Institutions are often required....

.....to spend significant amounts of money on services and facilities. Dutifully, they put out their contracts to tender. Unless budgets are excruciatingly tight, the lowest bidder isn't the automatic winner. Issues of reliability and quality must also be considered. (What I remember as best overall value for money.) But we know that you can't always promise reliability and quality when you are operating on a shoestring. Plus there is such a thing as false economy - some would say we live in one.  'If you buy cheap, you buy twice', is a saying from many years past.

If any deal done isn't fair to all, it won't be fair for any.

All things are only transitory  (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

We've had Black Friday....

....recently, and now the post Christmas sales are in full swing.  Shops are doing their best to tempt us. Piled high in every window are special offers. It can seem that we are bombarded by TV ads offering us all we could ever need at prices we won't believe - apparently!  Strangely, though, no store is offering a bargain pack of wisdom. Indeed, you can't even get it at any price!

In this economic climate, we may think we're short of capital but it's understanding that's really in woefully short supply. And we are not even wise enough to realise it is missing!

Gratitude is a duty which ought to be paid, but which none have a right to expect.   (Rousseau)

Without our likes and dislikes.....

...we would soon be swamped by an enormous number of options. All those foods. All those drinks. All those clothes. All those soaps, shampoos, TV channels and social opportunities. How will we know which to accept and which to reject? Our preferences, even our prejudices, represent a lifebelt of seeming certainty in an ocean of overwhelming choice.

Your opinions are very valid, just as everyone else's are.  Sometimes, though,  there can be the odd one that does not help you float, but drags you down. Watch for that.

Habit is the nursery of errors   (Victor Hugo)

We are close to turning....

....the page of another year.  Shall we look forward to a brave new world? A better society? A fairer, kinder, more enlightened future? Or shall we just carry on as normal, carping at and criticising one another?  Applying double standards?  Increasing intolerance? Perpetrating prejudice?

We cannot ever expect to alter the attitudes of others. We can, though, adjust our own.

Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbours, and let every new year 

find you a better person.    (Benjamin Franklin) 

 

It isn't New Year yet....

....Does that make it too early to begin a diet, embrace a fresh priority or start a new regime? Are you somehow stuck in the old cycle, rather like a towel trapped in a washing machine that must continue spinning too hard, too fast, for too long? If you really believe that New Year's Day has some special, magical, significance, feel free to wait. 

But if you truly want to change your future, remember that you are not a towel and life is not an uncontrollable engine. Today is as good a day as any to commence.

Don't let the past steal your present. This is the message of Christmas: 

We are never alone.  (Taylor Caldwell)

Christmas Gift Suggestions.....

To your enemy....forgiveness

To an opponent....tolerance 

To a friend....your heart

To a customer....service

To all....charity

To every child....a good example 

To yourself....respect     

      

Often we race around....

.... doing things that do not need to be done. We act before we stop to consider the consequences. We end up expending vast amounts of energy, only to realise later that we must work just as hard to undo whatever we have done. It takes great strength and understanding to do nothing at a time when the whole world seems to think you should be doing something.

The fact remains, though, that you are better off doing a little wisely rather than a lot in the wrong sort of a hurry.

Poverty is the worse form of violence  (Gandhi)