You've probably heard the saying....

....'time is money.'   It seems to be what some wealthy, busy, people say. But they are wrong. Money is an abstract concept. A delusion that the whole world has fallen for. A belief that everything can be reduced to a set of numbers. Time, may also be an illusion - but it is far, far more precious than money. What price can you put on an hour spent in the company of someone you love? Or a glorious memory of some moment that you can never revisit?

Your time is far too important to waste worrying about what is ultimately very trivial.

If you want one year of prosperity, grow grain. If you want ten years of prosperity, 

grow trees.  If you want a hundred years of prosperity, grow people.  

(Chinese Proverb)

Can we really make a difference....

....if we try? Or are we like children in a car on a fairground ride? We press on an imaginary accelerator. We stamp on a make-believe brake. We kid ourselves that our actions are having an impact, but things would be just the same if we were to sit perfectly still.

None of us are powerless. But if you seek success you must take energy away from a pointless pursuit and give it all to a worthwhile cause. Then, you really will make a difference.

I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. 

What I can do, I should do and, with the help of God, I will do.     

(Edward Everett Hale) 

Let's start the weekend with....

....a 'they say....' moment.  They say that if you can remember the 60s you were never really there. (They do, you know.  Aren't 'they' so profound, at times!!)  In those days when I was a mere child who watched Dr Who from behind a settee, there was a pop group called The Beatles.  Have you heard of them? These are the words in one of their songs -   'Life is very short and there's no time for fussing and fighting...' and 'We can work it out,' they insisted. Could they? Could we?

Life is, indeed, too short for all that. On that, we agree. Somehow, though, this understanding doesn't entirely stop us from arguing. Petty conflicts linger longer than they ever should.

Only dead fish go with the current.

Have no doubt.....

to make their dreams come true. You may not want to do this. You may decide that your dream is providing you with a very comfortable escape mechanism. Were it to become a reality, it might also become a liability. But that is a choice for you to make. And it should be made through discrimination, not defeatism.

If you are offered an opportunity to pursue your dream, don't be too scared to take it.

Never give up on something you really want. It's difficult to wait, 
but it's more difficult to regret.

Do you feel that you are tied.....

.....or beholden to someone or some thing(s)?  You do?  Who?  What?  The reality is that none of us are so bonded.  We choose our commitments and we choose too, to allow these to restrict us.

Some limitations, though, are so deeply ingrained as to be entirely beyond question.  It is important that we celebrate these ties and bonds. They do not represent our prisons and punishments, they represent our freedom to decide what we are willing to make sacrifices for. 

A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission 

can alter the course of history.   (Gandhi)

Time to remember a fairy-tale....

.....Do you remember the story of The Tinder Box?  A young soldier finds himself in a room full of silver coins. He scoops them up and then goes into another room full of gold. To carry that, he has to empty his pockets of the silver he claimed so excitedly just a few minutes earlier. If the value of what we already have can change according to the value of what we might now be able to get, it doesn't have much by way of true value.

What, in your world, would you never give up? Aren't you lucky to have that?

Someone is praying for the things you take for granted.

Everything looks difficult when....

....you don't know what it involves. Knowledge isn't just power, it is relief, even peace of mind!  True, you may be thinking -  'What if you happen to know for a fact that something really is as difficult as it looks?' Well, even so, at least you know what you are dealing with. The unknown is always more nerve-racking than the known. And the known, if it is really known, is never without hope.

There is a world of difference between the difficult and the impossible and that's all you need to remember.

              

"If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear 

to man as it is, infinite."  (William Blake)

A year ago....

.....some people came out of the shadows, and made me homeless.  The main instigator always kept behind my back.  Most of them had, for over half a century, held me in the belief that they were my immediate family.  All of this was done while I was away on holiday.  

A year on, life is far better than it was when I was closely connected with them.  Anyone with an IQ greater than a room temperature came to realise the actuality behind their actions.  It has been that way for most of the year, and life will improve further yet.  Materially I lost nearly everything, but I gained much much more.  They made this happen too.  They didn't intend to, but they actually set me free.  Now I am fully alive.  

  

We all need to remember that we are in a season.  We know not how long it will last, but nothing lasts forever.  What we accept as reality, often isn't.  Each and every one of us can evolve, can grow.  But to be able to pick up the good, you have to put down the bad; however that happens.  Leave the small stuff and the small people to do their own thing.  All things are possible.  Believe in yourself.

Exactly what is an elephant....

.....Is it an ant with an extra 'eleph'? Well, the ant and the elephant do have something crucial in common. They are both alive. They are both powered by the same vital spark - an invisible energy surges through them both. It surges too through you and me. We are all manifestations of precisely the same primal energy. We are expressions of life.

When we understand this we become in tune with all things and thus we become capable of almost anything.

Many people die with their music still in them.  Why is this so?  Too often it is 
because they are always getting ready to live.  Before they know it, time runs out.   
(Oliver Wendell Holmes)

When people feel vulnerable....

....they put up barriers. They try to hide their own softness by feigning strength. Ironically, this only increases their vulnerability! When we try to be tough, we become brittle. When we deny the truth to others, we also tend to deny it from ourselves. Then, we grow confused.

If we cannot call upon the most sensitive side of our own nature, we cannot access the wisdom we need.

A hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure
 in spite of overwhelming obstacles       (Christopher Reeve)

Love, peace, forgiveness....

....and goodwill. Why should this be such an elusive goal? Perhaps it is explained by the way that so many people are greedy, selfish and insensitive. Perhaps the world is populated by people who aren't very nice to know and so can hardly be expected to behave any better. Actually, few of us are that bad but it is this very tendency to see fault in others that feeds a vicious cycle of alienation?

Let go of some of what you disapprove of and watch how the world becomes a much sweeter place.

It is better to give more than you can take.

I need you to do something....

....for me.  I want you to fill in a form. Now, fill in another. Why? Well, if you really want to know, you will have to fill in another form before I can tell you. Not sure how to fill it in? You can have help. To apply for it, all you have to do is fill in a form!
Bureaucracy is a wonderful thing. What's wrong with the world today? Too much spontaneity, not enough form filling in! Or perhaps not. But that's what some people seem to think.

 

Sometimes we have a tendency to apply too much common sense to a wonderfully wild idea.

We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is 

waiting for us.  (Joseph Campbell) 

One of the classics....

...from my childhood was that strange old song 'I know an old woman who swallowed a fly...'   (Then again, so was Puff the Magic Dragon.   Oh, the innocence of a 60s childhood.)  Now, where was I?  Ah, yes -  There's nothing so remarkable about swallowing a fly. What marks this woman out for special attention is the spider, the bird, the cat, the dog, and the horse that she then progressed to. It's a children's classic because it contains a wonderful moral.

When you are in a hole, stop digging! Don't try to solve one problem by creating another.

Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe.

When we find ourselves.....

....in an unfamiliar situation, we are often more concerned to discover the limitation than we are to find out about the possibilities. We want to know what's permitted and what's prohibited. We dread the idea of inadvertently breaking a law.(Well, some of us do!!) Some of us love to be told what we may or may not do and some of us love to be the repository of this information in all its nit-picking, spontaneity-squashing glory.

Go beyond that and rewrite the rulebook.

Peace is not something that will come to us. It is something we must fight for. 

Not by waging war over it, but by reaching out towards it.

If all we ever had to do.....

....was what we already knew how to do, how would any of us ever manage to progress? What would we learn? What would we gain? We can protest, as vociferously as we care to, that we have no desire to think as if there is no box.

But isn't it an intrinsic and essential aspect of human nature to be ever in search of a fresh conquest or a new discovery?

A penny is sometimes better spent than spared. (Yiddish Proverb)