Gratitude of Panyee – Pursue Your Dreams
In 1986 11 of Koh Panyee’s boys decided they wanted to play soccer but there was a problem, they lived on water. The village laughed at them and said, “Do you realize we’re on water?” Koh Panyee is a village built on water, no land that could be played on. The boys could have said, “Oh well, we at least thought about it.” Everyone would have understood, even supported them in their decision not to play; however, they decided their dream was more important. They decided they were going to build a floating soccer field.
They went around gathering wood and any extra lumber they could find. After a while, they had a wooden soccer field, nails sticking up, and surrounded by water. They were so grateful to have an area they could play on.
The young men would continuously play as soon as their work was done; they would play into the night. As the story goes, if you wondered where they were, look on the field. Their dream to play was so big nothing would stop them.
Then one day a boy got a flyer about a soccer tournament. After talking about it, they decided they wanted to compete. While they were preparing to go, the village gathered together and gave them jerseys to play in, so they looked like a team.
Fate For Against Your Dream?
Long story short, they competed and did very well, making it to the final game. However, fate was against them, or was it? The rain began to fall, and they were playing in the rain. Their opponents were beating them bad. Feeling discouraged, frustrated and hopeless, the ref blew the whistle for halftime.
During halftime, they were talking about how their shoes were slowing them down because of all the water. One boy decided he would play without shoes and then everyone decided the same. Coming out in the second half, they took over and ended up winning the final game.
Here’s a story of someone’s dreams, goals and desires were so much more significant than other’s doubts. I want to ask you that same question, “Do you value your dream and accomplishing your goals, more than other’s doubts?”
Just like these boys, you can give up, are you willing? You can look at all of the nails that are sticking up out of the wood and say, “It’s too hard. It hurts and is painful.” It’s your choice, but you need to ask yourself, “Do I want to pursue my dreams or others?” There are all kinds of obstacles that the boys face that parallel to yours. Your challenges may not be nails, wood or water. The problems you may be facing could be:
- Struggling children.
- Self-doubt.
- Challenging marriage.
- Health.
- Etc.
Your challenges are real but are you going to allow them to hold you back? What some people could say is impossible, you can make possible. Write what your dreams and goals are down and pursue them, allow other’s doubts to fuel you. You are amazing, believe it!
Please share this; there’s someone in your life that needs to hear this too.
If you’re struggling to find hope, purpose and are wanting and willing to upgrade your life, call me today 801.787.5765. I’m here to help you.
Let me help you pursue and achieve your dream. Tony Rhoton – Life Mentor
Here’s a video of the story to watch and feel inspired.
Read more in-depth story.
This story is all about embracing challenges and coming up with solutions, which reminds me of the book, “Who Moved My Cheese.”
Who Moved My Cheese – Embracing Challenges to Bring Joy
Good morning, for a lot of you right now, it might be kind of a frustrating morning because now your whole schedule is chaotic. And how did it go chaotic? Your children are home for the summer and now comes new challenges.
Ahhhhhh!
There’s a book I absolutely love. It’s called, “Who Moved My Cheese.” This book is amazing because it fits so perfectly right now. The whole concept is illustrating how we have these mazes that we have to get through to discover what’s going to work best for you. Some of the paths we go down, we hit dead ends, and we have to keep traveling and trying to discover the routine or trail that’s going to work best.
If you’re a mouse and you figured out how to get to your cheese, you go the same route every time and you get used to this same routine.
Getting Used to Challenges
For the last nine months, you’ve gotten used to your regular routine, thoughts and patterns of what’s going to happen next.
For example, you’ve gotten used to when you wake up, you do these specific things. You get set in these routines that help you to start the day and perform the best way you can. Well, then all this sudden you go to pick up your cheese or go to do your routine you can’t. It’s gone! Somebody moved.
Nobody physically moved anything. Its school is out and what you used to do every morning now has shifted. Instead of being free at seven o’clock or six o’clock or whenever your kids wouldn’t go to school, instead of being free, you have this whole new maze that is now set up because your children are home from school and it’s not what you’re used to.
Now you have to go through this process of trying to find your cheese, and see what works. You’ll discover ways that don’t work, and you realize you can’t go that way. You start to look for another path to find something that will work during the summer.
Challenge of Change Takes Time to Accept
This process takes some time, but if you take it easy, you will figure it out. You’ll discover where your cheese is located and what’s going to work. New opportunities are present to learn how you are going to start your morning? Your morning may begin with your children jumping in bed and saying, good morning. I love you so much. Don’t fear the differences which are created as you discover new paths. Don’t fear the concept of your cheese being moved. It’s just different. Embrace it.
These new opportunities can be exciting opportunities to grow closer to your family, to grow closer to your children. These are new exciting opportunities if you allow them to be. These opportunities are continually happening because soon school will start back up and you may think you can go back to your old cheese but it might not be there. Your previous plans may not necessarily work like you thought they would, and a whole new maze of challenges shows up.
You may have to take a child to school earlier, or they have a specialty class? Whatever the scenario, maybe, your cheese will always get moved.
Change Brings Different Challenges and Opportunities
You will be moving around and through different challenges and opportunities throughout your life. Learn to embrace your journey, to discover the cheese (new opportunities), to discover that new life, the unique challenges, that new exciting path.
As you do this, you’re going to find joy in the journey; the process, and the discovery. You’re going to realize that there’s cheese all over that you haven’t even realized exists yet because you’re so used to doing the same thing over and over again. As things get interrupted, that’s when you start breaking new barriers and discovering there’s cheese everywhere and that there are new kinds of cheeses.
Sticking with the analogy of moving the cheese, in your journey, you’ll discover there are new kinds of cheese like provolone, pepper Jack, Cheddar, Mozzarella, there are a lot of different kinds of cheese.
Some Cheese (Change) You’ll Love; Some You Will Not
You’ll taste some cheese, or go a path and think,
“that was Yucky. I don’t want to eat that again.”
And then you’ll go to some others and really like them and want to keep going back and eat more of it or doing that thing again and again.
Therefore, the concept of change is a concept to implement in your life. You’ll have cheese that you taste or something that you thought was going to work, and it just ends up tasting bad and not working.
After tasting the cheese and implementing the new routine, you’ll realize you do not like it? You do not want that cheese. That cheese or new path was awful, painful, and did not work. Now you know you don’t like that path (blue cheese). You realize you don’t like Blue Cheese but love, Pepper Jack. With this discovery, you can put more energy into what you love.
In summary, whatever kind of cheese or path you choose to try, don’t fear it, there are all kinds of different opportunities (cheese) out there that you haven’t even tasted yet that will open up new exciting journeys. The more you do this, the more you become the person you really can be. There’s so much more of you to give to the world and your family. You are amazing, believe it!