Are you feeling out of sync?

If you feel out of balance, here is something I guarantee will help you.

I was totally out of sync today, so I surfed around on some inspirational websites and ended up on the ‘Gifts’-page of ‘The Secret’.

If you have been on my ‘Recommendations’-page you know that their DVD is one of my favourites, but I never knew that they had plenty of other good stuff.

Anyway, if you want to feel better in exactly two and a half minutes flat, just click here on ‘The Secret to You’ (or on the image below) and you’ll go straight to a short movie : it is a beautiful visualization with awesome images and great music, really inspiring – just click, sit back and relax :

You’ll love it, even if you’re fine right now. You can download it to your desktop as well, like I did, to watch it every day or whenever you feel like it.

And don’t forget to share the good things in life : alert your friends to this, they’ll appreciate it.

Hope you like the new COMPASS header, by the way.

Have fun : Berend

You have a Choice, but no Guarantee : The Family Man

Concluding my mini-series of articles about inspirational movies today, “The Family Man” is one of these must-see-at-all-cost. You’ll enjoy it too, I guarantee it.

It is all about a single and very successful Manhattan businessman who thinks he has everything, with a lifestyle that the world envies – until his girlfriend Kate (Tea Leoni) of 13 years ago contacts him and he is confronted with his choice not to marry her at the time.

By some twist of events, Jack Campbell (Nicolas Cage) wakes up one morning to lead an alternate life of being Kate’s husband for a few weeks, happily married with two kids, selling tyres in the suburbs.

Why would that happen, you might ask? Because over his obsession with business, he has completely neglected his personal life – and that’s catching up with him now. You can’t be out of balance for long, nature will always restore it – a Universal Law that can not be broken.

As human beings, sooner or later we have to experience life from all angles consciously open to us – but we have our priorities, and therefore choices to make. For me this film is very relevant and believable.

What would have happened, for example, if I had not decided in 1984 to live and work in South Africa?

At the time, my biggest dream was to no longer live in Germany where I was born and raised – the two years in London I had done previously weren’t enough to satisfy my curiosity about people who live, learn and grow in cultures different from my own.

As difficult as our decisions seem to be at times, we should be grateful every day that we have the freedom to choose and that we do have the right – and obligation – to become what we can be and want to be. This, by definition, always includes our choice against everything we do NOT want to be.

Fortunately, the constitution of our country ‘guarantees’ that we may pursue any dream we have, as long as we take the responsibility for our actions – not everyone can enjoy this freedom and comfort.

Be that as it may, if you want ‘guarantees’ buy a toaster. In my opinion it is more important to be aware that whatever we do to others will eventually be done to us, one way or another. That’s something that I will personally guarantee, for what it’s worth.

If we all recognised that truth, I believe there would be a lot less suffering in the world, and more prosperity. But we decide to the best of our knowledge, so I must assume that right now most of us just don’t know better.

One dilemma we often face in our choices is that we have to temporarily sacrifice something when we opt for one route over the other. We can never really take a wrong turn though : at the end of the day, one way is as good as the other – may be it’s a bit longer or more difficult than the alternative, but it is always exactly what we need to experience at the time.

Obviously, we sometimes need to give up familiar and comfortable positions to obtain a more comprehensive picture of our place in the universe – and in “Family Man”, Jack Campbell at first has a rude awakening to a life without his Ferrari and penthouse.

But once he discovers that the treasure of a happy life with family and friends is worth so much more than any material comfort, he doesn’t want to go back to his previous existence.

Can we reverse our decisions? No, but with our new perspective we can adjust our course for the future. Be aware of your choices before you hit dead-end.

Until next time, all the best from : Berend

More Power Than You’ll Ever Need : Bruce Almighty

I have never liked Jim Carrey as an actor much, most of the movies he stars in tend to be a bit silly in my view – but “Bruce Almighty” is different, I enjoyed it.

The script is very clever : Bruce Nolan is desperate and complains to God that he is not doing a good job because everything is going wrong in what he perceives to be his mediocre life in small town Buffalo/New York.

So God now gives him all his super-powers for a while to prove that Bruce can do better himself.

Morgan Freeman as God – in an immaculate white suit – now calmly goes on vacation, while Bruce goes overboard to get everything he ever wanted on earth. His main ambition as a TV reporter is to become the news anchor on his network, although one of his colleagues is first in line for that.

You can imagine all the havoc Bruce creates in people’s lives now, not only in town with his new Ferrari, but also in far away places when he ropes in the moon for his girlfriend Grace (Jennifer Aniston) who desperately wants to marry him.

The film is very entertaining, and many of us would probably overlook the message it has for us. One of them is that even divine strength ends where human free will sets in : Bruce arranges the most outlandish situations for himself to look good professionally, but alienates everyone else in the process – he still doesn’t know that selfish behaviour without any consideration for others will eventually come back and haunt you.

Treat others like you want to be treated yourself. Why? Because the world you experience is a mirror-image of who you are inside, your attitudes and behaviour. This is one of the Universal Laws of Human Nature that can not be broken or ignored.

Nevertheless, Bruce now becomes famous as a newsman who is always first on the scene of dramatic action – but he cannot cope with literally millions of prayers addressed to God every day.

He finally surrenders to divine will and voluntarily hands back the guidance for his life to a higher authority.

At that point it dawns on him that he never really needed the extra powers granted to him : like you and me, he had all the qualities and talents required to make his life successful to begin with, but wasn’t aware of it.

All it took was some respect for, not power over his fellow man. ‘Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely’ – Lord Acton wrote that in a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton in 1887 and he has never been proven wrong yet.

The receiving process starts with giving. When Bruce eventually settles back into his old job with humility and begins to share his appreciation in the local community, he wins more influence than he ever had before and is transformed into a happy human being.

His genuine concern for the wellbeing of others makes him a better reporter, and no doubt he now earns his future by first mastering what he is confronted with here and now.

There is no such thing as a mediocre life, we all have something important to contribute wherever we are – just know it, do it and be yourself.

Until next time, all the best from : Berend

A Beautiful Mind : Genius and Madness Are Close Neighbours

Have you seen “A Beautiful Mind” with Russell Crowe ? The film is based on a true story about a brilliant mathematician coming to grips with schizophrenia, and it won four Academy Awards in 2001.

I’ve seen it a second time last week and was again captivated not only by Crowe’s performance, but especially by the fascinating illustration of how powerful the human mind is.

While Professor Nash teaches at a famous American university, he is approached by secret service agents to decipher a code which the enemies of democracy use for their subversive activities, threatening national security. For years he works with the agents, exploring millions of connections and possibilities to uncover the mystery – until his wife finds out about his hidden life and supports him on the way out of the mess.

It turns out that all the persons involved in the undercover plot are totally fictitious, they only existed in the Professor’s mind – so real for him, that he had developed a complete second identity around his scenario. His weird behaviour under these circumstances was obviously labeled “madness” by his “normal” peers – and yet he won a Nobel Prize for his academic work a few years later.

Genius and madness are close neighbours, they say – assuming for a minute that you and I don’t fall into either of these categories, what is the lesson for “normal” people here ? As far as I’m concerned, I show more consideration for the unusual conduct of people these days.

Who am I to judge others for things I don’t understand ? I know that I have some blind spots, and may be that odd fellow I saw in the mall yesterday is a genius working out the quadrature of the circle. What’s more, I am reminded that I, too live in my own world, like you do in yours.

A lot of things occupy my mind every day which directly influence my actions because I am absolutely convinced that they are perfectly sensible.

Most of the time you wouldn’t find strange what I do, I suppose, but I am sure that some people wonder who the fool is that spends an hour on a perfect Sunday afternoon writing articles like this.

What’s on your mind ? Do you want to be president of your bowling club ? Climb Mount Kilimanjaro ? That’s OK, but I personally couldn’t be bothered.

The point is that we are who we think we are, literally. I am not a professor, and I don’t want to win the Nobel Prize – but I want to write and that’s OK, too. Who knows, may be they’ll give me the Pulitzer Prize one of these days – call me crazy.

Paycheck : Do You Want to Know the Future?

Would you like to know what the future has in stall for you ? In fact, the whole world is obsessed with the idea of knowing what will happen tomorrow, next week or in ten years time. The movie “Paycheck” starring Ben Affleck is a riveting thriller about the past and the future – and a huge paycheck he never gets.

Analysts make a fortune predicting the ups and downs of the stock exchange. We watch the weather report to see whether we can go to the beach on Sunday and try to pick 6 out of 49 numbers to win our first or second million – but none of these systems work with a great degree of accuracy.

In ‘Paycheck’, Ben Affleck is a clever computer engineer who develops rip-off computer products for high-tech corporations, but must always have his short-term memory erased after each assignment so that his employers can claim the copyright. In his job for the “Allcom” company, it takes him three years to build a machine that can look into the future – and is promptly swindled out of his paycheck.

But he knew what was coming and after his memory is erased, Uma Thurman as his biologist girlfriend helps him to retrace what happened in order to prevent a global catastrophe. That’s the plot, but why am I writing this ?

What struck me was a little sentence in the dialogue :

“Once you know the future, you don’t have a future anymore”.

I had never thought of that before, but it’s true. What is it that we call the future ? In my view, it is the sum total of all the interactions we still have to experience to fulfill the aspirations which we think will make us a more successful person.

In other words, the future – by definition – includes an element of uncertainty, and if you take that away, you don’t have a future. All you would have is a path on which you go through the motions, but what for ? And where to ? Life as we know it on this planet would be meaningless if we knew the destination of every road we travel, the outcome of every action we take.

We tend to forget that in reality time doesn’t exist. It is just a concept – a very useful and necessary one – that human beings have to live by in their limited consciousness to manage a number of experiences and learn from them. We cannot see both sides of the same coin at once, only one after the other. Even a mirror doesn’t help, believe me.

That’s precisely why we are so intrigued by the future – we want to know it all, right now : What’s going to happen ? Will we succeed or fail in whatever we are doing ? This curiosity is driving us forward.

We all know some people who couldn’t be bothered, of course : ‘Who cares what happens tomorrow, as long as I have a good time today’. We sometimes admire them because on the surface, they don’t seem to have any doubts in their ‘happy-go-lucky’ lives. If you are not driving your challenges, however, you will be driven and confronted with them – life will not stand still for you.

And those who constantly fear that some disaster is around the corner ? Looks like they magically attract every manner of misfortune and not make any progress at all – and yet they too will eventually learn from their continual setbacks.

There is plenty of evidence that some gifted people can in fact look into the future, though – what is it that they see then ? If there is no past and no future, all that really exists is the present moment, and each of these moments literally has limitless possibilities, more than we realize. What we get an occasional glimpse of is potential, a likelihood of events, but nothing cast in concrete.

The big chance we owe to ourselves is to shape that potential into something worthwhile and exciting and learn from it, with everything we’ve got. Since we all bring something unique to the party, imagine the endless variety !

Paycheck or no paycheck : life today is the real thriller, and I have my very own. So do you.

Won’t you please help me out quickly ?

I have just put up a new page on my BLUE CRANE website : “Inspirational Movies”, under Recommendations. You can see it here.

They are all movies that reminded me of an important truth, or made me think. I am looking for other good films in this category which I may have overlooked, or never noticed.

I really enjoy watching a good movie, so won’t you please just tell me what YOUR #1 favourite movie is ?

Just a quick reply eMail – I’d be grateful !

Thanks in advance from : Berend @ BLUE CRANE – Fly with us.

Pay It Forward – You Can Change South Africa One Favour at a Time

About 20 years ago, Catherine Ryan Hyde was driving alone at night in a rough area of downtown Los Angeles in her old tattered car. It was the best she could afford, she drove it all the time and relied on the car for every cent of cash she earned.

When she braked at an off-ramp, the engine suddenly died. All the lights went out and the car started to fill with smoke. She jumped out to see two men running towards her, one of them holding a blanket – pushing past her, he yanked open the bonnet : the engine was on fire.

The car could have exploded at any moment, but this total stranger smothered the blaze and saved her car, her livelihood and possibly her life. When the emergency was over she looked up to thank him – but he was gone.

Over the following months she decided that if she couldn’t do anything to repay the man, she would look for others who needed help as much as she did the night her engine burned.

When Catherine did find these opportunities they weren’t very dramatic at first, but meant a lot to strangers in trouble who often asked how they could repay her.

“Don’t pay it back to me,” she said.
“Pay it forward to someone else.”

This incident was a turning point in her life. She wanted to hold on to the idea of sending people into the world owing a favour to a stranger and when she wrote her second novel ‘Pay It Forward’ in 2000 she often had fantasies of people emulating the book :

“There are infinite possiblities for the ways in which this could be done. How many times do we step around a homeless person on the street? Oh dear, we think, that person certainly has a problem. But we let it remain their problem. We would not normally think to stop and make it our own.”
“It’s a new way of thinking; to begin to see beyond our own problems into other people’s lives and figure out if there is some way we can help them.”

She didn’t write the novel expecting a to create a social movement, but that’s exactly what happened : the ‘Pay It Forward Foundation’ was established in September 2000, followed by the Warner Brothers movie the same year and the ‘Pay It Forward Movement – Changing the World One Favour at a Time’ has a very active representation in eight countries since 2002.

I have seen the movie three times now and at first I felt let down by the ending. Now I understand it, but I really want you to go and see the film so here’s the story without giving too much away :

Trevor McKinney (Haley Joel Osment) is a 12 years old boy who gets an assignment from his new, disfigured Social Studies teacher Eugene Simonet (Kevin Spacey) : think of something that will change the world and put it into action.

Trevor’s idea is deceptively simple – do a good deed for three people and in return, ask each of them to ‘pay it forward’ to three more. “So nine people get helped. Then those people have to do twenty-seven … then it sort of spreads out.”

His attempts to put the concept into action at first don’t seem to work out : a drug-addict he befriends cannot mend his ways, but later talks a woman out of jumping off a bridge. A reporter gets wind of his idea and becomes a benefactor as he retraces Trevor’s efforts after his car is destroyed in an accident and he is given a very expensive Jaguar by a rich stranger.

Meanwhile, Trevor is worried about his alcoholic mother Arlene (Helen Hunt), not only because his brutal father (Jon Bon Jovi) might return at any time; he also tries to bring his mother and his new teacher together – they are both emotionally scarred by the past, but eventually their relationship heals some very deep wounds.

In the end though, Trevor pays a high price for helping a classmate fight off some school-bullies.

Just another sentimental Hollywood production?

Not at all : this is one of the few films that has a tangible impact on societies worldwide and highlights an important message : that one person can make a difference, even in this materialistic and often cynical world. It inspires to help without expectation of reward or remuneration – and it works, not only in the movie!

After you’ve seen the film, you stop and think about the meaning of life – and some people take action : The Pay It Forward Movement is the real-life reaction to Catherine Ryan Hyde’s novel and their website shows many inspiring stories and media reports from all over the world, not only the USA, Canada and the UK.

The material is also used in many schools and colleges and with all this in mind I have now launched a WeBlog for Pay It Forward South Africa – Changing South Africa One Favour at a Time.

In this country, we have a history of violence and a high crime rate, but for every offense there are 99 acts of kindness – it is my hope that all this benevolence will now be as liberally reported on this website as brutality is in the traditional media.

And why wait to pay it forward until someone helps you out of a predicament? If you think back, I am sure you’ll remember many incidents where other people made life easier for you.

Just look where you can assist and start doing favours to others – pay it forward! It doesn’t have to be anything big or dramatic; you’ll be surprised how much goodwill is coming your way although you don’t expect to be rewarded.

Until next time, all the best from : Berend

Hercules – What is the Measure of a True Hero?

‘Long ago, in the faraway land of ancient Greece, there was a golden age of powerful gods and extraordinary heroes. And the greatest and strongest of all these heroes was the mighty Hercules. But what is the measure of a true hero? Ah, that is what our story is… ‘

Fables are fashionable, no doubt about it. On film, the world in the 21st century is saved by super-heroes a few times a day because they have either futuristic technology or astonishing powers.

For me, however, Disney’s ‘Hercules’ is the best movie in this genre ever made : it is their only film based on Greek mythology – these timeless tales about a world of complex interrelations between gods and humans explored the mysteries of life on earth, conveying important lessons to struggling mortals.

The conduct of the royal society on Mount Olympus in those days seems to have been as fallible as today’s jet set and in the absence of TV, the stories about their lives and adventures, weaknesses and misdemeanours in ancient Greece apparently were the talk of the town.

As an animated movie first released in 1997, the ancient characters in Walt Disney’s ‘Hercules’ speak a very modern language – Charlton Heston (Narrator), Rip Torn (Zeus, leader of the gods), James Woods (Hades, ruler of the underworld) and Danny DeVito (Phil the Satyr) amongst others have given their voices to a fast-paced, wildly funny and very entertaining film for kids and adults alike.

What is often overlooked though is that the story of Hercules is also a brilliant parable about the human cycle of life on earth – for me, that is he most interesting aspect of the movie. It all starts at the party on Mount Olympus, where right of admission is reserved for Gods, to celebrate the birth of Hercules, son of Zeus and Hera. The host welcomes a new guest :

“Hades, you finally made it. How are things in the underworld?”
“Well, they’re just fine. You know, a little dark, a little gloomy. And, as always, hey, full of dead people. What are you gonna do?”

The evil Hades plans to overthrow Zeus as chief of the gods in what he calls a ‘hostile takeover bid’, however, and shortly after the party sends his helpers Pain and Panic to abduct Hercules down to Earth because the Fates predict that he might thwart the coup in 18 years time.

Although pain and fear are still the most effective allies of dark forces today, good help was difficult to find even in those days, and Pain and Panic don’t quite manage to infuse the magic potion into Hercules that would make him forget his divine origin.

As a result, Hercules retains super-human strength for his spell on earth – but that doesn’t make him very popular : as an impetuous teenager, he breaks whatever he touches and he isn’t allowed anywhere near the local pottery store. ‘Jerkules’ is his nickname at that time and he yearns to be normal, like everyone else.

He just wants to fit in somehow and know where he belongs, setting the scene for the archetypal hero’s quest – this is beautifully highlighted in his captivating song ‘Go the Distance’ : ‘I will find my way, I can go the distance; I’ll be there some day if I can be strong; I know every mile will be worth my while.’

So when he leaves the home of his foster parents to find his place in the world, his first stop is at the temple of Zeus, a quiet place for reflection, to ask for guidance. There he learns that he has a famous father – and Zeus tells him that he has to prove himself a true hero on earth to restore his status as a god.

How do you become a true hero?
You learn from an expert.

On Zeus’ advice, and with the help of Pegasus the flying horse, Hercules seeks out Philictetus, the trainer of heroes. Phil is disillusioned because previous clients like Perseus and Achilles couldn’t go the full distance, but he takes Hercules on and shows him all the tricks of the hero-trade. Both make mistakes and get hurt a few times in the process, of course – you teach what you need to learn, and the lines between teacher and student get blurred after a while.

Along the way Hercules also has to rescue Megara, a damsel in distress, and they fall in love – he doesn’t know that she has sold her soul to Hades, however, and is committed to help him rearrange the cosmos to take over Mount Olympus. Despite their efforts to get Hercules out of the way before he spoils the loot, he becomes a famous superstar ‘From Zero to Hero’ in the big city with his own merchandised brand on consumer goods, all the royalties that go with it, and the high life that everyone envies.

But being rich and famous, strong and powerful is not being a true hero, Zeus tells him at another visit to the temple – before Hercules can rejoin the gods he must still do something that he has to discover for himself, something that he can only find by looking inside.

Hades in the meantime is furious and very frustrated with his lack of progress until he finds the only weakness Hercules has – his love for Meg. Hercules eventually agrees to give up his enormous strength for 24 hours to win back Meg’s freedom from the clutches of Hades – who immediately launches his attack on the world by unleashing the Titans.

But Meg, Pegasus and Phil are not giving up on Hercules’ shattered dreams and help him in his darkest hour. Together with the gods on Mount Olympus, they defeat Hades and his Titans and liberate planet Earth from the underworld’s tyranny and oppression – but not without casualties : Meg is dying!

In a desperate attempt to change the course of events, Hercules rushes to see Hades and strikes a deal with him : ‘Take me in Meg’s place’. He dives after Meg into the River of Death, selflessly offering his life in return for hers, but the Fates cannot cut his thread so that they both emerge alive – the underworld has no power over gods!

Meg and the mighty Hercules are whisked off to Mount Olympus – now he can return home to be reunited with his family. The overjoyed Zeus explains : ‘A true hero isn’t measured by the size of his strength – but by the strength of his heart!’

This is the moment Hercules has always dreamed of, but he realizes that a life without love, even an immortal life, would be empty – and chooses to stay on earth with Meg and his friends : ‘I finally know where I belong.’

I just love it!

What if we all remembered that we are powerful beyond measure and have a connection to our divine origin with unlimited support?

What if we knew that we are always exactly where we belong, wherever we are and whatever we do?

Until next time, all the best from : Berend