Winning Life in America

Description

When you were a child did you ever lose sight of your parents in the supermarket? Do you remember how it felt? Can you recall the feeling of sheer abandonment and loneliness as you feared you would never feel secure again?

As an orphan child, I was abandoned in a major city with no shelter, food or money. I was lonely and desperate and missed my mom and my brothers and sisters dreadfully. My relatives shoved me from pillar to post and subjected me to mental and physical abuse. I had no other alternative: I could either swim along or sink.

I knew that if I didn’t try to change my circumstances, I risked losing everything— including my sanity—so I made a promise to myself that I would aim for my highest dreams and that I would not give up until I got there. My mom had worked hard to make sure her children were safe and loved and I owed it to her and to myself to carry on.

So, I listened to my inner voice.

Everyone has an inner voice and you can hear it if you listen carefully. Your inner voice is the voice that tells you what you should be doing with your life. It’s a bit like listening to your heart and following the dreams that are locked inside. Your personal journey may take a long time and you may often feel like you are never going to get to where you want to be. But each time you have to stop along the way, remember where you are going and why you are going there. You have to remain focused and you have to stay determined—never give up on your dreams.

My ultimate destination is right here, right now, with you. I am very much in the present and I love who and what I have become. To get here, I literally traveled across continents, climbed mountains, and walked through valleys. Each time I fell down I got back up again. Some of my falls are etched in scars that signify my struggles—some of my scars are visible and some are not obvious to the eye. But each struggle that I endured provided a lesson, and each lesson was necessary for me to be able to become who I am today.

“Difficulties are opportunities to better things; they are stepping stones to greater experience. Perhaps someday you will be thankful for some temporary failure in a particular direction. When one door closes, another always opens, as a natural law it has to be, to balance.”

Everything in life happens for a reason. The guiding lesson for me through each and every one of my experiences is that although every obstacle in the world may appear to trap us and keep us from reaching our destination, we should never let that fool us.

Don’t give in even when you think the struggles are more than you can bear. Keep moving forward and keep affirming the belief that the future will be much better than the past; the future will even be better than the present.

I believe that the challenges I faced, and still face till today, happened so that I could share them with the people who need to gain or reclaim the courage to take that first step. All it takes is one step forward to make a start on your own journey – a journey which will lead you to your true destiny.

My life is filled with stories that will prove and assure others that they are not alone in the world. I faced unbearable circumstances so many times in my life, and at other times, unbelievable triumphs. You must keep this in mind during your journey to reach meaningful accomplishments, nothing that is worth anything is ever easy; but through our hardships, through our circumstances, we end up being who we are today. Let your battle scars be your lessons in life; but let them be just that—lessons.

Sometimes it is our troubled times that lead us to our next path. In this case, think of your troubles as stepping stones. If you feel like giving up because nothing you do seems to turn out right, then all you are doing is giving up.

“So long as there is breath in me, that long will I persist. For now I know one of the greatest principles of success; if I persist long enough I will win”.