Give me 5 minutes, and you may wake up differently tomorrow
I found this article as I was looking for a replay of a faculty call in my email. This author is an active faculty member of SuccessUniversity.
I came across this article as I was searching for a teleseminar replay on my email inbox.
This is one of the rare times my eyeballs “sweat” reading an article…
Please, allow yourself 5 minutes to immerse into the world of the successful people. I hope this inspires you to a brand new day.
My Journey to the Land of Liberty - Ellie Drake
To understand the Principle of Liberty, first become aware of its context. This principle encourages us never to take for granted the external liberty within which we can create a life of success and fulfillment.
Within that context, this is the content of the principle. To have such a life, we must have internal freedom to such an extent that we can unleash our willingness to create success.
Perhaps you will find this story of the context liberating and inspiring. If the story succeeds, then the Principle of Liberty will always hold great meaning for you.
It was 5 a.m. I washed my face with the lukewarm water and looked at myself in the mirror, catching the light behind my dark, almond-shaped eyes. I placed the mandatory scarf on my head, attempting to cover what seemed at the time to be too much hair to cover. I picked up a bag filled with books and started walking on a steep dirt road about two miles away from our first destination. Out of our house, to the right, then about 100 yards, and then a sharp turn to the left. My favorite part of this first small road was a little creek, perhaps two feet wide. The sound of water going down the creek seemed to help prepare me for the road ahead.
One step at a time.
Sometimes I would come back to reality when the sweet yet tired voice of my mom would say, “Faster, Elham.” (Elham is my Persian name. It means inspiration.) I would speed up to walk alongside my mom, inhaling the cold crisp morning air of the small town called Karadje, which lies 50 miles from Tehran, the capitol of Iran, the country in which I was born. We would walk the two miles every day to the top of what seemed to be a never-ending dirt road.
Then I would catch a bus and ride into Tehran, where my parents had decided I would attend middle school. I guess you could say that we were middle class. I know that my parents worked hard, and they accepted nothing but excellence for me and my future.
To keep my mind entertained during the very cold mornings of winter, or the hot, dry days of the summer, I would focus on one goal. I would walk up that familiar dirt road, and teach myself one English language word. It didn’t matter which word, as long as it sounded like it could be understood by a person from Texas, Florida, New York, or California. Those were the only states I knew the names of at that time. I had much more to learn, in many subjects, so I stuck to my practice – one word per day, across two miles.
“Sky. That’s S K Y.” Got it! As long as I repeated the spelling another 40 or 50 times, I would be able to hold on to my new word. I hoped that I was pronouncing it correctly. The next day, “Light. That’s L I G H T.” The day after, “Food. F O O D.” Then, “School. S C H O O L.” One day I almost gave up. It took an extra day and two additional miles to get this one down: “T A B L E!” Why, I wondered, isn’t it spelled T A B E L?
Word after word, thought after thought, dream after dream, hope after hope! I must say I believed the principle of “You must first believe it before you see it.” I believed that one day I would be able to walk on a road pave not with dirt, but with gold.
Later, we moved to Tehran, and lived in a small basement apartment. By that time I was 14. One day when I got home from school I found my mom and dad were sitting at the small kitchen table. They asked me to sit with them, and my dad explained that they had decided to immigrate to America. Those words were so sweet to my ears that I still remember how they sounded. After all, America was the synonym for Paradise. It was a place you would dream about before you went to sleep. It was the land of liberty and opportunity.
With the help of a very good friend, my father traveled to Cyprus to apply for a United States visa. His first attempt failed, but he had made his decision. When he tried again a few months later, his application was accepted. He left Iran shortly after that and went to Florida. He then hired an attorney and started the process of bringing my mom, brother, and me here to join him. The process with immigration went very slowly.
At least a year and a half had passed.
He missed us, and we missed him, but we had no choice other than to wait. One morning when my brother and I woke up, my Mom told us that we were going to Dubai to see if we could get a visa. When she told my Dad of her plan over the phone, he strongly opposed it. He said that it would be impossible for the three of us to get visas. However my Mom had run out of patience. She wanted to go to Dubai, and that was the end of the story. Two days later we left Tehran, arriving in Dubai at night. Before the sun came up, we were headed for the American Embassy. Once there, at 4 AM, we discovered that there were hundreds of people already ahead of us. When the Embassy opened at 7, they started taking people in turn to one of the four American Consul Officials that were there.
In front of each consul’s booth there stood a translator to relay the official’s questions into Farsi for the applicants, and then give their answers back to the consul in English.
Over the course of many hours, we saw that the only people being granted visas were the very few that were quite elderly. Hundreds of other applicants had walked out of their interviews with a deep sadness on their face, still holding their passports in their hand – which meant that their application had not been accepted.
Finally, in the middle of the afternoon. our number was called. As we started walking toward the consul, I was suddenly greatly inspired. I told my mom that we did not need a translator; I had decided to speak to the consul myself. I could see the worry in my mother’s eyes, yet she accepted my proposal. We walked through the booth and toward the tall, blonde American consul who held the key to our future. I still get butterflies when I think about that life-changing moment. He was studying our hand-written application, which I had filled out with the help of the dictionary.
I spoke to him in broken English, “You must be tired, you have been working from the morning until now.” He looked at us with an expression of acknowledgment, and granted us a small yet comforting smile. He then asked me a few questions. My response to most of them was “Repeat, please?” When he asked why we wanted to come to America, I replied that we wanted to come to America because it was free. Actually, what I meant to say was that we wanted to come to America because it was the Land of the Free.
After just two or three minutes he looked at us and said, “You can go now. I will keep your passports. Come back at five o’clock and you will have your visas.”
It took us a few seconds to realize that we were awake, and not dreaming. It’s a strange feeling to be awake and yet to think that you are dreaming a dream. A dream for a better future, for a better life, a dream and a chance to change your family’s future for generations to come. We walked out of the booth as if we were riding the Concorde with frequent flyer miles.
I soon realized that a huge group of people was running after us, asking what our secret was. I have thought about that moment often, and still don’t know the answer to their question. Maybe the consul was just suddenly in a good mood, or maybe he felt the depth of the desire that was burning within us. I only know that I am forever grateful to the people who are the reason why I was able start my life in this country. I know that I am forever grateful to my dad for his sacrifice, to my mom for her courage, and to the American consul for his willingness to share his beautiful America with a girl from Tehran. Perhaps two months later we touched down at Miami International Airport and were reunited with father.
It had been nearly two years. At the moment we stepped out of the terminal building, I made a promise to myself that one day I would be a great asset to this country. My wish to fulfill that promise remains as strong as ever.
We drove north in a car that seemed splendid to me, though now when I think back, I realize it was probably the least expensive car in the state of Florida. In my teenage mind, I had hoped that father would greet us with a bag full of American chocolate cookies, or perhaps full of Big Macs, which my high school friends and I had always dreamed about. Instead, my father pulled over to the side of the highway and turned toward the back seat of the car to present me with something totally unexpected.
He stared me in my eyes and said, “I want you to look back at the bridge that you have just crossed. I want you to burn that bridge. Because in spite of all the challenges that you may go through, you have just entered a country where if you have a dream and are willing to take consistent, persistent actions toward your dreams, you will achieve them in this land of opportunity.” He paused to let those words sink in.
Then finally he added, “If you are willing to fly like an eagle, America will be the wind beneath your wings.”
Years later, when I left the United States for the first time and returned a few days later, as I walked through the Airport Customs I noticed the big banner ahead of me that said, “Welcome to the United States.” At that moment my heart truly skipped a beat. I felt so blessed to be an American Citizen, and to live in a country where I have the LIBERTY to pursue my passions, as well as the chance to actually achieve them. For that I am forever grateful. And I have always remembered both the context and the content of this principle. There must be a place of freedom, and to that wonderful context of opportunity one must hold onto the willingness to fly.
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