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.

The parable of the Frog (Image by H.K. Yuen)

“Once upon a time there was this group of frogs, traveling through the woods. Two frogs fell into a deep pit. The other frogs gathered around the pit. When they saw how deep the pit was, they told the two frogs that they were as good as dead.

The two frogs ignored the comments and tried to jump up out of the pit with all their might. The other frogs kept telling them to stop, that they were as good as dead.

Finally, one of the frogs gave in to what the other frogs were saying, and gave up. He dropped to the ground and died. The other frog continued to jump as hard as he could. Once again, the crowd of frogs yelled at him to stop the pain and just die.

He jumped even harder and finally made it out. When he got out, the other frogs said, “Did you not hear us?” The other frog explained to them that he was deaf. He thought they were encouraging him the entire time.”

The moral of the story is, if we listen to the nay sayers, crabs and frogs that says, "You can't do it, just give up so as not to hurt yourself.". Then we are doomed to be what others say we are. ^^

The First Part Should Be The Hardest

As I awake this morning, my eyes were still closed, still feeling the weight of the blanket over my whole body and still feeling as if I just got home from a brawl. And as I try to contemplate the dreams I had that night, my bladder starts kicking in saying, 'Get up! or your gonna wet your bed!', I told my bladder just 5 minutes more, I'm just gonna snooze. My bladder politely agreed with what I said. But after a while someone beside me starts kicking and waking up my bladder again. 'Awww, man..'

When I was a child I seem to be good at having dreams, but not just dreams in my sleep, dreams in my waking moments, dreams that I could fly and do whatever I wanted to, dreams that i know are not achievable and also dreams that i know has already been achieved, and they where not just dreams, they we're big dreams, dreams you can never dream of dreaming, dreams you can never think would be possible even in your own dreams. But as an adult, I seem to have lost that ability. That for me is the reason why I try to recall my waking dreams even just those who are vivid, I might stumble upon an old dream that i had forgotten or was stolen from me. If you have a dream, then you have a goal. If you have a goal, you will never be lost. If you don't get lost, then you are sure to achieve that dream.

My father once told me in one of our drinking sessions, 'If you DREAM, you dream BIG, and in the event that you would not capture that dream, at least you will get the second best.' That is one of the lessons I keep in my heart that I have never forgotten, but as I grew I thought of something better. I thought of pursuing that dream and never giving up, I don't want the SECOND BEST, I want the BEST. And the best are only for those who really want it.

Waking up in the morning is very hard to do especially when it's purpose is outweighed by the fact that resting is better because at my efforts will not be in vain, 'No efforts, no Vain.' Thats is the reason why we get frustrated with our friends, our jobs, our home, our loved ones, and ourselves, everything seems to be in vain. Everyday seems to be an endless barrage of stones being thrown at you in every direction, and for what? That is because we get frustrated that every day nothing is happening, nothing happened in our past, nothing is happening in the present, and nothing will happen in the future, unless we get lucky that other people would notice us. That is also because we have lost the ability to dream, and because we have lost that ability, we also lost the ability to have a goal, and because we have lost the ability to have goal, we are bound to target things that are not really needs but wants, and therefore we are also bound get lost, and when we get lost then we will put our dreams to luck or in a more simpler term, in the hands of others. Well for me, I will never again put my dreams to luck or in the hands of other people, so long as I hold that dream in my hand and I have power in my mind.

So the first part we need to do is.. to dream. As the old saying goes, 'Libre ang mangarap. - Dreams are free.' So why not? Is it because of our mentality that anything FREE is also worth to Nothing? No, i don't think so. For me if something is FREE, then it only means that it is Priceless. And priceless things can't be bought by any amount of money or fortune. It can only be stolen. So if your dreams we're stolen any time in the past, it doesn't matter. All you need to do, is dream again. Anyway, It's FREE.

I was in my bed wondering who was kicking and waking up my bladder. And as I open my eyes someone look right through them and said, 'Daddy, wee wee.' Ouch, it was my son *with buray and tuyong laway on the side*. I then mustered all my power to get up and help him go 'wee wee' and start the day. I then realized that I already had the dream. And it looked straight into my eyes at the time when I was truly awake..

The first part should be the hardest. It's hard to wake up in the morning if you don't know what lies ahead, also it's very hard to dream because of the fact that there are many people around us who takes away our dreams, crush it even, most of them are even the closest people we have in our lives, but that is a given you cannot blame them for doing this because it is not their decision to make but yours, you can never get to where you want if you won't find the right path, and the right path is not pretty, I guess GOD designed it that way, because the BEST are only for those who really want it. Once you wake up or decide to pursue that dream, the rest will inevitably fall to it's place. So start by DREAMING.. and thats the hardest part. ^^

Because life is But a Dream.