Edge of the Rain by Jacques de Villiers (3 008 words)

I spent many a Christmas holiday on my grandfather

s farm in Loeriesfontein, 100kilometres from Calvinia, in the Northern Cape, South Africa. The farm was typical of mostfarms in the hot and dusty rain-deprived Karoo. It was unrelenting, unyielding and ﬁt onlyfor sheep, ostriches and the toughest human. Not much grew on it except quinces, thehardiest of weeds and the toughest of shrubs. When I looked at my grandfather, thecraggy lines spidering across his face told the story of hardship and suffering. And,sometimes in an unguarded moment, he

d drop his pose and let me look into his piercingblue eyes and into his soul. Even at a young age I could fathom the undercurrents that thatripped through his soul - regret, hopes dashed, dreams downscaled and sorrow forpotential unfulﬁlled.I remember sitting on the verandah with my grandfather at the end of day

s play. Watchingthe sun set over the majesty that is the Karoo. Him with a brandy and Coke and a cigarettedangling from his lips and me, sipping homemade ginger beer. This was a time forreﬂection for him. Sometimes when we sat together, we

d see a wall of rolling dark cloudsflooding out sheets of rain, 50 kilometres away as the crow flies. It seemed to fence us in,the lightning strikes keeping us corralled in our little space in the world.Every so often a couple of errant raindrops carried by a gulf stream wind would splutteronto the verandah. This would give my grandfather cause to look up to the heavens withhope in his heart that the rain would finally bless his farm and his family. Almost every timehis hopes were dashed as the rain disappeared like a mirage in a desert. He

d look into hisglass, sigh and take another sip of brandy. The drink and smoke at the end of a day

s workseemed like his only pleasure in life. That, and playing rummy with me after church on aSunday.My grandfather

s farm was a typical Karoo farm, on the edge of the rain. His farm hadmassive potential to grow any number of crops. But the rain fell just out of reach fromwhere he farmed. He knew that if the rain would just fall on his farm, it would be anoutstanding success. But, it seemed that he was always destined to be at the edge of therain, never able to claim the riches and success that were rightfully his.

m not saying that there was never any success. There were islands of happiness thatpopped up in a sea of struggle. Then everyone was excited. Grandmother could buy a newdress from the shop and not have to make her own. I could go to the local shop and buyreal sweets. A delightful change from the dried fruit that was my sweet staple. Theseislands of success and happiness were rare and ﬂeeting. But those rare and ﬂeetingmoments were vital to grandfather

s survival. They gave him hope and kept him in thegame. And because of those moments he never gave up on his family and on his goals, asdownscaled as they were. He died at the plough, bent but never broken.It has occurred to me that many of our lives are like that Karoo farm. We

re on the edge ofthe rain. We can see and taste the rewards that life offers us. We just can

t seem to getthem, can we? We know that we have all the potential in the world. We know that if westep out of the desert into the rain, we

ll get the sustenance we need to succeed. Most ofus never get into the rain, do we? It

s almost as if we

re boxing in a weight class above ourown. We go through the motions, slogging and slaving, hoping for that break that willchange our lives forever. Our squandered potential fuels our disappointment even furtherleading us to live lives of quiet desperation.Have you ever asked yourself why it is that even though you work yourself to the bone anddo things right, you still don

t get the life you want and deserve? It must have occurred toyou that there must be an easier way. I

ve posed four questions that I hope will raise aninternal debate in you and get you to pay attention. You and I know it is when you don

tpay attention to what

s happening in your life that you feel serious pain.

You don

t know why you

re here

To get absolute clarity in your life, you need to know what your purpose is on this earth.You

ve got to start living on purpose. Too many of us have no idea what we are meant todo with our lives and leave ourselves open to the vagaries of fate. You may be one ofthose souls that ﬁnds it exciting to live in a whimsical fashion, with unpredictability as yourpartner every day. It

s just not a great strategy to help you ﬁnd direction in your life.Because once you know who you are, what you stand for and what you

ll accept and notaccept, life becomes a lot simpler. Your purpose can become your North Star, alwaysguiding you in the right direction.

How do I ﬁnd my purpose, you may ask? That

s not an easy one, is it? You

ve got to spendtime with yourself and take a deep, introspective look at who you are and how you want tocontribute. Here

s the nub of any purpose statement - your purpose is not to be happy.Your purpose is to make a difference in the lives of those around you. Because, it is onlywhen you are making a real difference do you become truly happy.I cannot stress enough how important it is to discover your purpose ﬁrst before embarkingon any kind of goal-setting exercise. Once you have your purpose all your goals will fallinto alignment.My purpose is: To help people live lives of adventure, destiny and purpose through myGod-given talents of thinking, writing and speaking. I fulﬁll my destiny by inspiring peoplethrough my blogs, my writing, my keynote addresses, my seminars and my books. Everygoal I set is aimed at achieving my purpose. When I make a difference in the lives of myfamily, friends and clients, I

m happy, fulﬁlled and contented.Finding your purpose gives you the “why?”. One of the biggest motivators in your life is tohave a “reason why?”. Why am I doing this? Why is this important to my family? Why isthis important to my clients? Why is this important to my country? Viktor E. Frankl in hisbook,

Man

s Search For Meaning

made a strong case for having a “reason why?”. Frankl,an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist was incarcerated in the Nazi concentration camps.He decided to study why some of the inmates seemed to succumb quickly and why otherssurvived in one of the harshest and most inhumane environments ever devised by man.The short answer is that those that survived the Nazi concentration camps had a “reasonwhy?”. They had an overriding goal that kept them going. It may have been to see theirchildren again, to stay alive to bring their Nazi jailers to justice or any of a dozen reasons.

You don

t know what you want

Once we have a “reason why?” ... we need to ﬁnd ways of achieving it. The reality is thatmost of us don

t really know what we want. We think we do, sort of. It is normally somekind of fuzzy Utopian ideal, isn

t it? I want more money. I want to be happy. I want a nicehouse. I want a beautiful car. I want to live at the coast or in the mountains or maybeMonaco. I want a great relationship with someone who

ll love me. I just want to be happy.And so on. It is exactly this kind of fuzzy, non-speciﬁc thinking that will get you less than