Blond Hair And Board Shorts

A man with shaggy, blond, unkempt, sun bleached hair, who is wearing nothing other than a pair of board shorts, is walking barefoot along the sand of a tropical, palm tree lined beach.  He walks close to the waters edge, so that each time a wave breaks and pushes up the beach, the water covers his feet before once more receding.  Running around the man, bounding into the water, running back to the sand, barking with fun, is an equally scruffy looking dog.  On the faces of both, to be seen clearly by any casual observer, is written joy and contentment with life.

It is a summer's day in England. An adolescent boy sits on the pebbles of the beach and watches the waves lapping at the shore.  The boy has just been swimming and beads of water run from his hair, over his shoulders and down his back, but he does not care.  The sun is warming and he knows that he will soon be dry.  He stares out across the calm and flat ocean, that is constantly changing shape, undulating with small movements, as each swell attempts to break the calmness but lack the power to do so, dying on the pebbles of the beach as if collapsing, exhausted, over the finish line.  The boy's mind begins to drift, to wander and he imagines where his life will lead him and what it is that life has in store for him.

The winds of the dry season blow, lifting sand from the beach, stirring up the dust of the roads, across the land comes the wind, dropping these tiny particles of the rocks and earth across a parched countryside, that is now into its fifth month without the rains.  Barren is the ground, brown is the grass, and withered and lifeless are the trees that the wind passes over.  The wind brings no cooling relief from the heat of the sun, the air it brings is stifling and serves only to increase the temperature, like a breeze that fans the smouldering embers of a fire.  On the beach, barefooted, blond haired and wearing only a pair of board shorts, approaches a lone figure.  At times he gazes out across the ocean, he stares up at the clouds, sometimes marvelling at the exquisite formations, sometimes he sees in a cloud the shape of an animal, and he watches mesmerised as a pod of pelicans launch themselves from the surface of the water, and take to the air in flight.  The man might walk alone but he is not lonely.  He smiles and laughs to himself often and people look at him and think that perhaps he has been touched by the hand of madness.  And they would be right.  This man has been touched by the madness that comes of having pursued a childish dream and of turning that dream into a waking reality.  This man walks in the knowledge that life rewards those that seek out the truth for themselves and discover their one true path.  It was insanity that drove him onwards and allowed him to find the light that was within.

I had a dream once and I dismissed it.  At the beach in England, during the summer months, my heart was always so full of joy, content and happy.  I could not think of anything else that would make me more fulfilled than to live by a tropical beach.  I dismissed this dream because I thought it was stupid, I believed it was unachievable, but more than this, I thought that it was not what I was supposed to do with my life.  For me, life was all about finding a job, earning enough money to support myself, leaving home, raising my own family.  I managed the first three of those, the last eludes me still.  Those were the things expected of me.  Everything else I was told, was foolhardy and stupid.  When I had the vision of the beach, I would say to myself it was impossible.  I would ask myself what would I do there?  How would I live?  How would I support myself?  I have a logical brain and because of this, I could see no sense in my dream, and so I dismissed it as the foolish thought of youth.   

However, what I had not counted on, was that this dream was so deeply rooted in the core of my being, that my heart never let it go.  From my teenage years onwards, everything that I have ever done, was completed with the ultimate goal of achieving my dream.  I was not consciously aware of this.  Some other power drove me in that direction and I subconsciously made the decisions that led me there.  Some how, I ended up where I always wanted to be.  The journey was not straightforward.  In fact, I could not have taken a more convoluted and twisted road if I had tried.  And it is this fact that brings me great joy and hope in my life.

I did not set out for my life to be the way it is.  So much happened by chance and opportunity.  Everyone has those same chances in their lives.  I am no more unique or blessed than any one else.  What this tells me, is that if you have something inside of you that holds deep meaning for your life, then there is a power that is going to steer you towards it, whether you are conscious of it or not, and no matter the decisions that you take.  That power could be given many names but I like to think of it as simply, love.  If you believe in love, then you can achieve anything.  If you believe in love, then you can accomplish your dreams.  Love is the force that drives life.  And it is life that brings love.  The eternal cycle will always go on until the ending of the universe.

You have the power to accomplish your dreams.  All that you need can be found within.  Search your heart,  listen to its voice and act on what it tells you.  Create the life that you want, not the life that you think you should have.  Those who dream are not fools, but those who dream and do not act are the foolish.

Dream.  Dare.  Walk.  Love.  Light.

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