24th April 2016
Gift horse.
Never look a gift horse in the mouth! I am very interested in words and sayings, so I often find myself looking up their origins.
Ever thought about this saying: Never look a gift horse in the mouth.
Horses' teeth grow over time, checking their length is a way of gauging its age. ‘long in the tooth’ can also be associated with the horse. Long in the tooth again pertaining to old age.
Here’s some background
It has been traced to the writings of the 4th-centurycleric, St. Jerome, and has appeared in English sinceabout 1500. "No man ought to looke a geuen hors in the mouth." —John Heywood, 1546. The substitution of "gift" for "given" occurred in 1663 in Butler’sHudibras,
The cautionary tale here, is not to look a gift horse in the mouth, as it would be construed as rude or ungrateful. Image you gave someone a gift and they go and find out how much it is worth or start analysing its flaws.
In the pursuit of your passion, destiny or to start to live your dream. You will be given a gift horse or a horse as a gift. Remember in my earlier blog ‘UP HILL STRUGGLE’ I mentioned that the minute, the very minute you decide to follow your passion you will be sent some challenges? Its as if the universe is saying ‘really, you really want to change, prove it’
You may rename your gift. You may call your gift ‘A problem’
What ‘gift’ have you been given and found yourself checking its worth? ‘Is all this worth it’ springs to mind.
What ‘gift’ did you get and, as well as checking it out, you also doubted whether it would be useful in your pursuit of finding or following your dream? ‘how can I possible start following some hairdrained dream, when this has happened’ sounds familiar?
Lets look at the gifts you may have been given. Time, is a popular one.
Time off work, you may be unemployed, made redundant or may have lost your job for one reason or another. You now have time to pursue your passion, you can spend the time out of work perfecting your God given talent. You can do more research into the subject, you have the time to perhaps, set up meetings with prospective clients or someone in the field, who you can gain valuable information and advice from. Time at home saves you child care costs, you will save on travel costs, clothes for work. I can go on and on, but you get my gist! You told the universe that you wanted time to pursue your passion and it said ‘your wish is granted, here is a gift horse, his name is ‘Time’.
Another popular gift is the end of a friendship He/she left you, you left him/her. A friend you have known for many years has parted company .Think back on those relationships, do you think they stood in your way of pursing your passion? Did they take time from you, that could have been spent pursing your goal. Did you spend time helping them instead of helping yourself move forward into your destiny? Everything happens for a reason. No one said it was going to be easy. I am not saying it is going to be hard, remember whatever you focus on you’ll receive. However it is inevitable that you are going to miss someone who has been in your life. But remember, the closing the door on a freindship, could led to you opening up a whole new chapter in your life. It could be your gift horse.
T.D. Jakes, in his book Destiny , states that when you start to prioritise your life in readiness to follow your dream, you’ll find that you don’t have to do ‘much cutting because people at the bottom of your list will often cut you off’.
Have you ever opened a birthday card, as a child and found that there was ‘No Money’ ? You was still given the gift of a card, but there was no money. As you embark on pursing your passion the ‘No money or not enough money gift’ allows you to flex those innovation muscles. You may feel that, in-order to follow your dream you will need x amount of money, this is not true. This is just another negative thought that keeps you where you are, instead of moving on. No money gives you a genuine opportunity to get FREE resources, you’ll be surprised what’s out there when your back is against the wall and, you have to come out fighting.
When you begin to prioritise in pursuit of your passion, you will find ways of cutting down and cutting out.
Let’s recap.
You’ve been laid off or don’t have a job.
Your friendship or partnership ends.
You have no money.
mmmmm….Don’t look like any gift horse I’ve ever seen…..STOP... Think for a minute. You feel the way you do because, you have told yourself to start a pity party, how long this party goes on is up to you . Try and see your situation differently. Try and see it as a gift and stop looking it in the mouth.
Easier said than done eh? No it’s not.
Every time you begin to look at your situation as a problem , you start thinking of the things you can’t do because of the problem….I’m not working, I miss my friend, I have no money… Now think of your situation in terms of gifts. I have more time, I won’t be bogged down with his/her issues and I can get it for free.
Hold on to the reins of your gift horse and do something with it, because if you let go, you may end up missing your opportunity to start the very best part of your life. Blog@loveliveholistically.com