Follow Your Dreams Courtesy of a Barbados Rum Shop
I pass this rum shop every morning as part of the school run and find the slogan on the front of it truly inspirational, “Follow Your Dreams”. Seeing that slogan every morning is a good reminder to myself to keep on believing in myself and to keep on striving to become a success with my business ventures.
It really is as simple as having a dream and realising that the dream doesn’t have to remain a dream. As Walt Disney said, “All your dreams can come true if you have the courage to pursue them”, wise words indeed from a visionary genius.
You just have to, dare to dream the dream and then pursue it with all your heart, will power and conviction and believe that it is truly achievable. The only thing that can stop you from succeeding is yourself.
As we all know in life you will come across those that will tell you that what your are trying to achieve cant be done or that you are just not capable of achieving it or that you are just a dreamer. Well just because such people are too afraid to dream the dream and expand their horizons, it doesn’t mean that you are tarred with the same brush as them.
Remember that whatever your dreams are, that they are not actually going to happen unless you take the necessary actions and steps, as well as putting in the hard work and effort to make them a reality.
“If you can dream it, you can do it.” Walt Disney
I recently wrote an article about the joys of escpaing the rat race of Scotland, Escaping the Rat Race in Scotland, Just Do it, I Have Done It!
Keep Barbados Tidy, Stop Littering You Clowns
To whoever this may concern, for those of you out there that think it is acceptable behaviour to not use a rubbish bin to dispose of your litter. What gives you the right to litter your environment, do you not realise it attracts vermin, do you not realise it is absolutely disgusting behaviour.
It use to annoy the hell out of me back home in Scotland when I would see litter in the streets, it would really, really annoy me when I use to see litter dumped on a beautiful beach.
Just before I started my travels in the middle of May, I took my dog to the local park in Aberdeen for a walk, the previous day had been a beautiful warm and sunny Sunday and I can imagine the park would have bee fairly busy with people enjoying the weather. In fact I could tell it had been busy because there was piles of carrier bags full of rubbish all over the place. What I couldn’t understand is that the people who had dumped them, would only have had to walk about 5 metres to put there rubbish in the bin. A old lady actually picked up all of the rubbish and put it into the bins herself.
I would say that in Scotland we do not generally have a huge problem with littering. Over the years there have been various media campaigns by the Government to get people to stop littering and dumping rubbish. In fact in Scotland there is now a law in place where by if you get caught throwing litter on the street you will get an on the spot fine of £50 if you get caught. But you will always get a certain element of society that doesn’t really care.
I for one find it difficult to understand those people that cannot be bothered to put their litter into a rubbish bin. How the hell do they think it is ok to just drop it on the ground, whenever or wherever they feel like. I watched a guy walking down the street with his kids in Bridgetown, Barbados the other day gladly drop a piece of litter on the street, I felt like giving him a kick in ass and telling him to pick it the hell up and put in a bin.
The reason I’m raising the issue and awareness of rubbish is because I have seen how bad it is in Barbados and I have seen it mentioned on numerous travel related sites by people that have visited Barbados and believe me they are very vocal in there complaints. What is more disturbing for the Barbados Government is that most of the complaints I have seen are from Americans.
From what I can gather the Government is spending millions on trying to attract more Americans to visit this beautiful part of the world. Maybe David Thomson and the DLP party needs to take some drastic action to deal with the problem of littering in Barbados. I wouldn’t be surprised if as I write this David Thomson is putting together an action plan to deal with littering in Barbados, because I feel through his leadership the Island is in good hands.
Barbados for me is undoubtedly a beautiful Island, but paradise doesn’t quite feel like that if you see the beaches littered with rubbish strewn all over the place. I know how important the tourism industry is to Barbados and how much money it brings into the country for not only the Government but also for the people of the country.
How much effort does it really take to put your litter in the bin, how much effort does it take to make your children aware of the importance of putting their rubbish in a bin, to keep your country beautiful. Just do it!
What is the Greatest Country In the World, My Country Of Course!
Ask most people from any given country what is the best country in the world, and the answer you will invariable get is, ” its my country of course”. Ask a Scotsman and he will tell you its Scotland, ask an American and of course it’s America, ask a Bajan and he will tell you its Barbados I could go on and on.
The point that I’m making is ask the same person, what makes your country the greatest, tell me the reasons for your conclusion? 999 times out of thousand the same person will not be able to give you an intelligent and well thought out answer as to why their country is the greatest.
A typical reply to my question, which I got not so long ago, from a Jamaican, as to what makes Jamaica the greatest country in the world, “it just is”, bearing in mind they have lived in the UK for the past 15 years and haven’t set foot back in their greatest country in the world since they arrived here. Ok I clearly see the reasoning behind what makes their country the greatest!
I received a slightly better answer as to what makes the USA the greatest country in the world from an American friend. But I reminded him of some home truths, America went to war in Iraqi because President Bush told the world, that they had concrete evidence that Iraqi was developing nuclear weapons, as we all know it was a lie, the truth is that all those brave soldiers that have died so far, have done so because the Americans along with us British wanted to get their grubby hands on the oil, plain and simple. What about those Native Americans that were not exterminated, the ones that survived had their prize land stolen from them and were then forced to live on worthless ground, almost like a Wild West version of the concentration camp. I could go on and on and on!
It seems that most of us are all equally patriotic about the country which we were born in, or are we all just brain washed by our governments, into believing that what our country offers, is the best that the world has to offer.
I personally don’t think that any country can truly claim to be the best in the world. How can that ever happen, when virtually every country in the world has a government that thinks they know what is best for there citizens instead of actually trying to figure out what is best for them.
The best place in the world is of course “Paradise”, but I’m still searching for it! Does anybody know the way!
Further Reading:
1. Waiting At The Bus Stop in the Scotland District, Which is in Barbados!
Escaping the Rat Race in Scotland, Just Do it, I Have Done It!
The article below represents my thoughts at the time when It had been over 18 years since I last spent a prolonged period away from my home country. On that occasion I had just finished doing business studies at college and headed to Israel to experience life living and working on a Kibbutz for four months.
This time it was slightly different I wasn’t leaving to go on a fun adventure, this time I was going to start a new life with my family, which included the pressures of having to make a living and keep a roof over our heads. But never the less I still see it as being a adventure, which is what I feel life should be.
Escaping the Rat Race in Scotland, Just Do it!
For a long time now I have often dreamt about escaping the rat race here in Scotland. The thought of immigrating to another country has been in the forefront of my mind for a long time. My desire grows daily to live in a country where the pace of life is a lot slower, where the sun shines more often, where people seem happier and smile more.
Don’t get me wrong I love Scotland, the beautiful countryside, my friends, family, but like many people I feel that there is a massive decline in moral standards in this country. You can’t walk down the street nowadays without having to witness some wee kid swearing or running amok, everywhere I go I see junkies, drivers constantly running red lights, I could literally go on for ever, but I’m sure you get the picture as to what I hate about life in the UK. These are not just Scottish problems because I travel to London on a regular basis and its even more noticeable there.
I don’t hold out much hope of things ever getting better, we have Gordon Brown as PM now, this guy cant even put his make up on properly, what a fool! The UK government is more concerned with fighting in American wars, than dealing with problems at home. I’m still trying to figure out what good those would be cops, the community police officers are meant to be doing. Anytime they see a hint of trouble they are suddenly walking in the opposite direction.
Those social worker clowns have got their stinking teeth ingrained too far into the basic fabric of this country now. Your child could be running wild and creating mayhem and all you’re allowed to do is tell them off, give them a firm slap and you could go to jail. The amount times I have read about junkie shoplifters being given a 50th or more chances by the judge because of a good report by there social worker. I thought judges were meant to be educated, but it seems that they believe any old crap. Send the junkies round to break into houses of the Judges and social workers and I’m sure we will see some changes for the better.
What was stopping me from leaving Scotland I heard people tell me it’s not fair to leave your family, your child’s education will suffer, you wont get the same health care, all I heard was negatives from other people as to why I shouldn’t leave Scotland. I thought to myself, are they really living in the same country as me.
I don’t live my life through my family and I wouldn’t dream of preventing any of them from following there dreams, I would be helpful and supportive towards them. The Schooling system isn’t getting any better, classrooms are more crowded than ever, I wish I had the opportunity to live abroad when I was a kid, and I wont even talk about health care, try to get a NHS dentist here, you have no chance.
The time had come to take affirmative action and as the title of the recent book I read by Richard Branson says “JUST DO IT”. When you have a family it isn’t quite as simple as just packing your bags and heading off into the sun. You have a lot issues to deal with, such as earning money, place to live, schools etc. But these are all part of the excitement and challenge of moving to a foreign country to live and work.
My escape plan is hatched and the flights are booked for the Caribbean. The island I’m moving to I have been on holiday there many times and I know it extremely well. We have a place to live, school organised and a couple of business ventures ready to start running when we arrive.
Things are looking good, we have almost escaped the rate race, and I’m ticking the days off on the calendar, getting ready for a new challenge!
Here I am now living in Barbados and yes I may not be earning anywhere near the money I was making back home in Scotland, but at the present time I’m happier and more contented than I have been for a long time. Because I’m now working for myself, I’m working longer hours and harder than I have ever worked in my life. But for me being able to head to a beautiful beach for an afternoon break or sitting out in our veranda with family and friends at the end of the day sipping a cool beer makes it all worthwhile.
Dream the Dream, Then All You Have To Do Is Believe, Achieve, Succeed!
Can success in life really be as simple as my title suggests, I haven’t personally reached the stage in my life where I can lay my beach towel down on crane beach in Barbados and lie back and relax knowing that I have succeeded with my life. I’m at the stage where I’m dreaming the dream and I sure as hell believe that I’m going to succeed. I suppose at the present time, I’m stuck at the achieving part of the great plan to become successful. It has taken me decades of working in a variety of jobs, to come to the conclusion that being a slave to a wage isn’t what I want my life to be about.
Being told what I have to do, or when I can have my lunch break, or when I can or can’t have my holidays, or how much of a pay rise I deserve, is not how I want to live my life anymore. That was the reason I quit my job and decided it was time to fend for myself. The time had come for me to be in control of my own destiny.
I had been dreaming the dream for a number of years, of working for myself and quitting the rate race in the UK and heading to the sun, but I was lacking the spark or the courage to do something about it. Having a secure job with a reasonable wage, 6 weeks holidays a year and a good pension, was a big chain around my neck. As much as I hated working for the boss man, I couldn’t free myself.
But I started to open up my mind and dared to dream the dream, there were those, and still are those people, that will tell me that dreams are fantasy and will never come true. That’s why the dreams of those people can never come true, they don’t believe in the dream.
It really is as simple as the heading of this article states, but you also have to put a lot of commitment, effort and time, into making the dream become a reality. Anyone can do it, you can control your own destiny, and it’s up to ourselves which path we choose to go down.
I put together a game plan as to how I was going to move forward with my life and achieve the things, which I desired. So here I am in Barbados living a much more rewarding and fulfilling life. I may not be earning anywhere near the money I was making back home in the UK, but I’m so much happier working with my family in building up a business through hard work, integrity and honesty.
My advise to anybody out there that hates their job, hates the boss or has had enough of the rat race, or for whatever reason they are unhappy in life. Do something about it; don’t be like all those whingers around you, that are happy and content to moan about how much they hate life, rather than put the same effort into doing something constructive to change things.
You have to begin by dreaming the dream.
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