A simple step

Many of the self development books that I have read, often remind me to look at things through a young child's eyes more often. To our young children everything is interesting - there don't appear to be any 'boring bits' at all, especially when it comes to food and eating. Life should be like that - no boring bits. Yes, occasionally we are doing things we do not relish doing, occasionally we are doing things for others, when we could be doing things for ourselves. It isn't often that I do anything that I really dislike doing, in fact sitting here now, I can't actually think of anything .. (other than maybe going to the dentist to have a filling...). Our lives are full of choices about what we do. For some people, others decide for them - for others they decide for themselves. In the end, does what we do matter provided we do it for ourselves or to benefit others? 

How do we make sure that when we want to be listened to, and heard, those people we are targeting with our messages are picking them up, and perhaps more importantly, either acting on them or remembering them? Influence over another person is something that everyone seeks to achieve. From a child seeking to persuade their parents to head to the biscuit tin, to politicians attempting to swing voters in their direction. Everybody does it. Our behaviour and actions are influenced by other people every day of our lives. Sometimes, we do not even know that we are being targeted or influenced. By and large we all 'hear' other people's views and opinions, and so, arguably are we all always heard? 

I was recently reading an article about life, Darwinism and that sort of thing, which touched on the scientific theories about life, the universe and everything. At the same time (not unusually for me) I have about 4 or 5 books on the go, one of which is a study on 'chaos', and another is about the meta-physical or spiritual aspects of our lives drawing on Jung's theories. There is so much written about who we are, what we are, where we came from and where we are going. All the religious texts in the world focus on similar questions to these. Whole professions exist to help us try to understand questions like the 'ultimate question' as Douglas Adams put it in his fantastic Hitchhikers Guide to the Universe, - 'what is the answer to life, the universe and everything?' In the end we start from nothing, and we go on to being a small pile of minerals which, whilst we are alive, is held together by a lot of water molecules. Another way to look at it is from...

It is Easter and I am sitting in the Old Post Office B & B in Paparoa, a village of a few thousand (max) people in the heart of the Kaipara District of New Zealand. It is quiet, there is a full moon, and Amelie my 3 year old princess has just run into the sitting room and said N Niiiight, kissed me on the cheek, given me a hug and bounced off to her bedroom for a story ... She gets distracted by the pieces on a chess board as she goes, 'this one here, that one there' .... Ammeeeliiee, her mum calls - oh oh she says and toddles off to hear the story. There is a clock ticking close by, the lighting in the sitting room is soft, it is peaceful. How lucky to be here - how lucky to have the simple things in life laid out before me, no hassle, no complexity, no need to think, no need to relax, I can just be. We do make our lives complicated sometimes don't we - more often than not because we desire or want something, or someone to do what we want them to do, or maybe thi...

You know that feeling you get sometimes when you feel that things are just as they should be? It's an unprompted feeling and sense that everything is happening around you in the right order and at the right moment. I liken it to a combination of belief, awareness and intuition. Sometimes in life we push, we push hard to get stuff done, to make things happen and at other times we do nothing and let things happen by themselves. It seems to be a fine balance and one that we can influence and maintain as we wax and wane through life. When we know what we want and where it is we are going, this balance gets easier and simpler to feel and see. If you have ever been involved in marketing or sales you will understand the notion that very often, you will push hard and put energy into certain opportunities to sell your product or service, and then find that those sales that you secure often come from 'out of the blue' as a result of your extended networks or a gesture by somebod...

Words are a human creation. We are probably the only living things to have a word for everything... They frame our lives, our thoughts and our actions.. Live life for a while without words.. it is quite quite liberating

Happy Christmas to those who have arrived here to read this post. The world and the media remind us often that Christmas is a time for giving, for compassion, for family, for celebrating Jesus and for receiving. It is also a time when we reflect on the past year - what has occurred and happened in our lives and where we have come. The New Year beckons and we begin to look forward to the positive changes that we desire, our aspirations and hopes for the future. We want to feel better in ourselves, and have an improved world with less stress, anxiety and suffering. Looking forwards is a powerful thing. It provides us with the ability to consider what may be, as we journey into the unknown. It enables us to work out where we would like things to go. In the animal kingdom, I expect we are one of very very few species that have this ability to look out over long periods of time. Other animals will look forwards I expect season by season, if that. They concentrate on the present. ...