Exciting news peeps…expatriate focussed website, Expat Focus, has published a little exposé on yours truly! ps…ok so the picture is supposed to be ‘inspiring’ – not many words in a blog post looked really uninteresting…enjoy!
In meandering around Seeded Buzz this afternoon, I came across the headline ‘Why Leader Are Leaders’. Part of me wanted to dive behind the comfortable couch and hide from yet another platitude about the mysteries of leadership but my curiosity got the better of me and I read on to experience this:
The irreducible essence of leadership is that leaders are people who live their deepest personal values without compromise, and they use those values to make life better for others- this is why people become leaders and why people follow leaders. -Stan Slap in “Bury My Heart in Conference Room B”
Wow! I thought, I wonder where this came from (besides some dude in Conference Room B)? And with a simple click I arrived at the blog of the Optimal Optimist, a twenty-something girl in Philadelphia out to make a difference. And being up for a bit of difference-making myself, I read on to be reminded that:
“Smooth seas do not make for a skillful sailor.” (African Proverb)
“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
and my favourite:
“Life isn’t about finding yourself. It’s about creating yourself.” (George Bernard Shaw)
So I’m going to take my ‘deepest personal values’, follow this one for a while and see where it takes me…
Just a small diversion from the Happiest Stories on Earth for a moment to let you know that lately we have been pigging out on juicy, fresh-picked blackberries…and no I did not grow them (although the patch has started to provide the most AMAZINGLY sweet tomatoes). These blackberries grow wild in our car park and just down the hill on the roadside – yes, that’s right – in suburbia.
I have never eaten fresh-picked blackberries before – only restaurant delivered-on-a-plate ones – these are so-o-o-o delicious. J managed to fill an ice-cream container on Saturday with his not-so-slim pickings and has put half in the freezer for prosperity (of our desserts anyway).
Why did no-one tell me about this?? This is definitely the first important lessons of my 40s…
It’s been an interesting few days for me with plenty of new conversations to have around my next opportunity (you know, the one where I’m not a lady of leisure any more?) I also wore my fabulous new fuschia jacket for the first time this week (a bargain Florence and Fred find) and got lots of great comments on it…and tried another new hairdresser (despite initial raptures, the last cut turned out to be far too unmanageable to look always-fabulous) which has gone much better. So a good week for me all round…
But is there something in the air…a weird moon or something? Because things in my friends’ worlds have not been so great. Discovering news of one’s ectopic pregnancy yesterday and then finding out this morning that another had been burgled earlier this week while she, hubby and kids were asleep was just…shocking. I can’t think of any other word to describe how I felt. I mean in a logical sense, I know that crap stuff happens to good people and all that but these terrible things happening to these wonderful strong women friends of mine just seemed so out of the blue and almost too much to ask anyone to deal with – one with a betrayal of her body and the other, a violation of her home.
You might think that this makes my ‘good news’ week seem trivial in comparison. But it made me think how important it is to pay attention to all the great little moments in life – a bit like eating a really juicy slice of watermelon, savouring each bite and letting the juice run down your chin – so that when things are ‘out of season’ the wonderful snatches of everyday are the things that get us through. So this is me sending out some of my everyday ‘YAY!s’ into the world and hoping it gets us all through…
Not working at the moment gives me the opportunity to indulge in lots of different things but also to enjoy resting in the times between all of the doing. I seem to have loads more energy – both physical and mental – the latter which, for those that know me, is always looking for an outlet in reading, crosswords, puzzles etc but I am also sleeping more soundly each night than I have for a long time.
There are times when being surrounded by busy working people makes me feel a little lazy (old habits die hard!) but it does make me wonder whether we all wouldn’t be better off with a little less of the doing and a bit more of the in-between resting.
I have a desk calendar that has a ‘thought’ for each day and here is today’s:
“Think what a better world it would be if we all, the whole world, had cookies and milk about three o’clock every afternoon and then lay down on our blankets for a nap.” Barbara Jordan
Would this give us a small space to regroup, re-energise and re-focus – to rest between the ‘doings’ of life?
Imagine how quiet it would be…
We went to a lovely wedding yesterday…a simple service, an ‘action-packed’ reception with lots of family and friends and even a traditional throwing of the bride’s bouquet (a rarity in these days of modern relationships and expensive ‘unthrow-able’ flower arrangements) which, just for the record, I did not come close to catching…
Gidday from the UK 