In one drop of water are found all the secrets of the oceans. ~Kahlil Gibran
There’s a type of Chinese Bamboo tree that starts off as a little sprout. You water it, nurture it, tend to it… and for 5 long years… all that would be visible is a little sprout no more than a few inches tall. What is happening in the meantime that’s invisible to the eye, is a strong root structure that is miles and miles deep.
By the end of that 5th year, it starts growing. It actually starts growing 2.5 feet per day. And in 6 weeks, it would have grown 90 feet tall. That’s almost equal to a 10-story building… in 6 weeks!
Why am I telling you this random piece of information about a plant is because people are the same. We need time to plan and organize. We invest in schooling and education. But more importantly, this is why you need to put the time and effort into realizing what your true passions are. Once you do, and you give it your 100%, the doors start to open almost effortlessly to manifest for you what you desire.
My brother Wassim, spent years floating through life. He didn’t have a clue as to what he really wanted to do with himself. He knew one thing though, that he loved the sea. He loved it so much that his nickname at home was ‘Samkeh’ (that’s Arabic for fish). He was a teenager when he won his first cup ever at a jet-ski race. He’s since, won many more awards for all sorts of stuff, all related to the sea.
Dad wanted him to run the family business and as much as Wassim has tried, his heart was not into it. So there was this constant struggle at home. There was this sense of ‘I’m lost and I don’t know what to do about him torn between family obligation and following his heart. Those were the years of something cooking underneath. The root structure growing strong.
Then one day, just out of the blue, he came up with this brilliant idea that he wants to make wooden spearfishing guns at dad’s wooden doors factory. It didn’t matter the rejection he got from dad, he still went ahead and followed his passion. He spent days and days pouring over his laptop researching templates, materials, and everything he could get his hands on to learn how to build those guns.
Then he did scuba diving and free diving. He took breathing yoga to improve the length of time he could stay underwater. He went on trips and broke records for diving time or catching the biggest fish. He was even asked to be featured in a movie about diving for a marine equipment brand name. The next you know he was building stand-up paddle boards and all mahogany motor boats. He’s now into fiberglass boats too and building a great name in the market and started Hayaari Marine. He even wrote poetry about Man and the Sea!
That’s passion! That’s what growing 90 feet tall looks like. Is he fully there yet? No. Did he initially think he was going to get to this point? No. Did he think he had what it takes? No. But he did it anyway. He had to answer that strong urge he had in his heart and that is all that mattered.
So it is to him that I would like to express gratitude today. At a time when I was totally feeling lost and with no life purpose or passion, I looked up to him and was inspired and kept asking myself, why can’t I find a passion that fulfills me that way? A question that kept digging through me, especially through my darkest years from which I emerged… luckily… with a crystal clear vision of what I wanted to do with the rest of my life! I’m now as passionate about my work as he is… maybe more!