I’m at the bottom of a cliff, I look across and see a blue sea and I see an orange horizon. That’s what I see at the bottom of the cliff, and I expect the view at the top of the cliff to be the same. But my mother has told me different and that at the top of the cliff, you don’t see just a blue sea or an orange horizon, you see more, much more. You see a gleaming blue sea that has brilliant streaks of reflecting white from a golden Horizon. But best of all you see your soul roaring with the light of achievement.
She has told me this many times, but I don’t believe a single bit of it. It must be the same, it “should” be the same. the top of a cliff is the same as the bottom of the cliff… or- no it isn’t. What’s so good about achievement? What’s the point of working so hard to see what’s at the top of a cliff when everything at the bottom is just fine?
That’s what I was like as a young kid, I didn’t, couldn’t, be bothered to do well in my life. I didn’t see a reason to work hard or do my best. My mother noticed changes in me and she knew it was time to push her child onto the right path.
She did this, by telling me how she and my father had literally no money when they arrived from India and how they had to take so many jobs to have food on the table, how she had to go to work with thin worn clothes that provided absolutely no protection against New Zealand’s harsh weather. How my father concentrated on getting money for us than completing his uni course. How my mother would be paid so little , in trade of insults across the phone.
Now we live in Australia and she works for a good paying job were she is respected for her strength and loyalty. My father has the same story although he is respected more for his intelligence, my parents showed me how they worked from nothing, to something. They showed me that you have to work towards what you want, even if you don’t want to, and if you are disheartened by it, the sense of achievement you have when you’ve accomplished what you set out to do, squashes it completely…
Now I am half way to the top of the cliff, but I can still see what’s waiting for me at the top, and I intend to climb all the way…or higher.
marshmallowchild 