WHEN IN DOUBT - JUST DO IT!

Someone once said, "Easier to ask forgiveness than permission". Possibly true. Possibly also not a one size fits all solution to every whim and idea that appeals to some spontaneous impulse. Sometimes, for example the decisions we make are going to effect other people.

A decision or belief that the world is ending - on the next day somebody out there has decided it will really end this time - does not make your impulse to sell everything you own, build a bomb shelter or bet your life savings on some crazy wish extravagance, a good idea. Possibly, as it has before, the world may not end and you will have bankrupted yourself AND your family and left them to, in the real world, begin again with nothing, when the world has not ended.  

The same impulse, which can be charming and whimsical and spontaneous, might also backfire on throwing the cost of a new car on a roll of the roulette wheel or some other form of gamble. Yes, I know I am speaking of extremes in putting forward such examples.

There are times however, when moving forward and taking a chance is much more likely to lead to great success. For example, a business decision sometimes requires a belief in yourself and a confident leap of faith, so as to move ahead towards greater success. Hard work, serious evaluation a degree of good luck and good timing, and a decision made at the right time, is slightly different than momentary recklessness and acting on a dare or out of bravado.

I enjoy reading about the success of Richard Branson. He has written a few books about his career. I have found them quite interesting. I admire so much his openness to trying new ideas. In fact one of his book titles is: SCREW IT, LET'S DO IT. Catchy title, but also showing that despite misgivings, he has sometimes, perhaps even often said, LET'S DO IT...LET'S TRY IT ANYWAY... despite our misgivings.

I still intend to give a lot of thought to Branson's ideas put out in his more recent book, SCREW BUSINESS AS USUAL in which he talks about giving back to society and the world we live in.

Meanwhile, 'Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained' is a phrase we might use when we recognize that we have let fear hold us back from trying something. Such fear as each of us has about one area of our life or another, may not be shared by other people around us. They may wonder what all the fuss is about because, what is a fear for us is not one they share. Trust me, they too have something they fear, we all do. It might just not be the same fear we have.

Your fear is very REAL TO YOU, therefore I would say, acknowledge it and do not concern yourself that it is not something everyone else shares or understands. However, once you recognize and acknowledge what it is that is holding you back personally, work on taking even small steps to overcome your fear, either by yourself or with someone's help and encouragement.

Hopefully, you and I, will overcome some of the fears that hold us back from realizing our dreams and wishes and that is why sometimes you might even decide that though you have a few misgivings left about what might work or not work if you give the action you fear a try, you might just succeed. I therefore suggest, that sometimes WHEN IN DOUBT - JUST DO IT! You have a good chance of being pleasantly surprised and pleased to have put an obstruction behind you and moved toward a new life.

YOUR HAPPINESS DEPENDS ON IT

When you woke up this morning, within a few seconds you made a decision important to your day. You either felt anticipation of the day ahead, or immediately thought of the amount of things weighing you down. 

Most of us don't leap out of bed as children do, ready to run toward the day ahead, raring to go, so to speak. Usually, we wake up a bit more slowly, see it's time to get up, stretch...sometimes groan and sit up. 

Within seconds we start thinking about what day it is, what we have to do that day, whether we are late already and how much time we have to spend waking up before the days events demand we get moving at full speed.

When it's Saturday, unless you have small children and probably won't get to sleep in much, you may take more time than you would when facing a work week commute and a busy day ahead.

Nevertheless, within a few minutes of waking, you have unconsciously made a decision about how your day will be.

In another essay, I posed the question - WILL TODAY BE A GOOD DAY OR A BAD DAY? YOU DECIDE. I think about this because I believe that when I wake up thinking my head is sore, or my knee is sore, or I want more sleep etc. 
On a day I think will be tough, I have often felt I would like to just pull the covers over my head and not get up at all that day. 

My family and I seem to have made an art of trying for as many extra 15 minutes of sleep as we can get. The Snooze Alarm on the clock is, I am convinced a gift from God that let's us have the extra minutes and even seconds of sleep, I need to face the day. I am more than a bit serious about this.

Nevertheless, I know that when I am happy with myself and my life, I am more likely to wake up ready for the day and feel ready to get up and go much more enthusiastically than when I am unhappy or feel loaded down with concerns and responsibilities.

I also think about the theory of the GLASS HALF FULL or GLASS HALF EMPTY, in other words, OPTIMISM AND PESSIMISM in how we approach things. Most of us know by now which is closer to our view of life most of the time.

If Pessimistic, we are more likely to feel loaded down more often than someone who is generally Optimistic.

As time has gone on though, most of us know that we do not greet the day with the enthusiasm with which Children do. In fact, the minute we think about this, most of us known that this is true. It is also something I thought it might be nice to try and bring back into my life.

I have thought about this a bit and decided that I have learned to not greet the day with great enthusiasm and maybe I can unlearn it.

Since no one can change my behaviour and attitude but myself, I realized that if I want to unlearn a negative thing, I could do it. It might take a while, but it probably took a while for me to not be thrilled at having another day to celebrate being alive and anticipating good things.

Like everything else, change does not happen in five minutes. The decision to change might be a quick one, but changing old habits will probably take a bit of effort to succeed. As with many other tasks, I decided to start small. At first this involved not groaning and frowning at myself in the mirror and slumping down with my first cup of coffee of the day. 

To start small, I would curb the impulse to groan as the days demands came into my consciousness. I would push myself to look in the mirror and smile (and sometimes even laugh at the crazy way my hair was sticking up). I would try, to not list all the aches and pains I thought I had from how I slept and instead, try and say something nice to the first person I met. 

Therefore, my greeting to someone would no longer be something negative such as "same old, same old" which can be used for referring to the day ahead being likely to be a repetition of the last one. 

Today is actually a new day, as is each day...so if you think about it, you will not be having a repeat of a previous one. 

Because I think we can do something about the day we will experience, by giving it and the people we meet, a chance to be part of a good experience, I now try and give each new day a chance to be a good one. I am happier most of the time; maybe if you give it a try, you will be too.

GIVE YOURSELF A BREAK

Years ago, I remember reading that when you earned money you should pay yourself first. In your emotional and personal life as well, you should also pay yourself, but in a different way.

We all make mistakes; most of them can be corrected. We apologize to the person we wronged, we repaint and cover the wall we painted an odd colour, we get up and try again after a fall or a mistake. Often we say, 'forgive and forget' and often we do.

However, and more unfortunately, we often find it easier to forgive someone we love and care for more easily than we do ourselves. It is surprising how long we can be angry at ourselves for something we did or a unwise decision we made in our lives.

We can actually be pretty brutal with ourselves, sometimes more unforgiving and upset and angry with ourselves than with anyone else including the other party. This is especially true when we have been cheated or stolen from by someone else and have lost face, felt humiliated. When insult and injury combine, we have also lost money we could perhaps not afford to lose. 

What can we do about this? Hating ourselves and self disgust are akin to self pity in destructiveness in such situations. I suggest instead that we work harder than usual to forgive ourselves. 

To me the best revenge truly is in living well, in thriving, in learning not to repeat the same mistake again, and most importantly, to moving on to become a wiser and even better person.

When we put our mistakes behind us quickly, and forever relegate them to the past, we recover more quickly. Our mistake becomes a small blip on the radar of our lives, rather than an obstruction and a big detour.

Give yourself a break. If what you did was an error in judgement, forgive yourself. We all make mistakes. If out of a good heart, you trusted someone and they abused that trust, you may have been hurt but you remain the person in the situation that acted out of good intentions. When you are hurt or taken advantage of, you learn and from this you grow. 

Nothing you do honestly, and from goodness and kindness makes you a lesser person than you were before you experienced this situation.

Dust yourself off, experience your remorse or anger or tears, but only for a reasonable time. Then put it behind you for good and give yourself the same break you would give the other person were the situation reversed and the other person came to you trying to put a past mistake behind them. 

HOW TO TURN YOUR LIFE AROUND

Whether you believe it or not, the world is your Oyster. Each of us has a lot of options whatever our circumstances, and wherever we find ourselves at this moment.

To begin with, we have the day in which we find ourselves. A while ago, I asked myself...and you...WILL TODAY BE A GOOD DAY OR A BAD DAY? and I put it out there, that you could have some choice, you could decide, which it was going to be.

I believe we have a decision to make every day. In fact, we have a lot of choices that we make. The choices we make effect our day, our week, our month, our year and could quite easily effect our whole lives. Think about it.

Almost everybody knows, or if they are lucky, used to know, someone who is like a 'dark cloud'. Every time you meet them, they seem ready to tell you about everything that is wrong. They will tell you what is wrong with their health, their job, their life, their spouse, their parents, their friends and, if you are really lucky and they are going full tilt; what has always bothered them about you.

Needless to say, when they finally leave and tell you they'll see you later, most of us mumble to ourselves, "Not if I see you first".

There are other people who seem always to have some calamity in their lives. They seem to be running hard and always running, but somehow although they are frantic and exhausted, they never seem to do anything but run.

The opposite is the person so laid back, that a permanent state of MANANA has become a way of life for them as they put off until tomorrow what they needed to do today, or yesterday, or last week. Their homes and their lives are a perpetual DIY (do it yourself) project.

The disorganized person, the procrastinator, the chronic complainer and the pessimist, do not recognize that the choices they have made, make their lives the way they are.

Whichever group we find ourselves in from time to time, we could be making a new decision turn our lives around and become someone who knows that today is going to be a good day. 

When we make choices to work with possibilities and opportunities, instead of either letting either the things or the people around us pull us down, when we would really like to go up.

CHALLENGE YOURSELF - PERSONAL BEST

I am going to surprise you today. I am going to admit that my life has not been perfect. I however, am not surprised. 

Several months ago, I stated that I believed that lifelong learning is one of the reasons why we are alive and that I expected always to be learning however long I lived. I realize that I still believe that today.

I never had any illusions that I was perfect and because of this I consider myself a very fortunate person. Even better, by the time I had reached my mid 20's I realized that there were some things I was never going to be very good at. 

For example, most of the sciences were, and remain, terra incognita, to me. I accept also that I probably will never be either a great athlete or a wonderful dancer, except in my dreams.

These areas, which I admit are not ones in which I excel at and which I accept as, either difficult or impossible for me, have made it possible for me to recognize that other people have abilities different from mine. Different, but not necessarily better. 

The things I do well on the other hand, are where I both excel and compete. The competition is with myself. The words 'personal best' ensure that there will always be a challenge for me, but it is with myself.

What I learned from these two things, that I am not perfect and to accept that I have my own strengths and weaknesses, has made it possible to live a pretty good life.

Knowing I am not perfect, means that sometimes I will make a mistake. When I make a mistake, I accept that it is a mistake and not my whole life. Usually I try and correct the mistake, and move on. Although this is not always right away, I moved ahead as soon as I can. The reason I do this, is that a mistake is not going to change my whole life.

Because I recognize that I have some things I do well and I have a goal to keep learning, both from the good things I accomplish AND from the mistakes that I make, I find it easier to correct the mistakes I can, accept that some things have to be forgiven AND forgotten, and move forward.

I am no different than anybody else, except that I am comfortable not being perfect. I expect to always be working on improving myself. I accept that this will probably be a lifelong process. I think this is not so bad.

Like you, I put one foot in front of the other to get where I am going. The best thing is that I know that as long as I am willing to get up and put one foot in front of the other, I am probably going to get somewhere. 

With a bit of luck and some planning, it will be somewhere interesting and I will learn something new.

THE CHANGING SEASONS IN NORTH AMERICA

North America experiences four season, which normally are fairly well defined.
Each one, offers a good transition before the next and this prepares us for the next phase of the year ahead. 

Generally it might be said, that each season lasts about a quarter of the year. Therefore, by December with the calendar years end, Winter has arrived and will continue for another few months. The longest day of the year being December 21st, after which we begin hoping for an early Spring. 

Spring, usually promises Winter's end, rebirth of the trees and flowers and generally warmer weather ahead. 

After Spring, comes the warmest weather, lighter clothing and attitudes of Summer. Some of us find it hard to believe that the contrast between the very hot days of Summer, compared to the very cold ones of Winter. 

However, by the time the third quarter of the year arrives in September, we again begin to prepare, in Autumn for the last months of the year and the Winter season. 

The lightening of our mood, clothing and coming of warmer temperatures always seemed a good time for airing out of the house, in preparation for spring. This included pulling out lighter clothing in preparation for warmer weather. A sort of shedding the heavier, warm clothing needed in winter seemed also to involve a shedding of our heavier and more serious winter demeanour as well.

By the time summer arrived, we seem to have adopted, along with very light clothing, a much lighter attitude to the warm, sunny days ahead.

Autumn however, is a reverse of the lightening that Spring brings us. We are now entering, the third quarter of the year, here in North America. The season is known as Autumn (also sometimes called Fall). The children have just returned to school and soon we will witness the leaves turning to a vast array of beautiful colours and then falling off of the trees.

Often, especially in recent years, a long period called Indian Summer, makes this a rather beautiful time of year, neither really hot or really cold. It precedes and prepares us for the colder weather which will soon follow. 

Indian Summer and the autumn season prepare us for the final season of the year, Winter.

Winter, brings us cold, wind and various amounts of snow which covers the ground. Winter completes the four seasons which define the North American climate.

Each season comes with its own climactic change, clothing changes, ambiance and a range of activities we can participate in and enjoy.

It is possible that each of us has a season we like best. Part of enjoying life fully however, is making certain that we find some activities and events that we enjoy in each season. These become the touchstones of our year. These give us a chance to participate in the life around us, as well as, acknowledge and appreciate the beauty of the world as the annual cycle of nature unfolds around us.