“IF THINGS GO WRONG DON’T GO WITH THEM”.

Big important troubles, life’s disasters and catastrophes are dealt with by necessity, doing nothing is not an option, and we are strong because we have to be, there is no other choice, but as Billings said “It’s the little bits of things that fret and worry us; you can dodge an elephant but you can’t dodge a fly”.

 It is one of life’s cruelties that the smallest things take up the most space, and they can feel very big. A speck of dirt caught in your eye feels like a stone, the smallest splinter irritates constantly, creating pain out of all proportion to its size.

So it is with worry; worries are like seeds if you nurture them they grow. A tiny niggling thought that turns into a worry, steadily grows until it is so swollen that like a river breaking its banks, it floods the mind and drowns out all other thought.

Anxious thoughts are an essential part of human reasoning, they are part of our fight or flight reaction. If we did not acknowledge real threats we would not be alert and ready to deal with them. The danger is when we can not distinguish whether we are worrying about a real menace or an exaggerated maybe. 

“That the birds of worry and care fly over your head this you cannot change; but that they build nests in your hair this you can prevent”.  Chinese Proverb

Title quote by Roger Babson

“WE CAN’T ALL, AND SOME OF US DON’T. THAT’S ALL THERE IS TO IT ”. Eeyore

Life for most of us lies in accepting a series of second best, a compromise between what we desire and what is possible. If we seek nothing but perfection and see second best as failure, we deny ourselves all feeling of achievement.

 Trying is admirable, not dismissing something as impossible is an achievement, we just have to recognise that and give ourselves praise for endeavour, for self belief and for not giving up before we began. 

Failure is an event, its not a definition of character, and when things don’t turn out just as we hoped, it is important to understand that if we always aim for perfection in everything we do, we run the risk of never achieving anything.

Life is a struggle and at times we share it with triumph or disaster. The secret is to boast about trying rather than completing, to try, and finish anywhere, is a success, failure is never to have tried at all.  

George Burns said “I would rather be a failure at something I love than a success at something I hate”. So don’t mistake perfection for success, success can be about trying to achieve something you really believe in, whilst accepting that the end result may not be perfect. Celebrate how far you got in trying to get there and in doing so, you will come to realise that a feeling of achievement can never be second best.

“Fear less and hope more, all good things are yours”.  Swedish proverb.

Title quote by A.A.Milne

ALL THOSE WHO WANDER ARE NOT LOST

Even when we know exactly where we are, we can be lost. There comes a time in every life when roads we have always walked come to an end, forcing us to change direction and embark upon an unknown route that takes us through places we did not intend to go.

The new way can feel unsafe; have no reassuring landmarks and take much longer, no-one waves from the side of the road; no fellow travellers encourage you to keep going and the unfamiliar scenery makes you feel lost.

Buber wrote “All journeys have a secret destination of which the traveller is unaware”

Where you think you are going, may not be where you end up, but if you look beyond the road and discover how fulfilling travelling can be,you may find happiness in just moving forward. Your destination may not be a place but a realization of what you can achieve if you take the road less travelled and turn it into a journey of discovery.

Title is by Tolkien

IF YOU AIN'T THE LEAD DOG THE SCENERY NEVER CHANGES

Humans are fundamentally social beings; we are borne into families, and spend our childhood being moulded by others. We learn by example and mimicry, we eat what others prepare for us; we dress and behave as dictated by our culture.

Custom and practice become our guides; they compel us to become a certain kind of adult, we are pre- programmed if you like, to follow the herd and walk the well-trodden path. Once we step off this path we become outsiders, different and worryingly strange. We see life differently to others, principles long instilled in us lose their value, black and white merge into grey.

This difference can come at a price, even if you run alongside the herd, you will run in a new unrecognised way and at an inconvenient pace that singles you out.  If you are out of step you can be thought of as out of mind, be considered irresponsible, Churchill wrote “It is better to be irresponsible and right than to be responsible and wrong” 

In other words being different is neither right nor wrong it is just different, and though it is safer and more comfortable to follow the herd, that way you will end up in the same place as everyone else. You will be safe, but the journey will not have been exciting, it won’t have opened up new possibilities and you won’t have explored new places. A predictable life offers no breath taking memories and leaves  no captivating stories to tell.

The title is a quote from Lewis Grizzard.

BRAVER THAN YOU BELIEVE

Sometimes life deals us such a savage blow it can seem as if the whole world has tipped off its axis and we are free falling into space. These disasters take us off guard and come at us with speed, making it difficult to breathe and impossible to form rational thought.  So in blind panic we continue to fall, hoping to be caught but missing all the safety nets.

 It is at this time that survival instincts kick in, everyone has an inner reserve of strength, and an inbuilt ability to self-preserve, this is our parachute moment, when things start to slow down and we can take deep breaths again. Instead of panic we have planning, we remember that although the landing will be rough it won’t be fatal and we can see the road below. It may not be a road we recognize but as L.David said “If you do not know where you are going any road will take you there”.

Once we have landed even if it is in unfamiliar territory and the landing has battered our self-belief we can now start to recover and we will be stronger from having survived alone and with a courage we did not know we had.

“Promise me you will always remember, you’re braver than you believe and stronger than you seem and smarter than you think.”

Christopher Robin to Pooh