Failure isn’t fatal, but failure to change might be.
— John Wooden, American basketball player
This week, we will do something different. You have had a four part series on Margret Thatcher for the last few weeks, let’s do a collections of shorts ideation by me for this week.
International Women’s Day
What’s this about International Women’s Day?
Everyday is our day. A day in this infinite universe of infinite capacity and opportunity.
Do we need a day dedicated to women to make us feel validated? Valued? Pampered? Special?
If so, why? And who is this benefactor who is giving us a day that we should be excited about? We will take all 365 days thank you very much, and we will rock it like we do. After all, we are 50 per cent of the population, we are not a minority.
Is this Women’s Day to recognise women’s contribution? We contribute every day, in every way. Housewives, students, career professionals, athletes…we do what we do 365 days. And we do it because that’s what we are.
Let’s level the playing field.
Society builds the world together — men and women. Let’s stop the division. We are bigger than this. Men and women — we are a fine team.
Down is a precursor to up
Every rejection pushes you towards a greater destination. Think of all the no’s as signage that directs you towards what you were meant to do all along — what really is your best.
Lost that sale? It makes you work smarter and harder next time for a bigger and better win.
Lost that plan? Maybe it was not the one that would make you happiest.
Lost that person? You were not meant for that relationship and a better one will come along that shows you what soul mate really means.
You keep losing all the way on your journey to winning. Just keep at it. The losing and the winning. Treat both those two imposters just the same.
It’s your hardest, lowest points in life that define the true character you will be.
Never fear them.
“If I can…Treat both Triumph and Disaster like the imposters they are,
Talk to the common man but never lose my virtue,
Walk with Kings but never lose that common touch,
Watch all I have given my life to broken,
And build them up again with worn out tools yet never speak a word about my loss,
Count on all men but none too much,
Fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds of distance run.”
Then only I will be the woman that I want to be. Thank you, Kipling.
Question everything
The biggest mistake humankind has made, is to make religion and authority so sacred it cannot be questioned, and afford it privileges and impunity not afforded to anything else in human history.
Thereby allowing the manipulation.
Everything should be questioned. Everything. And if there are no answers, then it’s pretty suspect.
The very act of questioning is the single thing that should be made sacred. For it is what allows humanity to evolve and be elevated.
A lack of questioning and blind faith creates a stagnation that leads to degression. A decomposition of the living mind.
And many of us are dying today due to this folly.
They don’t die physical deaths, but mental ones.
They have lost the ability to connect the dots, because the ability to question and think independently has been removed from them. They follow blindly, and sometimes to their own self destruction.
We are witnessing today the rise of technology but the great Self-Destruct of Man.
The Indian reverence for the cow
I love the Hindu reverence for the cow.
I love it when they call her their mother because she gives them milk, and therefore they refuse to slaughter and eat her. It stems from an ancient bond with animals and all of nature where you only take what’s necessary and learn to respect and live in harmony with all of God’s creatures.
I think it is beautiful when a group of people are vegetarians because they don’t want to harm animals. All animals.
It’s hypocritical to carry placards to save whales, tigers and dolphins, cry when dogs are killed for meat in China or Korea but then go home and tuck in to pork and beef and chicken without wondering where it all came from.
It was not only Hinduism in India that revered the cow as Mother. Ancient Egypt revered the Bull as an incarnation of God too.
Apis was the most important and highly regarded bull deity of ancient Egypt — a god of fertility, closely associated with goodness and bounty.
Revering an animal that gives you sustenance, as Mother shows an intellectual understanding of the world, a kinship with Mother Gaia and the feminine power encompassing all that’s benevolent.
● More coming up in Part 2 next week. Stay tuned.
The views expressed here are those of the columnist and do not necessarily represent the views of New Sarawak Tribune. Feedback can reach the writer at beatrice@ibrasiagroup.com
