Silk Purses Sow's Ears

I wonder if you are like me fixing things up. I don't mean just making repairs. Anyone can take something apart and put it together again. Sometimes there are  a few nut or bolts left over. Amazing to see that something worked with the redundant pieces in place. Rather are you like me in finding something in a junk shop and pulling it apart and making something far better than the original?

It is a little bit like life. Bits and pieces around us are redundant and useless. We throw those out and we start to refine ourselves adding something to our existence and polish away a few habits. At the end we find ourselves happier and on more solid ground. The silk purse is far more attractive and the sow's ear we started with becomes something worth forgetting.

In the path to explore and create happiness I guess the task of self refinement and clearing up the mess around our lives does make us happy. Clarity balance and space seem to me to epitomise the way. Doing the work is what creates the state of being happy. Not doing the work has us reverting back to the crude pig's ear. This becomes the plaything of puppies and indulgent dog owners. Metaphorically speaking we need to know who are the dogs, the puppies and the indulgent dog owners who play about with our 'sow's ears'. Knowing who they are or what they are is of little help if we want to move forward. Knowing does make us feel a little more comfortable and slightly paranoid.

There we are, looking for the next task, looking for the next piece of ourselves to refine. Strange to say we don't have to look too far. Just listen to other people they have already told you what needs to be done. You know what has to be completed. Yes you can fix things. However everything doesn't need to be fixed. Somethings need to be thrown away and abandoned for others to sort out. Not all sow's ears can become silk purses. You select. You choose. You start.

Crisis What Crisis?

Changes happen.
Yes everyday can bring something new and interesting to your situation.

When you get caught out and are unprepared you call it a crisis.

Well now you can turn it around and make it just an ordinary event.

Here are few little tips to help you to just do it.

1. Take Five:

 Stop for a moment to collect your thoughts. Stop your emotions running you. This is the time for relaxed clear rational thinking.

- Clear a space in you work area - clear up clean up. Put away anything that is irrelevant and unrelated to the issue you face.

1. Rationally Revise What Needs to be Done:

 Some items on you to do list or set of goals must go. 

Take on a command and control mentality.

Your mind must be as a medic on the battle field - what can you save? What can’t live? What has to die? What must be rescued? What will expire on ints own account? What can you resuscitate later on?

1. Renegotiate Deadlines: 

Explain to others involved what is happening. 

Ask if deadlines can be altered. Most people are sympathetic. 

If they cannot help it might mean you have to work at a more inconvenient time to keep your promises. Control you hours and avoid over doing it.

1. Delay Selectively:

Postpone all trivia you possibly can for another day, or week, or month. 

There is often a temptation to work two hours later to finish everything. 

Think about working twenty five minutes later each day for a week or start thirty minutes earlier each day to get on top of things.

1. Find Alternative Plans:

If you are obligated to do a favour for someone explain your time crunch.

6.Send a Representative to Routine Meetings:

Decide if the meeting is important enough for you to be there. 

Is there a co-worker who could represent you?

7.Improve Your Concentration:

Avoid any impulsive chores such as unimportant phone calls or going shopping. 

Learn to cut off your escape route. 

Keep clearing away distracting materials.

8.Shorten Breaks:

Keep to your breaks and cut a few minutes off each of them. 

A fifteen minute break broken into three five minute breaks is better and more effective. 

Stretching and deep breathing exercises would pull thoughts together and will get you refocused.

9.Use Temporary Help:

Keep a list of people who could help you on hand. 

This can range from social service agencies through to professional services. 

10.Cash In Favours:

If people owe you a favour now is the time to collect.

 However make sure it is a genuine emergency.

 People resent those who lurch from crisis to crisis and always ask to be saved. 

Some people are victims of their own failings and are only too happy to play the persistent victim role.

11.Regain Perspective:

Learn to reevaluate and to debrief the situation. 

Ask what went wrong to create the pressure? 

Examine how much lead in time was needed for projects?

 Did you have a problem with your own assertiveness? 

Are you working for the right goals and values? 

Do you need to delegate more? 

Do you need more check points and markers on lengthy projects.

There you are just do one or two of these at the difficult times and see how well you manage.

Ruskin and Me

I have just finished reading 'The Art Of Travel' by Alain de Bottom. Like many books it has been on my must read list for many years. Finally I found a tatty tired, over-written and high lighter marked copy in a used book pile. What an absolute joy it was to read it. I am a week end dabbler in paint. I now have started to really look at the world.

The poet's and writer's eye is so different from a painter's or artists eye. I found when out driving landscapes which speak to me. Seascapes that shout at me, flowers that whisper their secrets. Synesthesia has set in. Is it a curse or a blessing? I have absolutely no Idea if I am going mad. It is a strange feeling to look at the world again in a new way. I know the message of the mystics has always been to see old places with new eyes. However our eyes get tired as we grow older and we demonstrate a reluctance to capture enough or to lock it in as if it were the last memory.

de Bottom has demonstrated the cross over in the arts just as the physicist has a cross over in in science. The physicist has to know mathematics and have vivid imagination with which to project the maths into a physical reality. A philosopher such as de Bottom brings art alive through the written word.

Now to find my paints and brushes and see if I can create an eye for detail as John Ruskin or will I drift off to do more abstract uncoordinated splashes ore akin to my old self?

Now the time has arrived to again to tread the nature trails of Palmer Road. (one of the prettiest Road in New Zealand). Time to leave the city with its potential for hustle and bustle. Time to leave the temptations of the malls and the dens of iniquity - the bookshops - time to venture into the bush to wake to the call of the bell bird and the chatter of the creek.

The household is moving inland for a few days so that I can recuperate and recover from a day when nothing has happened. I can go to a place where it is less likely that anything will happen. On my return the world will have changed. Someone would have beaten someone else at rugby.

A politician would have made an embarrassing statement which they will regret. FB would have made another change which no one requested. An Evangelist would have been caught with his pants down and the hand cart to hell would have stopped for a while while waiting for my return.

Now to check the clothes and back pack and see if my boots have been greased and my sleeping bag aired out.

Hi Ho for the wild West wander.

Prince Phillip is 90

How do we in today's world get to be positive without it all sounding saccharine and patronising? With all the gloom around- (particularly now that winter is here while the rest of the world revels in sunshine)- we feel the upset and pain of each other.

So how do we bring in those rays of joy? Do they exist?

How do we actually push our own boundaries of tolerance and accept the gifts out there?

How well do we stand up to the injustice an cruelty of past memories supported by present injustices?

Is it enough to live our own lives free of those negatives?

Those elected to positions of power and those who have grabbed power for themselves co-exist in a strange world. There we are sitting on the sideline and we watch because so often we are unable to intervene. Then we watch the psychopaths and narcissistic twerps playing out their games against each other.

So what is the answer to the first question? Perhaps -and I may have only one answer- we somehow detach ourselves and become compassionate observers and think of a nice cup of tea and a good lie down after the fray. After all to quote Walt Kelly - "Don't take life to serious it ain't no way permanent."

Left overs

Of all the most neglected dishes in the world the most neglected one is the 'left over'. Or sometimes it is called the 'wait and see'. With my cook and the rest of the household staff away enjoying the cosmopolitan delights of Australia I have been perfecting these two dishes.

The current 'left over' is based on braised venison neck chops - much favoured by my friend Charlie our security specialist- mushrooms, peas, leeks, and what ever else slowly cooked in a cast iron casserole is so yummy. Next day add rice and water to the left overs and bung it back in the oven. Even better next time round. Hunger is a great appetiser.

Now there hangs a possibility of a metaphor in life. What you have left over after an experience has some additional value if you just tweak it with some new ingredients and new spice.

52 Weeks of Change: Week Seven : Where'd my Money Go?

52 Weeks of Change: Week Seven : Where'd my Money Go?: "I think I lost sight of my goals and purpose this week. I reverted back to a pessimist that could not see any light at the end of the tunnel..."