Category: Self awareness

3 things I learned in 2013

As regular readers know, I turned 50 this year. I have experienced a lot in these 50 years: love, joy, laughter, wonder, passion, sadness, humility, rejection, awe, embarrassment, pain, fear, anger, betrayal. Feeling each of these experiences has taught me something of life: sometimes things go well, sometimes they don’t. To slightly mangle Dr Seuss’s words: I am stronger than I know, weaker than I think. I am also a bundle of contradictions, wrapped in a shroud of complexity. As we all are.

You would think at this age, there isn’t much left to learn. But I am here to tell you there is: every second, minute, hour, day, week, month, and year on this planet teaches me something new. I count my blessings that I live and breathe another day, and that I get to strip back more of the layers that make up me in a life-long quest to find my true essence.

This year is no exception. I have learned things about myself that I’d like to share with you. Things that I intrinsically know, but it’s good to be reminded of.

Very Wise Stuff I say (that I pinched from other people) – Part 1

Anyone who knows me knows I can Talk Some Serious Crap at times. I also Say Some Very Wise Stuff, gleaned from 50 years of observation and experience on this earth. I recently had a request from a colleague friend to document this Very Wise Stuff I Say, so here is Part 1, with attributions where I can find them.

These are heuristics – rules of thumb if you will – that help me understand human behaviour and motivation, and our place in the universe. There is a touch of the fatalist in some of these sayings, much of which is underpinned by the understanding that we are mortal, finite and have a limited amount of time on this earth.

1. Bad is never good until worse happens. ~ Danish proverb

Simply put, this is about perspective and an acknowledgement that things can go pear-shaped very quickly. Things can always be a lot worse than they currently are, and when they are worse, you’ll wish for just plain old bad. A storm that causes a tree to fall on your car is bad, but a storm surge that destroys your home is much, much worse. A delayed flight is bad, but missing a connection and being stranded in Shanghai overnight is much, much worse.

Guilty pleasures

This post was first published on 26 June, 2012. One of my all-time favourite quotes is from Bertrand Russell who said: The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time. I quote him often to anyone who will listen as a justification for my penchant for not doing very much at all sometimes. It got

Thirty five things that make me happy

This post was inspired by Caitlin Kelly’s posts about all the things that make her happy. I got to thinking: there are ALOT of things that get up my nose (Australian for really annoying) and I am generally quite vocal about them. But I liked the idea of embracing the concept of mindfulness and appreciation,

And so this is 50…

And what have you done? Another year over, and a new one just begun. ~ John Lennon

A month or so ago, I turned 50. I didn’t have a “milestone party”. Instead, I spent it in a beautiful part of Turkey, doing what I love: travelling and taking photographs.

But turning 50 deserves some sort of recognition, applause even. After all, not everyone makes it this far. In some countries, 50 is considered positively ancient because life expectancy and outlook is so poor. But I’ve talked about the lottery of location previously, so won’t belabour that point here.

Western cultures tend to mark 50 as the halfway point of our lives. We are encouraged to think about what we’ve achieved thus far, and what is still on our “bucket list” to check off. Where we’ve succeeded, and where we have failed. Wins and losses. What we still have to look forward to, and what we must leave in the past. So in the sprit of nihilist existential navel gazing a lá Adrian Mole, here is my list of my proudest “have dones” and deepest, darkest “have yet to dos”.

Because in the end, you won’t remember the time you spent working in the office or mowing your lawn. Climb that goddamn mountain. ~ Jack Kerouac

What’s in a name?

You may or may not have noticed, but it’s been over a year since I blogged here. I haven’t been altogether silent, though. I have written about my travels, and I regularly post photos. But focusing on this blog, well, not so much.

And there are a couple of reasons for this: vulnerability and hubris. And both are inextricably linked.

Being a reasonably popular blogger (and by this, I mean that I don’t have a huge numbers of readers, but those who do subscribe and read tell me they enjoy it), I felt a certain sense of untouchableness (that’s not a word, but it suits the point I’m trying to make). I felt that I could write about things here, namely work things, and be safe because I was being authentic. I thought the public domain was my armour. I was wrong.

I won’t go into details, but suffice it to say, I was in a very bad place work-wise then. I wrote about it as a way to make sense of it all, and also perhaps, as a way to validate what I was experiencing in the public domain. I thought there was safety in posting publicly, but I was wrong. My musings were not perceived that way, and I was silenced shut down*.