to take a chance. Or else you’ll always regret that forever. Always remember that life itself is a risk; it’s up to you to embrace it or to give it up.

Only the first couple of steps are tough, after that, pieces automatically fall into place. Once you grab the reins, it’s easy to manoeuvre the horse then onwards. And as Brazilian author, Paulo Coelho once said, ‘When you want something, the entire universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.’