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What do you really want out of life? Now what's stopping you?

Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Set in Concrete

Was politely informed by a 5 year old today that he would die before his 4-year-old friend because he was born before him. Cute, and a great example of concrete thinking. How much do we limit our thinking of the future to our current situation and past experience? Probably quite a lot. How often do we fail to dream because our experience teaches us otherwise? A lot of people probably never reach their dreams because they don’t bother to dream at all. How many children grow up only to live out their parents’ dreams because they allowed their parents to dream for them? I had a patient this week that would love to play pro soccer-only one problem; his parents are unwilling to let him pursue it because they don’t see a future in it. There may be more than one way for him to achieve his dream, but his parents would rather pick his career for him than listen to him and sit down and make a way for him to succeed (he could do a part time or distance degree later and still train, or maybe get a sports scholarship to university to give him another option if it doesn’t work out). That last statement in parentheses raises another question-if you give someone the option to do something else “if it doesn’t work out for you”, will that not increase the opportunity for failure by creating an escape route when things get tough? Anyone got any ideas or stats on this?

Friday, January 19, 2007

Influence of Dance

Spent last night watching a rerun of ‘So You Think You can Dance’. One of the comments made by the judges was that a certain style of dance should be felt by the people at the back row, not just those at the front, in order to have an effect. Having experienced this first hand I can fully understand his comment-your projection from stage has to carry presence and be larger than life. If the person in the back row can sense what you are portraying then you’ve got it right.

Meditating on this, I think that this is a principle that applies to the rest of life. Where is your sphere of influence being felt? How large is it and is it growing? Your sphere not only rests on how many people you impact, but has to do with the quality of that impact. I have been challenged to look at the various aspects of my life, to see where I am being effective and to see what else I can do to improve

Reading lately?

“Mushrooms kill Family” was the headline in today’s paper. What type of malcontent fungi would commit such an atrocity and how did they perform the dastardly deed? I mean, was this a gang of small mushrooms that crushed their victims to death while bouncing on them in large numbers, or were they the larger chainsaw wielding variety of toadstool that needed to be quelled by the army? And do we not as a nation have anything better to report (preferably with a more accurate headline)?

Been catching up on my reading. I have currently been going through three books simultaneously, not my usual style, but effective. I am in the middle of Ed Cole’s ‘Real Man’ and Bill Bryson’s ‘ Here and There’ (very funny and satirical). The first book I have finished this year, however, was Pastor Bonnie Deuschle’s ‘The Great Connection’. It is essentially a parable outlining foundational truths on Christian Praise and Worship and is based on the Hebrew and Greek root words that are far more expressive than the English word ‘Praise’. I found it easy to read and understand, well laid out and planned. She has a Masters in Music Education that you can see has been put to good use, I am well versed with her teaching ability and am glad to say that it translates as well on paper as she does in her seminars. It is a great, practical read, not just for Christians everywhere but for anyone who desires a greater understanding of why people do what they do in some churches. Also if you want to see how to express ideas clearly and concisely, read this book.

Friday, January 12, 2007

Celebrations

There are plenty of reasons to celebrate right now. Firstly, this is my 100th post! A major milestone considering that when I started I wasn’t sure if I’d make it past a month. Also, I finally sent out my query letters for my book-so some lucky agent will get the first chance to say yes in the not to distant future. We won’t go into why it took me so long to get it out, but it is done and now we wait for replies. I have done all I can think of to do in getting the letters out, I’ve done my part (there are a couple of other options, like self publishing, but the tried and tested with the big market share for now). Today is also my gran’s 80th birthday, so will be celebrating with her tomorrow. I also celebrate 5 years in private practice this month-time has flown by and I still can’t believe it has been that long. To top it all I just had a call from my sister in the U.K.. It’s a beautiful day.

Sunday, January 07, 2007

A different kind of time.

Time announced their person of the year last week-its you! Rather than focus on a specific individual, they devoted an issue to web 2.0, the concept of the grassroots revolution that has created the dynamic organism that this blog is part of. Sure they focused on a few individuals, but this was to illustrate various aspects of the web. So from Youtube to Wikipedia, they celebrated the uniqueness of the individual and the collaborative whole. If you are not part of this global movement, then where have you been?

All this begs the question, what’s next? Is this just a short term burst of creativity that will flounder out in a short period as all but a few dedicated individuals neglect their blogs? Will government bureaucracy and legislation stifle the web? Or will it evolve into something different where even more people have access and can communicate through even more imaginative and inventive means? Imagine real time though processed onto the web for all to see via neuronal interconnectors with your brain, interacting through virtual screens projected in front of us. Sound sci-fi, but so did computers. The concept of the computer existed long before it came into being. The scenario I described with the complete openness of private thought is scary though, because beep down the individual in us longs for some privacy, can hide behind a fake avatar and the ability to turn off the PC at the end of a session.

Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Time like an ever rolling stream...

So the New Year is 72 hours old…already! Time is the one commodity we never get back, once it’s gone, it’s gone for good. Sounds fatalistic but it is true. I am appalled by the amount of time that I have already wasted this year-moments spent in indecision, moments spent waiting for an appointment, and moments spent-well I don’t know what happened to them. This continual seepage of time from my productive totality requires steps! (Wasn’t that a cool sounding sentence ‘productive totality’ I must remember that one.) I have a list of small things to do between larger items should the need arise, I am carrying a CD player with me (CD’s, remember those outdated things before IPods) to listen to continued input from the TPI course that I did, and I am planning my day in advance to try minimise wastage. It’s that I don’t want to have any ‘free time’ when I can relax, but better use of available time will add up to more ‘free time’ later when I can do things that people may regard as less productive (roller-blading for instance).

Monday, January 01, 2007

Happy New Year!

Still going strong in the coffee shop, but hope to close up in the next hour or so. May 2007 be a prosperous and exciting time of growth and development with a whole bunch of fun thrown in.