THE OPEN MIND COLLECTION

Living The Dream

I dreamt I was rich and famous just like Bill and Strive. I had a beautiful wife and children like Brad before things went wrong with Angelina. Call me 'Zim-ASSET' because I was an asset to the economy of my country. I made it rich!

I was the comedian that made everyone laugh, even the ones I made fun of. Yes I dreamt I was funny like Trevor..., almost like Trevor. At the same time I was an adviser to businessmen because I myself was one. I was the best and they looked up to me. They dreamt to be like me and even the president sought my counsel and I became one of his closest friends. I was wise but I did not have many wives and concubines like Solomon although in that dream I could make anything possible.

I dreamt I was travelling around the world in eighty days. I celebrated the New Year three times each year. How? I would travel from Tokyo to Paris to New York the same day and then I realized it was possible to live for more than three sixty five or six days every year so I dreamt cheating the calendar. I enjoyed it like a honey moon.

But I woke up...from this sweet, desirable and wonderful dream...and I was still the same! I was living the dream I woke up from. It was not Inception where it seems De Caprio never wakes up from his last dream. My life was...the real deal..., almost perfect.

I was rich and famous, had a beautiful wife and children. I was an asset to my country. I made it rich! I was a comedian who made everyone laugh and an adviser to businessmen because I myself was one. I was an adviser and a friend to the president. I was wise and could make anything possible...almost anything. I traveled around the world in eighty days and celebrated the New Year three times each year. I lived for more than three sixty five or six days every year and cheated the calendar. My life was not Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart. It was L. Frank Baum's Journey to Oz (the kind without witches and wizards who haunt mostly the superstitious minds of our cultures).

The first question anybody asked me was, "How do you do it?"

I said, "Walk more..., talk less...or don't talk at all."

I never worked harder than everyone else and neither did I work less to let everyone do all the work for me.

"The secret is not working hard because many people do but a few succeed. There's no secret to success as there is no secret to failure. All a man has to do is to dwell in the novelties, the new and unusual things. People like new things, new ideas and it's no secret." This is what I taught they that asked. "Now to answer the question of 'how I do it' further..., I don't, I try. I've lived my entire life trying and trying to do things differently. This is how one separates himself from the ordinary man...by being innovative, creative and distinct."