I was talking last week with someone who asked about why life goes from one challenge to another… My pat answer was that without challenge there is no growth. Their reply was to ask why growth was so important anyway??? I had no answer to that. Without change there is only death. A rut is a grave without a stone. I’m sure we are familiar with these and other proverbs that encourage us to keep growing as people.
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I have been gone a couple of months (you may have noticed), not because I was travelling or having a grand adventure, but because I was recovering. I went through the loss of a relationship last year, and towards the end of the year I needed some time to be quiet and reflect on life. What I find interesting is the number of people I speak to who do not go through recovering after some loss forced upon them, and are surprised that they are not coping with life at full speed.
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Last week I started talking about managing our “to do” lists. Unlike famous blogger Leo Babuto, I am not a fan of ditching lists because I find them helpful. It clears my head to write lists, it helps me prioritize once I see things in writing, and makes my decisions easier.
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Next week the Commonwealth countries of the world descend on Perth for a series of meetings. All of a sudden there are closed roads, changes in holidays and police all over the place. From my perspective, it just means more on the list of things to do, because now I have to check I can access the places I meant to go, check the shops will be open, etc. Like I didn’t have enough on the list!
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There is that old saying “stop and smell the roses” which encourages us to slow down our lives and remember that beauty is all around us. Taking a minute or three to stop and appreciate the world is wonderful! However, if you are like me, then you find yourself living at a pace that means you are rushing through life, slowing only for the sharp corners. When you realise this, you suddenly want to yell “stop the planet, I want to get off!!”
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I have just returned from spending time in two third world countries. I love travel, and meeting friends (old and new) was wonderful. However the reality check hits when you get home from such a trip. We have SO MUCH STUFF!
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Ever felt that you wanted a fresh start? Ever felt that life was overwhelming and your mistakes too many? In my experience, we have all been there. Mistakes, bad choices, unanticipated consequences…these all make us want to start over. Just as when we write in the sand at the sea and the ocean washes it away, we can have a fresh start tomorrow.
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In times of reflection lately, it occurs to me that a great deal of life is lived in the mundane. Most of our time is spent doing the cooking, cleaning, laundry, travel to and from (work, school, etc.). It seems far too easy to lose sight of the adventure that this life is when the mundane colours in most of our day. How do we keep perspective?
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In just a few weeks I will be offline again, off to a country born in division, torn by strife and bathed in the blood of the innocent… and in preparation for being in “the most dangerous country in the world” I have worked on my will, thought about what I would like to leave people in terms of memories, and generally wondered about how one approaches the idea of death. That is when I had the Jerry Maguire moment… “the things we think and do not say” because I realised that we live emotionally like we under the communist might of a military regime.
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This post could have been titled “the power of role modelling”, because ultimately we learn what we learn from others. A tale for reflection…
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