The Blame Game.

I've learnt a ridiculously important lesson recently. A lesson which is pretty much life changing; it's phenomenal, undeniable and so, so important. It's a lesson about people, the past and the future and something called ownership.

So often in life we come face to face with people who help us make a mess of our lives; someone who encourages us to get addicted to something pointless, someone who causes the people we care about to lose faith in us, someone who takes us away from our hopes and dreams and future. We get caught up in something we've unknowingly walked into and find ourselves blaming someone else for where we've ended up. It's a tough call and sometimes we really aren't the ones to blame, but the thing is that it's our life and no one else should be able to change that.

To put it bluntly, no one else is responsible for who I am and what I do. It‘s a choice; a constant choice to live in an honorable and morally upright way; or not. It doesn't really matter what I've done in the past, it doesn't matter who I've been, it doesn't matter how many people have come in and wrecked havoc in my life. My situation is not really their fault; it‘s the fault of the little voice that keeps saying that the past has taken away the future.

We all play the blame game. Whether we've been holding on to what someone did, or holding on to a tragedy that changed our lives; whether it happened yesterday or 5 years ago, if we're blaming something or someone for our situation right now, then welcome to the blame game.

There's a simple way out of this downward spiral- we like to call it ownership. Ownership hurts. It's putting a stop to blaming your past and instead taking ownership for yourself. It's being responsible for your actions and forgiving the people of the past. Ownership is freedom. Freedom from living a life which is constantly determined by what others have done to you, freedom from the things that should be forgotten, freedom from things that shouldn't matter.

Life's what you make it. It's not about the mistakes, it's about moving on and owning up. Live for the things that matter and don't hang onto things that don't. Don't get stuck living because of what someone else has done to you because that's a waste of a perfectly good life.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.

I think this wonderful duo of words isn‘t really used enough. It‘s turned into a pretty rare pair of words that doesn‘t really mean as much as it should. The real tragedy though, is that we really do have so much to be thankful for. We just don‘t realise it, or acknowledge it. I know that I don‘t say thank you enough. I don‘t genuinely and personally thank people as much as I could; as much as I should... So I wanted to use this post to firstly say thank you. Thank you and thank you again. Genuinely.

Thank you to each and every person that is reading this right now. Thank you for your time.

Thank you to anyone who has ever spoken a kind word to me. From those people that encouraged me when I was a familiar face in a familiar environment, to the people that came around me in the toughest of tough times.

Thank you to the people that took the time to get to know the ‘new kid‘. I've loved getting to know every single one of you.

Thank you to the people that never stop encouraging me, the people that never say a mean word, the people who put up with my mistakes and help me out when I‘m being really inconvenient.

Thanks to the brilliant people that look out for me to make sure I don‘t get in trouble or do anything stupid.

Thanks to the people that continue to challenge me to be the best I can be.

Thanks to the people that always, always, always have my back no matter how far apart we are. Thank you for caring for me.

Thank you to everyone that has ever annoyed me, told me off or got on my nerves. I've learnt a lot about who I am because of you. I love you guys the most of all and I hope you know it.

But there are few ridiculously important people that I can never thank enough. Firstly, the Big Man upstairs: God. He‘s given me such a wonderful life and I have no idea how I would survive if He wasn't always at my side. He has been with me through every single moment of every single day and I‘m honoured to live for Him.

Secondly, my Mumma and Daddy. These two people don‘t get thanked enough; my biggest fans and greatest heroes. They‘ve been there for me always and they will always be there for me. We scream at each other and laugh together too. We drive each other crazy, but I could never ask for better parents. So thank you, mum and dad.

You see, often we find ourselves sitting around and complaining about how tough our life is. We complain about what we don‘t have and what we want. It‘s so easy to list the things that we don‘t like and aren‘t thankful for, but it can be a lot harder to actually thank people and thank God for the things we do have. The fact of the matter is that thankfulness and gratefulness is a pretty hard skill to master. It‘s incredibly hard to be thankful in tough times and it‘s even harder to look back and realise the good that came out of tough stuff. But a lesson I learnt as a child, from a veggie-tales video, is that a thankful heart is a happy heart. No matter what‘s going on, no matter how low we feel, if we can be thankful, then we can be happy.

Famous...

Today I listened to a couple of girls talking about how famous they were going to be when they grew up. They were going to be in movies and have people scream their name and want their autograph. They didn't have a doubt in their mind and there was nothing stopping them from acting like they were already famous. They didn't care who was watching or judging or being skeptical; they were going to be famous.

I remember when I was going to be famous. Back in the day, before algebra and six page essays, before the 'cool people' were there to judge, before life started showing its true colours, before things got tougher, before there was a need to fit in; back then, I was going to be famous too.

I don't understand when that dream faded. I don't know when but I'm sure the reason was because I thought I couldn't do it. I've realised that every single person will come to a stage where they have the choice to let go, to give up, to be ordinary, or to hang on, keep going and be so much more than just normal. When we become the victim of growing up and algebra and six page essays, when we notice the 'cool people' that judge and when life shows us its true colours, when things get tougher and we need to fit in; that's when we tell ourselves that we can't be famous.

Lately I've observed this lie that people so easily believe.We can't get away from it but we certainly can make ourselves believe otherwise- I've found that each and everyone of us find it so easy to believe that we are not good enough and that our dreams will not come true. Maybe it's because life can discourage us sometimes and people can say stuff that hurts, but I think that in our hearts we will always want to be famous, to be something, to be someone, to be a star.

So in the great words of Dr. Suess, "You're off to great places, today is your day, the mountain is waiting, get on your way."

If Mothers were flowers, I'd pick you...

Dear Mum,
Happy Mother's Day! You are the best, most beautiful and the lovliest lady to ever live. Thank you for being incredible.

Ever since I was little, I know I have looked up to you. You were, are and always will be my role model and somebody that I truly cherish. Thank you for being respectable and somebody that teaches me to live life to the best of my ability. You are amazing.

Thank you for being inspiring and being the most influential woman I will ever have the privilege to know. Thanks for all the important lessons you have taught me- from holding my hand as I learnt to walk, to teaching me life lessons I will never forget.

Thank you for being the best mother anyone could ever want- you are and always will be my biggest fan.
xoxoxoxo
I love you

YOLO

Live like you were to die tomorrow, love like you were to live forever.

In life we get one shot. We have one chance to live the best, to speak our mind, to influence, to serve, to reach and to make a difference; and it's never the things that we've done wrong that we regret, but the things we never did at all.

Sometimes we put the unimportant things before things that can truly make a difference. We choose the easiest thing over the right thing and we fail to remember that one chance is all we have. Sometimes things will come our way and we pass opportunity by because we think that someone else will do it instead. We need to stop and seize the day- make the most of every opportunity and make the right decision at every choice. Life is precious so live it well; do what is right, not what is easy.

Maybe the most important thing that life will ever teach, is to pay it forward. Paying it forward means blessing others when someone blesses you; paying it forward means helping others because someone helped you; paying it forward means putting others before yourself and going out of your way to do something for someone else. I've always wondered, what would happen if everyone did something for someone else for no particular reason at all? Truly then we would be loving like we were to live forever.

As people we need to learn to speak now, to act now, to love each other with unconditional and undying love. We need to be the best people that we possibly can be and leave a footprint on the world. We need to live the best because You Only Live Once.

Forever Friends

Today I observed a prime example of friendship: two 6 year old boys- fighting. They were angry and frustrated at each other- annoyed that they weren't in agreement. They fought for around 20 minutes, and then they started kicking a ball around. How is it possible that their fight could so easily end?

Many times in friendships we fight. And many times we forgive and become friends again. Sometimes we promise that we will never, ever talk to each other again, we say "I hate you" to each other; but we secretly know, deep in our hearts, that those fierce promises will definitely be broken. We know that we will always be friends- not because we look alike, not because we live in the same town, not because we're both rich, not because we like the same things, but because we are tied together at the heart and because we have a special friendship that time and space cannot destroy.

I believe that true friends are those that can be together after years of not seeing each other and still be able to hang out like normal, friends are those that we never lose because they live in our hearts, they are the people that we can fight with and the people that we can promise never to talk to and then break those promises freely and fearlessly. True friends are made in the heart and are tied together at heart- because true friendship is when time, distance, victory, loss, money or health don't matter, because true friends are made in the heart.

Like Water on a Ducks Back...

The world is full of negative people- people that put you down, people that tell you you're worthless, people that say you can't succeed, people that let you know that they want to see you fail. We've all heard the phrase 'let it slide like water on a duck's back', but if you're anything like me, you would have never paid heed to this powerful statement.

Often in life we stop doing something that we love or are incredibly talented at, because somebody tells us that we can't succeed. Somebody plants a seed of negativity into us, and we let it grow instead of letting it slide like water on a duck's back. We need to somehow develop this ability to let negativity slide off us and let encouragement and positivity soak into us.

What if we all grew a shield to negativity and stopped allowing negative comments to enter our lives, what if we let it slide like water on a duck's back and didn't stop doing what we loved because of something that someone said? If we did that, we would have a strong, confident culture. We wouldn't have people that were unsuccessful because somebody said they couldn't do it. We would be successful, we would be everything we wanted to be. We would be positive people.

So be a duck and let it slide; because if something doesn't build you up, it's not worth letting into your life- because you are worth more than what someone thinks.