Let me ask you question…

What do you do? And why are you doing it?

I don’t know who you are, or where you live. Don’t know how old you are, whether you’re a man or a woman, a boy or a girl? 

But if you read this right now, then I know one important fact about you!  You were born on a certain day into this time, into this world, somewhere on this planet.

So let me ask you another question before we come back to the start.

At what age were you – and only you  – responsible for your life?

Even as a baby you took responsibility for your body by crying and screaming out loud to get food and attention. 

As a little toddler you might have had the most wonderful time in your life exploring such interesting things like balls, insects, animals, toys and it was just fantastic that your whole world was based on learning and exploring and playing and there was not much responsibility that you had to take, as your parents took over the job for you.

I believe you can remember a few of those moments where you can see yourself as a child. So in most cases there was only your parents or your family or your guardian that you grew up with. It could very well feel like an automatic way of living or you could have easily excepted that the outside circumstances were creating this, your life.  You were born into this world. But as soon as you got a bit older, new social influences came into ‘this’ your life. More institutions, more people meant more experiences and therefore shaping your life’s story.  So you could have excepted that the outside world was responsible for the way your life turned out. That this is not the case and how important it is to know, that at any time in life you can choose a new path, a new direction and therefore create the outside circumstances by taking responsibility for your life, this is what you are going to learn here – if you choose! 

I am writing a book about this at the same time and thought I’d share some of it in my blog first.

In most cases we are starting to think about lots of things in our life when we reach the ‘teenage years’. You might be unhappy about the way your life rolls out in school, or with family and friends. 

Let me briefly tell you about my journey.

I started very early in life to question what this is all about and what am I going to do with my life. So I decided that joy was most important and so I chose to become a singer. I had talent and at the age of 16 my journey as a singer started. Sport was equally important and fun for me so I chose to study sports at the University of Sports in Cologne “Deutschen Sporthochschule Köln (DSHS)” and successfully collected my degree.  Every step of my journey after this, was more spontaneous and I followed my feelings rather than a special plan for a certain career.

I decided to travel the world and to cut a very long story short, ended up in New Zealand, where I met my future husband. So most of my experiences are based on BEING !

I will write more about this later. It’s not quite so easy to explain this “being philosophy” to people who are stuck in a 9 to 5 job as they have chosen this for their journey. If you are in such a situation, don’t worry! If you don’t want to do this any longer – choose again.

And this is where we get to the big questions from the beginning of this post.

What do you do? And why are you doing it?

If you’d like to answer and maybe start a conversation here, be my guest.

So my suggestion is: ” Take your time!” 

Take your time to think about your life and the possibilities that you have! Based on your talent, based on your past choices, based on inspiration, based on your dreams and imaginations. You can tell that nothing is set here. You can choose whatever you want. 

I hope I can open a door for you here. 

A song for Sundays!

Just in case you’d like to download this song – click the moon❣️

It’s all up 2 You !

It’s just another Sunday night

Moving closer to a Monday morning doesn’t feel right

You feel depressed the weekend is over

And you dream about the next and some holidays to free your mind

Make the most out of your day

The sun comes up in the morning and goes down anyway

So come on smile, just for a little while

And make the most out of your day

Chorus:

It’s all up to you 

Whatever you do

Forget about tomorrow and have some fun tonight

Did you ever dance under the moonlight                 

Vers:   

So come on baby, move a little closer now

Cause you might forget the fact that you got to go to work

I’m going to show you how to relax your mind

And I bet that from now on you gonna love your Sunday nights

Chorus:

It’s all up to you 

Whatever you do

Forget about tomorrow and have some fun tonight

Did you ever dance under the moonlight  

DID YOU EVER DANCE…under the moonlight

“LIVING THE DREAM” – THE BEGINNING

So here is my very first post.

After setting up my blog I got a little stuck. What am I going to write about?

What is this “LIVING THE DREAM” blog all about?

Well, let me take you on a journey. Have you ever dreamed about something and transformed your dream into reality? I bet you have! Just think about your last desire for a special meal.

You thought about it, cooked it or went to have it in a restaurant. So you dreamed it and later you fulfilled and lived your dream. This all sounds quite simple, but there are many people on our planet already struggling to fulfil their basic needs today, let alone dream. The latest news on India showed that some places are running out off water, and a few hundred km away from them others are drowning in unprecedented flooding. And whether you like it or not, even in New Zealand where I currently live, there are thousands of families struggling to afford enough food to eat, let alone to fulfil on any dreams they may have.

I recently heard a mother say “Struggling is the new norm !”.

So what’s wrong with this picture?

At the same time there are thousands of SUV’s and brand new Pick Up Trucks driving through the country. Whether those people used cheap credit to get them or whether they were on the lucky side of the housing crisis, no one knows, and no one asks, either. But if you are somewhat aware, watching through the illusions that are portrayed on mainstream media, you can watch both situations (rich and poor) happening simultaneously by adjusting your point of view.

So most readers here will probably live quite comfortably. Why? Because you have time to read and you obviously have a device so you can read this and you can afford internet access.

So welcome to my blog and let me invite you to participate.

Here are some questions you might want to engage in.

How would you enjoy living your life free from ‘having to’s’ ? Let’s say, you don’t have to do anything! You don’t need to have a job, you don’t need money, you only do what you love doing and at the same time your basic human needs are met. Sound too good to be true?

Yes, maybe. But what if this is a dream that can be transformed into reality? Would you like this kind of life? Just imagine sleeping as long as you like because you don’t need to get up to drive your car through a traffic jam to an office and sit or do physical work all day so you can pay for the house that you are living in and afford food for yourself or your family and save up for your holidays that you desperately need to relax from all the stresses of your day to day life.

The reason why humans don’t live this ‘paradise-like dream’ is because of ‘the system’.

I won’t write about how we ended up here.

But I’d like to write about and share my dream. My dream about living the dream and powerfully choosing life instead of having the circumstances dictate!

Impossible?

Feel free to comment and maybe share your dream with me.

Andrea

Hello everybody!

Finally I have something nice to share. The “getting hit by the bus on a cycle path in New Zealand” event is something I’d rather forget, but if you’ve wondered why I didn’t write anything or produce more music, well that’s the reason why!

So I’d rather focus on something positive to share and it’s my first post on social media in the year 2020.

Please let me introduce you to my latest music creation called “Andrea”!

Flying a long distance flight isn’t one of the most exciting things to do, especially when you’re in pain.

And even though I knew it was the right thing to do to help my mum in Germany, it was still quite hard for me and I had a moment where I just started crying because of pain and discomfort. I usually try not to cry in public and I guess I felt quite protected from all those seats around me, and my husbands cuddles. So I let my tears roll and tried to survive this long distance flight in the economy class.

Somehow this beautiful flight attendant “Andrea” must have noticed my sadness and she came over with a bag of gifts from Singapore Airlines and a beautiful written note that will be on the cover for this song. I was quite taken and surprised that she had noticed how I felt and that she was really looking after me, serving food and drinks with such a great attitude and a big smile. As I said earlier, we only flew economy class, but the service this woman gave to us felt like first class.

So I can honestly say that this was my best experience ever on a long distance flight and when we arrived I promised her to record a song – just for her!

So even though I still can’t play my instruments properly, I decided to create the song “Andrea” with a keyboard, using her written note as the lyrics  and I have just finished it. Even though it’s just for her, I decided to put it out in the world.

Hope you like it Andrea! It’s an electronic recording and I used some asian instruments as well.

You can download your single  for free and I added  4 Bonus Tracks when you subscribe with your e-mail address. Just click here on: Andrea

One day …

One day…

Do you create your own music and you’d like to get more listeners other than just your friends? Make sure you’ll add your song to my playlist on Spotify. Please share with your friends and become No. 401 for liking it.

https://open.spotify.com/user/feelgr/playlist/3eglnu31ndJlXL4z5MxrWB?si=k-C0ATB5Q7qsNQ0eWEmaRg

A Game worth playing

“Dire Straits” – my new song and video.

Another 5 hour project ready for you out there. After I discovered that I never felt happy enough with something I created. I decided to play a new game! Create a song in 5 hours, create a video in another 5 hours and upload the result. I am enjoying the process of creation and I hope you’ll enjoy it, too. If you also want to play this game, feel free to post your 5 hour project and I will share it on my website.

So here is my latest project called: “Dire Straits”

Searching for Original New Zealand Songs to create an Album

Are you a New Zealand Musician or Singer/Songwriter? If yes, and you have songs about New Zealand, Travel, Holidays or anything related to this, please consider to share your song on an album.

Hi everybody. I am a NZ Singer/Songwriter and I have been knocked off my bike on a bike trail in Rotorua from a mini van 4 months ago. I did write about this the other day. Not knowing when I will be able to play my instruments again and really not wanting anyone to feel sorry for me, I’d rather focus on music again and decided to dream up a nice little project. I would like to create an album with other New Zealand Musicians who want to have their music streamed and listened to. If you would want to be part of such a project please post me your song as a link. This will be the first album and I’d like to put 20 songs together for it. I have already received 3 songs from other people and I will put one or two from my own recordings on this album as well, so there will be room for another 15 or 16 songs. As I am living and recording everything in a motorhome I’d like to request songs and music and lyrics around New Zealand, holidays, travelling, or stories related to thoses subjects. We won’t get rich out of this, but it’s another way to get our music heard and it will be fun. So here is a link to my first album “Rolling Home” and I’d like to use a similar cover for this project and call it NZ 1 or similar. As always I am open for your input – and your songs. Hope this works …. https://www.stefaniesteven.com/albums

My contribution will be “Rolling Home” and here is a link to a cute little video. https://youtu.be/cuEfEYmWr0A

If you have any questions – feel free to ask.

Stef with an f

New Musicians – please add your song to this playlist.

I have created a playlist on spotify for new musicians. If you are creating music and you’d like to add your song to this playlist please do. Three songs for every new musician that hasn’t got more than 1000 followers on spotify. This playlist has already more than 300 followers and keeps growing. Good place to add your music and get heard.

Here is the playlist: https://open.spotify.com/user/feelgr/playlist/3eglnu31ndJlXL4z5MxrWB?si=rJnRpsngSzCMVrZclcidGA

Sometimes things are getting in the way!

Living the dream ! – ah yes, that was my blog I started a few days ago!

Well, to be really honest I am not doing so well at this at the moment because I got hit by a bus four months ago and still have to deal with the consequences!

So, yes – sometimes things are getting in the way of living your dream.

Here is my little story and I’ll cut it very short. I was biking on a cycle path in Rotorua, New Zealand, and I made sure that I was easy to see with my bright orange glowing vest and my helmet, but it still wasn’t enough to be seen for the driver of this mini-bus coming out of a petrol station. So I literally got hit by a bus and it all happened so quickly. Even though I saw everything happening in super slow motion, it was really quite weird.

So 4 months down the track I am having my first MRI next week. Why next week? Good question! It seems that specialists are all booked out for months. I also had to learn about New Zealand’s ACC (Accident Compensation Corporation) ‘No fault’ policy. So just in case you didn’t know and you are hearing this for the first time, -even though the facts were quite clear, the driver admitted on the spot “ I didn’t see you!”, there is still this NZ law that no one is at fault.

REALLY ? I couldn’t quite get it at the time and I am still learning all about it, but that’s the law.

So quite brutally put – you can run over a cyclist and it’s not your fault!

I just came back from my chiropractor and my physiotherapist today and the news on my health are not too great, but at least I’m alive! Poor cyclists that are run over and end up in a box with some sand on top. Even though the person running over him or her won’t feel too great either, they are, according to NZ’s ‘no fault law’, not responsible. Being the victim, I don’t agree with this law. It makes it far to easy for car and truck drivers to not have to worry too much and drive less careful because they won’t be liable and responsible. Maybe that’s another reason, next to really shitty streets, that there are soooo many cycle accidents in NZ. Don’t get me wrong, I am aware that there are irresponsible bikers on the road as well and it could also be the other way round, that they cause an accident for a real good car/truck driver, but the problems remain the same. If the responsibility of the person driving an e-scooter, a bike, a car, a truck, a bus, a motorhome or any other moving vehicle, is taken away by this ‘no fault law’, don’t you agree, that it makes more room for careless driving?

Please feel free to comment on the matter or share your story. I am still so new to all this and learn as I go. I am also very hopeful to get my health back fully soon, and then I will focus more on continuing my blog.