Live your dream

“Live your dream” is a very popular slogan which you find in the internet/TV/radio and so on all the time. The meaning of this short sentence should be clear.
Many people around the world are trying to heed this advice. One popular example is the Dubstep violinist Lindsey Stirling. Her dream was to play violin and to make people happy with her music.

During the last years she released two very successful albums “Lindsey Stirling” (released 2013) and “Shatter Me” (released 2014). This summer (August 19th 2016) she will release her third album “Brave Enough” which you can preorder at Pledge, iTunes and so on. She also took part in several German telecasts like “Klein gegen Groß”, “Willkommen bei Carmen Nebel” or “Die Helene Fischer Show”. In the years 2014 and 2015 she won the German Music Award Echo in the category Crossover each time. Her songs were already used in German movie productions like “Terra X”.

Even if a few people around the world live their dreams, are you as an average person also able to live your dream or is this only a slogan?

If you watch news in TV, it's often difficult to believe that you should be able to live your dream. There are so many terrible things happening around the world. All these victims are certainly not living their dreams. But how could you live your dream? Is this possible?

Living your dream is possible and this is a very important aspect to attain happiness. But no one said that this will be easy. :-)

The first step is to understand yourself, to learn who you are.
All of you immediately will be able to answer the question “Who are you?”. Most of you probably will mention their name, title, job and so on. Of course all this is correct. But is this really you? Are you a name, a title or a job? I think “No!”. You're an individual person with a history, wishes, fears, hopes, interests and many more.

That's why I ask you once again: “Who are you?”.
You hopefully see that answering this question isn't so easy. Responding this question is very difficult and complex. I'm sure that some people never will be able to answer it completely.

But even if you take time and think about your answer, are you really sure that all the wishes, hopes, interests, etc. you mention, are aspects of your own personality? Or are you only repeating the wishes etc. from your friends, colleagues and so on?

All of us are part of a society and we have many relations to other people like family, friends and so on. And all these people are having an effect on us. For example your father hopes that you'll do the same job as he is doing. Even if your father doesn't try to affect you, you know that he is hoping this. That's why you perhaps decide to do his job. But is doing this job your own dream or your father's dream?

Now you perhaps see why it is so difficult to answer the question “Who are you?”. But although it is so difficult, it is absolutely necessary. How could you live your dream if you don't know who you are?

Many people never think about this question because either they don't have the idea to do it or they are too afraid what they perhaps will find out. That's why they are living a life which is controlled by others. Of course living such a live makes them unhappy. That's why they are dreaming that one day there will appear the Prince Charming and rescue them. But this usually doesn't happen because Prince Charming doesn't know that there is a princess living inside her crystal ball.
That's why it's so important to find out who you are.

When you finally know or at least have an idea who your are, you have to find out your interests. This step is usually very easy. If you shouldn't know what you want to do, try out as many things as possible. I'm sure you'll discover your interests very fast.

After you successfully mastered both steps there is still a problem. You have to begin to live your dream. That means you have to break free! You have to implement your thoughts. As I already wrote before, dreaming of Prince Charming won't help because he doesn't know that there is a princess living inside the crystal ball who is waiting for him.

Doing this step is risky and needs much courage because now you're responsible for your life and you have to make your own decisions. There is no one who is telling you what to do. But always remember that you aren't alone. You have family and friends who will be there for you. And of course God always will help you to find the right way. Trust in him.

After you break free you're able to begin to live your dream. But this doesn't mean that everything is easy from now on. When you begin to live your dream, you probably won't be very successful in the beginning. You have to learn much and you'll make lots of mistakes, till you are a master in what you're doing. But never loose hope. Always remember that you're just living your dream.

Also such a popular and talented person like Lindsey Stirling started on a shoestring. Her dream was to make violin music. That's why she had to learn how to play the violin correctly for years till she became a master in this one day. Learning the violin wasn't fun all the time but she kept up till she mastered it. For living your dream you have to work very hard. But it is worth it.

But even you are successfully living your dream there will be hard times. That's why it is necessary to have family and friends who help you. Family and friends are great but they are living their own dreams. It's important to find someone who will spend his/her life with you and who is living your dream together with you. Finding such a person is really very difficult. The only way to find the right one is living an open-hearted life. If you are living such a life, it's very easy for bad guys to hurt you, because you pulled down all your protective walls around your soul. And there always will be bad guys who will hurt you. But although your soul is bleeding, never give up. God knows your pain and he will help you to find the right person at the right time. Trust in him.

Some of you perhaps think that all this is theoretically right and that there are people who are living their dreams, but you never will be able to live your dream. If you're one of these guys then you're wrong. You are able to live every dream you want to live. There are no limits except the ones inside your mind. If you're able to imagine something you'll be able to do it. You only have to try it.

For example learning how to play a violin correctly isn't easy. But if you want to learn it, you are able to learn it. There is no reason why you shouldn't be able to master it. Of course there always will be people who are more talented than you. But this doesn't matter. You don't have to be the best  violinist around the world to live your dream. If you are doing your best this is absolutely enough.

But why are there so many people around the world who are believing that they won't be able to live their dream. One reason is that living your dream, that everything you do and that each decision you make have a price or you could say it has a consequence. If you want to learn playing a violin you have to work hard and to spend lots of time to master it. That's why other aspects of your life will disappear. For example you decided to become a musician and you are working hard to achieve your dream. That's why your musical skills will grow. But other skills will be reduced. This is a logical consequence. You can't be a master in everything. This is only one example for a price you have to pay for living your dream.
Especially if you only have little talent in doing something but it's your dream to do it, then you have to pay a very high price for reaching your goal. Of course if you want to live this dream, you always will be able to live it. But many people are bent on paying such a high price for reaching their goal.
Another reason why so many people are believing that they won't be able to live their dream is fear. They're not brave enough to answer the question “Who are you?” or to break free.

There's one last aspect I want to explain.
Even if you are living your dream successfully, there is one high risk to attain unhappiness. This risk is comparing your life with someone else's life. If you are comparing your life with the life from others, you will attain unhappiness because one day you will find someone who is living a more successful or more happy live than you. And most people don't like if someone else is living a better life than yourself.

There is a very interesting story in the Bible which is explaining this problem. It's called the “Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard”.
There is an owner of a vineyard and it's time to pick the grapes. But he has too few workers for this job. That's why he goes to the marketplace and asks some people if they would help him to pick the grapes. He would pay them a penny a day. They accepted his offer. During the day he went several times to the marketplace and hired more and more workers. He always promised to pay one penny.
After the work was done he payed the workers. Because he always promised one penny, everyone gets the same, no matter how long they worked. The workers who worked whole the day were angry because the workers who only worked a few hours got the same wage.

At the first moment you probably think that the owner of the vineyard was unfair and the early workers were right to be angry. But is this true?
The owner asked all the workers if they would work for a penny and they accepted it. If the early workers wouldn't have compared their wage with the wage from the late workers, everyone would be happy. But the second they compared they attained unhappiness.

Perhaps some of you still think that the early workers were right to be angry because the owner was unfair. But this is wrong. The payment was fair. The owner told them the conditions of the offer before and they accepted them. All the workers got their money the owner promised them.

Everyone always gets what he/she needs. In the parable all the workers needed money. But this doesn't mean that everyone always gets the same. If God or you also could say the Life gives you for example one talent, this is a gift. If someone else got many talents, God/Life is still fair. Firstly if someone else gets more gifts than you, you shouldn't be jealous or even angry about this. And second you don't know the reason why he/she got so many gifts. Perhaps he/she did a better job than you or he/she has a bigger family than you and needs more money. There are so many possible reasons why someone gets more than you. You never will know all these reasons. That's why you shouldn't be jealous. Be happy about the gifts you got.

Even if you think that life isn't fair, it's your own decision to be happy or not. If you only focus on the bad things in your life, you always will be unhappy. Of course you went through bad times and other people treated you bad. This is life. Everybody passed such bad times in life. But if you only focus on these bad memories, you won't be able to see all the good things which are currently happening in your life.

That's why always remember:
God gifted you everything you need to live your dream and attain happiness. But happiness is a decision. That's why make the right choice: Focus on the good things in your life and not on the bad memories.

I was inspired by Lindsey Stirling to write this blog post. She passed very bad times. But she didn't give up. She decided to go inside and found out who she is and what dream she wants to live. Then she did the very brave step to break free and to live her dream open-hearted.

This photo from Lindsey Stirling was taken by Lionel Bonizzardi at Paris, France.

Here you can watch Lindsey Stirling's latest original music video "The Arena":

Lindsey Stirling's new single “The Arena” is available at iTunes and Amazon.

This is the cover from Lindsey Stirling's new single "The Arena".

Lindsey Stirling's new album “Brave Enough” will be released August 19th 2016. You can preorder it at Pledge and iTunes.

This is the cover from Lindsey Stirling's new album "Brave Enough".

Here you can find Lindsey Stirling:
Website: http://www.lindseystirling.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lindseystirlingmusic/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/LindseyStirling
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lindseystirling/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/lindseystomp

Here you can find my fan page Lindsey Stirling GER:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LindseyStirlingGermany/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/LS_GER
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lindsey_stirling_ger/ 

Written by: Andreas S. Janke

Fighting against the darkness

Who doesn't know the bad feelings when you are watching a movie or the news and the bad guys are winning against the good guys? Usually the bad ones have all the money, the power, the people and so on. And the good ones only have themselves, their believes, conviction and so on.

I'm sure that all of us already saw or even went through such a situation. Unfortunately those things are reality and happen all over the world day after day.

If you saw or even went through such a terrible situation, you are feeling angry, sad, helpless and much more. You are probably thinking why something like this has to happen or what could you do so that this never will happen again.

A religious person would perhaps answer something like this:
“God is testing you.” or “This is a test of your faith.”

This is true, but this doesn't explain anything and this doesn't really help.

Is there no other way without all these bad things?
Unfortunately not. These bad things have to happen. They are necessary.

Of course it isn't easy to see why they are necessary, but I will try to explain it here.

An important question you have to answer first is:
What is the difference between humans and animals? Are humans only animals or are they more?

Some of you may ask now why this question is important. Trust me. It's very important.

A scientist usually would answer the question this way:
Humans developed from apes. Apes are animals. That's why humans are animals too.

Yes, this is right. But is this everything? Are humans only a special and of course successful form of animals?
No! There is at least one big difference. But what is it? Scientists are searching for it since many years.

I can tell you. The difference between humans and animals is the free will.

Animals don't have the choice to be good or bad. They are only acting completely logic like the nature is doing. They are doing everything so that they or their group will survive or have the best chances. This is everything. Living such a live isn't good or bad. It's neutral.
Animals never would kill another animal for fun. There is no need to do this. This wouldn't be logic. That's why they never would do something like this. But animals also never would risk or even give their life for another unknown creature or even a rival. This also isn't logic.

Some of you perhaps think at animal parents who risk their life for their children. That's true. They are doing this. But this situation is completely different to the one I described. Risking your life for your children or your group is logic. Without children life on earth would end very fast. That's why all parents especially mothers have a genetic predisposition (mother instinct) to protect their children. And risking your life for your group is also logic because the group has better chances to survive then. Sacrifice one individual so that the group consisting of many individuals can survive. This is very simple logic. Humans usually think that this is cruel. But it isn't. This is nature. This is neutral. But what some humans are doing is cruel.

Now you perhaps see that animals aren't good or bad. They are neutral. They don't have the free will or the choice.
But humans have it. They have the choice between the easy or the difficult but right way. This is the most important and I even think the only decision in a human's life. All of us has the free will. We have the great ability to decide whether we want to be good or bad. But having this ability also implicates that humans aren't able to be neutral anymore. No one is completely dark or white and no one is neutral. All of us are gray. Of course some of us have darker and some others have brighter souls.

You will have to make this decision again and again during your life. In the beginning it's easy to change from one side to the other. But the more often you made the decision on the same way the more difficult it is to change it the next time. Your body, brain and soul are trained on the way you are acting. But changing is always possible although it's very hard to become a good person after you did much bad.

Because of this choice you are able to help foreign people. You are even able to help your rival. But you are also able to do very terrible things. Unfortunately it's much easier to take what you want to have than to renounce it. That's why it's no surprise for me that there are so many bad guys all over the world. Why should you choose the difficult way if it looks like that you are able to reach your goal on the easy way too? All of us have to answer this question on his/her own.

But unfortunately this is the consequence of the free will. There is no other possible way. Now you perhaps see that the good isn't able to exist without the bad. They are the two sides of the same coin. If you want that there is the good then automatically there is the bad. But it's your own choice which side you choose. Although there always will be the bad, if no one choose this side of the coin, it has no power.

After you see that the bad is necessary for the good, it perhaps will be easier for you to go through bad times.

But what could you do against such bad guys the news are always telling about? Fighting?

My answer is NO!
Fighting with weapons or something like this never is a solution. If you are fighting this way you have to kill the bad guy in the end. This way you are creating more enemies than you ever will be able to kill.
The other possibility to fight against these guys is going to court or something like this. This would be a possible solution. But what could you achieve? Perhaps you are able to win a battle but never the war. There always will be the bad.

Don't misunderstand me. I don't want to say that you shouldn't do or try this way. If you want to do it, then do it. Doing this isn't bad and perhaps you really achieve something good.

But I think that there is a better way. For this new way you have to change your point of view. Of course the bad guys are doing terrible things and it would be great if there wouldn't be such humans. But I think helping other people and spreading love is much better than fighting against the darkness. Help the people who are treated bad by these bad guys.

That's why always remember:
The darkness is necessary so that the light is able to shine. That's why don't waste your time and energy with fighting against the darkness. Begin to spread your own light.

I was inspired by Lindsey Stirling to write this blog post. She passed very bad times. But she never lost hope and began to spread her own light all over the world.

This photo was taken during the filming of Lindsey Stirling's and Peter Hollens' very funny Star Wars Medley

Written by Andreas S. Janke