Fighting the good fight.

~sigh..brain is working at half speed..tired..barely have my eyes open..

its just the third class in this module and yet, I already feel like slogging my half asleep ass through typing this..with work to contend to in the day and then zipping off after work at night going for idea generation course while catching a quick break fast in between…suddenly it hit me; that taking this class in the fasting month wasn’t such a good idea.. Or is it actually a blessing disguised behind this cloaked ambitions? Testing my endurance? Well, not the triathlon type endurance really, but testing my endurance in fighting the mental blocks and frustrations coming from having to churn out ideas/copy/direction for ads, finely picking out the good ones, just for the sake of selling the MESSAGE that Ovaltine ‘relaxes you’..

Theres 5 of us in the class. And Janet (my trainer) said that, for this module, we’ll be crapping hundreds of ideas before we can come upon a tiny gem of a single great idea. And the challenge would be, to continue challenging myself. To continuously try to break that wall that is holding me back.

What wall?

This reminds me of an article I read and the accompanying video of a Randy Pausch’s ‘Last Lecture’. ‘Last Lecture’ is a series of events, whereby the academic bodies of Carnegie Mellon University invited any of the lecturers or tutors, to play act and give their ‘last’ lecture as they would have it. To Randy Pausch, it wasn’t play-acting. It was the real deal. Here’s an excerpt from the webpage;

“Carnegie Mellon Professor Randy Pausch, who is dying from pancreatic cancer, gave his last lecture at the university Sept. 18, 2007, before a packed McConomy Auditorium. In his moving talk, "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams," Pausch talked about his lessons learned and gave advice to students on how to achieve their own career and personal goals.”

See the complete video list here (1-10 in total), and be amazed to understand that it comes from a guy who expects to die from cancer in a couple of weeks. And see not HOW he delivered the lectures, but rather on WHY he delivered a hopeful last lecture on his life's lessons to the world.

Why this sudden remark about this amazing man? Well, in his ‘Last Lecture’ there was one thing that he said that really struck me deep down. Really made me re-think about how I approach my dreams and how I should achieve it. And it’ll remain in my mind (I hope forever).

He said;

“The walls are there to for a reason. They walls are not there to keep us out. The walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. The walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough.”

I almost blurred my vision there for a second.

Nothing struck to me as being as truthful and as real as those few lines of words. Made me wonder about the times when we thought that we should really be giving up, perhaps we should actually be thinking whether we really want it badly enough. To step up and climb that wall that inhibits us from our own greatness. To not be fearful of ourselves, but rather to embrace our potentials to do great things. Only if we want it hard enough to break that wall.

What is ‘IT’?

‘IT’ differs from people to people. It could be riches beyond words. Or a great career. Big house. Houses. Big car. Cars. Owning a company. Travel the world. Help the poor. World peace. But whatever IT is, start by saying to yourself that, whatever that you dream for you and your well being, put a good fight for it..towards that greater purpose in life.

~sigh

Forgive me for such mutterings.. Gotta go now, on to the preparation of my artworks for presentation tonight. No time for berjimba (slacking)..Maybe later, I’ll post the sketches of my ideas for advertising Ovaltine.

In the meantime, fight the good fight people..