If you want to change....

....the colour of a room, you can put some paint on the walls. If, though, you ever expect to subject your environment to any serious scrutiny, you will first have to do some preparation. Holes must be filled, cracks repaired and dirt-patches cleaned. That's tedious and time consuming. Is it really worth the effort? 

It is if you care about the result. In upholding high standards now, you are investing wisely in the long-term future.

Change in all things is sweet.   (Aristotle)

If you want someone.....

....to understand you, try your best to understand them. If you want to be shown respect, show respect. Love if you want to be loved, trust if you want to be trusted. These are simple principles. They don't always work instantly but if you apply them consistently, they will always bring good results. 

So, what should we do if we want to be criticised, complained about, argued with or taken advantage of? Why then, just follow the same rule! You don't want any of that in your life, do you?

Ability is nothing without opportunity.   (Napoleon Bonaparte)

Let's have a trip down....

....a musical memory lane - 'I want to live, I want to give, I've been a miner for a heart of gold. It's these expressions, I never give, that keep me searching for a heart of gold.' Neil Young finished each verse of this song with the phrase, 'and I'm getting old'. That was forty years ago!   

But then, 'looking for a heart of gold' is not a bad way to spend your life - and there is gold in every heart, if you are really willing to dig for it. 

Silence is the mother of truth   (Benjamin Disraeli)

Imagine a team of....

....energy efficiency experts, sitting around to consider a proposal to invent the Sun? They would never give a green light to a project like this. How crazy to place the source of light and warmth over 93 million miles away from its intended target. 

Yet, sometimes, conventional wisdom simply doesn't represent the most appropriate way to view a situation.

The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.  (Joseph Campbell)

How nice do you need to be?......

....Isn't there something false about pretending to sympathise with someone's plight whilst secretly suspecting that they may deserve all the trouble that they appear to have got themselves into? Then again, isn't there something very harsh and wrong about playing judge and jury when we haven't even heard all the submissions and seen all the evidence? Come to that, who gave you the right to do so?

It will do no harm, today, to give at least some benefit of the doubt to someone who stands accused of something.

Leaders grasp nettles  (David Ogilvy)

How well do you know someone....

....and how well do they know you? Even the most intimate, intricate relationships can't involve total telepathy and absolute empathy. Exasperating though such differences can prove at times, they are also a big part of what makes life magical. Or at least, they are as long as they don't involve people feigning a level of mutual understanding which is ultimately false. 

Sometimes the potential for trouble stems not from an actual disagreement, but from an artificial act of agreement.

No great thing is created suddenly.   (Epictetus)

Humans, in theory at least.....

....are smarter than animals. They have a greater ability to rationalise and analyse. (I did say, 'in theory'.)  They can stand back from a situation, see it from a distance, make a complicated plan and then see it through, even if that involves allowing for various unexpected developments that may require a sudden change of course. Well, that's the idea.

How smart are we all really? Not as smart as we could be. But if you now think more carefully about what is or isn't really worth doing, you may yet have a brilliant idea.

We build too many walls and not enough bridges.   (Isaac Newton)