Living A Ferris Wheel Life

What is a Ferris Wheel?

Fer·ris wheel also fer·ris wheel

NOUN
An amusement ride consisting of a large upright rotating wheel having suspended seats that remain in a horizontal position as the wheel revolves.

You start at the bottom, buy a ticket, get inside the Ferris Wheel, wait for the ride to start and enjoy. Your Ride goes Up, you feel the excitement, freedom, thrill, a sense of happiness and joy, and you are very far from your worries below. Eventually your Ride reaches its maximum potential height and when this happens, there is no where else to go but down. The ride goes on and on, round and round, up and down, and after a while we would feel the boreness of the ride, eventually it stops. You get down the amusement ride and you will find yourself no farther that where you started.

In life, we all start at the bottom, learn, get a job, wait for our so called "Break" and enjoy. Our salaries goes up, we feel the excitement because we can now do what we want and buy the things that we want, we experience "Freedom", freedom from financial scarcity, the thrill of being independent, the sense of happiness and joy from what we have achieved, and our past worries are nothing more than vivid memories or sometimes, we totally forget about them. But like the Ferris wheel, everything will eventually reach its maximum potential height and when this happens, there will be no where else to go but down. Life goes on and on, round and round, up and down, we feel the boreness of everything and eventually here is where it all starts to go down. We get out of our jobs and finds that we are no farther than where we have started. This is the Ferris Wheel Life.

So this is the question that we should all ask ourselves.

Are we living the Ferris Wheel Life? If you can say no to this question, then i congratulate you. Because I myself don't yet know if i am living this kind of life.

Yesterday evening after work, I attended a seminar conducted by one of our Managing Directors Mr. Ron Melendrez. He talked about the Ferris Wheel and about success, what it is in the minds of average Filipinos according to statistics and what it is according to its essence. One question that he asked me was, How can you say that you have achieved success? It struck me then that I do not yet know the answer to this question. Yes, we all want to be Financially Independent, we all want ourselves and our families to have the best of everything in life. But is that all? And how do we get there? Where should we go? Where should we ride? Should we wait for the opportunity? What opportunity? Then he told me what I was lacking. I was lacking Vision.

The Journey is more Fun if you know where you are going.

If you where invited by your very good friend to come with him on a boring stagnant day with nothing to expect, would you come? Of course you'd come. And when he just convinces you to get in his car and you would ride for three straight hours without knowing where to go, how would you feel? Anxious maybe? Irritated? Bored? Angry? Naturally, because you don't know where you are going.

We have the power to choose our destination. So why not choose the best. And it should be specific and in details, to the point that you can see it, smell it, feel it, touch it, and taste it even. If you have this kind of a dream, and if you have this kind of a vision, never let it go. For vision gives us direction, gives us purpose, and gives a inspiration.

Like the Nescafe commercial say,

"Para kanino ka bumabangon?"

Let us not live a Ferris Wheel Life and start having a Vision.