Loving someone or....

....knowing that they love you is not a licence to abuse or antagonise them. It is never okay to hurt someone's feelings, just because you suspect that you will be 'safe', even if you do.

 

 

We all need to learn to show each other more respect and to treat the people we are closest to with the same degree of deference and civility that we might show to a stranger.

Why would you limp through the door....

...to the future, clutching a big bag of clothes that don't suit you, dragging behind you a cart of other people's problems that they have asked you to help carry? The door is only so wide. With all that baggage, you may not pass through.

 

 

 

 

 

You may have to wander round in a kind of eternal version of yesterday... until or unless you put down what you no longer need.

For an inordinate length of time....

....many hundreds of years, in fact, people fantasised about the ability to fly. That, our ancestors concluded, would surely alter everything. It's now 228 years since the first hot air balloon carried humans aloft. Has this amazing invention allowed us to conquer war, end famine or eradicate cruelty? It has just allowed more of us to travel further and made a worrying contribution to climate change!

 

 

 

 

We have to be careful when we aspire to progress. We may well get it - but we can't be sure it will do for us all that we hoped it would.

The following was posted....

.....on Facebook by a young woman who has as much right to put two fingers up to society and life in general, as anyone I've ever known - More than 12 years ago my husband had his accident which changed our life forever....our hopes and dreams were taken away....life may not be what we had hoped but we are still incredibly lucky to have true happiness.

 

 

 

That is both inspired and inspiring, and if the vast majority of us worked at adopting the same attitude, we would live in a glorious world.

Spin-doctors love....

sound bites. (Don't they just!!)  Their view - Let's not bother people with our complicated arguments. Let's just say something short and snappy. It'll sound good and stick in their memory.

And, as we're all too busy working to cover the taxes that, in turn, pay those politician's wages, we don't much seem to mind. Until, that is, we wake up and realise that they have squandered billions through incompetence and idiocy.

That's the price we are likely to pay for taking assurances at face value, no matter who gives them.

I'm guessing that most of us....

know the biblical tale of Lot and his wife, and how she turned into a pillar of salt when she looked back at the wrong moment. Nothing quite so dramatic is going to happen to you if you try to relate too strongly to the past, but you could risk missing a lot! If you're wise, you'll throw in your lot with whatever is most likely to take you forward fastest.

 

There's not a lot we can do about anything that's happened, but there's plenty we can do to ensure that tomorrow makes us happier... er... with our lot!

 

Next week I hope to be....

....able to bring you a live debate between President Obama and a Director on the Board of the NRA   Today though, and at enormous expense, I have managed to get two very special guests. The chicken from the beginning of time and the original egg. Both claim to have got here first. So which one really did? Before our special panel of invited guests, each will make the case. Then we'll have an audience phone poll.

 

 

 

 

Er, here's a tip - avoid any pointless conflict. Deal with what's practical... and relevant.

What a long list....

....of gods we must continually appease. Gods of fashion and social acceptability. Deities of 'paying the mortgage'. Angry powers of chaos that will wreak havoc in our lives if we do not make them regular offerings of cupboard-clearing and shelf-tidying.

 

 

How ironic that in our efforts to satisfy the demands of these spirits, we almost entirely overlook the need to honour and respect the one who represents a 'higher purpose'.