Racking the brains

Racking the brains , 21.09.2019

It’s been a relatively uneventful week …well not so much come to think of it. Jake saw the squirrel on the window ledge Monday or Tuesday  and that has put him on high alert all week since. Fortunately, the squirrel bolted and he (Jake)  just ended up doing somersaults onto the inside window ledge.

I have finally begun again on the story of my life ! Sounds all glamorous but I had started writing it …by hand some years ago but with the MS that turned out not such a good idea. I put it on the back-burner for later. This would be a good pause for a Seth Godin anecdote.

What does it feel like when you say “later”?

What does it sound like when you put something off? All of us have a catalogue of voices in our head. We’ve got the one for feeling behind, the one for not feeling good enough, the one we use when we’re trying to avoid a sore spot. There are good reasons to decide to wait until later. Waiting for later keeps our options open. Waiting for later helps us avoid the short-term hustle. Waiting for later feels safer.

Too often, waiting for later also keeps us from leaping, from leading and from making a difference. It keeps us from moving on, moving forward. The feeling of “later” doesn’t go away. it actually gets harder and harder to leap as the time goes by. It’s easy to turn waiting for later into a habit. It’s a great way to hide from the work we truly care about, especially if it’s uncomfortable.

So…This week I decided to get back into it and I must admit it has been really therapeutic albeit demanding on the coordination.

I have been blessed with the mind of an elephant ( body of a rhino !) …but I surprised even myself when identifying my schoolmates from the very first years 1973-1975. It was also saddening to learn that a few who I have tried to contact over the years had in fact passed on. The exercise in itself gave me opportunity to reconnect with some mates from that time and it feels as if time has really stood still.

Thus, infused with energy, hands more able and inspired I have already captured my memories as seen through my eyes up until the age of 10…really nostalgic and I hope for my daughters an insight into why I am as I am.

This was also good cause for reflection on how important friendships are both family and non-family. In the end we are just all ONE family. I am suitably inspired to capture the next phases of my life, notably elements on my life spent fishing, squashing and of course music , one of the greatest loves of my life.

That been said my inspiration for the week comes courtesy of Seth (Godin)

Approaching the limits

Not the limit of our skills. Not the limit of our knowledge.

Not the limit of our physical capacity…

It’s almost always the limits of our internal narrative. Our guts. Our willingness to be kind, to believe, to care enough to leap.

We can’t do anything about the limitations of physics, and we can never do enough to change the limitations of our culture. But we can begin today on changing the internal limits we place on ourselves.

Yes, it’s your turn.

The second is about principles ( broken record here …), courtesy of Seth again

“I know it’s bad – but everyone’s doing it”

The optimists who got excited about the ‘everyone has a microphone’ promise of the Net 20 years ago overlooked two flaws in human nature:

First, given sufficient reward (money, attention, fame, notoriety) some people will show up and say and do things that they know are wrong.

Second, if enough people are in the first group of bottom fishers, many other people may decide that those behaviours aren’t as wrong as they thought they were. The internet ends up normalizing bad behaviour, because bad behaviour captures our attention and gets noticed. We multiply the outliers in our imagination and come to the erroneous conclusion that their behaviour is common, when it actually isn’t.

There are two ways forward, and both are up to us: First, we can start paying more attention (rewarding) good behaviour. And second, we can start modelling precisely the sort of discourse and contributions we hope to see from others.

The best antidote to a culture shifting to bad behaviour is to re-normalize good behaviour.

I like this philosophy; our world needs some good Role models.

The next few weeks see the Rugby World Cup taking place in Japan…I’m sure a lot of enthusiasts around the world will be up all hours to watch…for me it’s just the first encounter New Zealand vs South Africa tomorrow …the rest are …academic. There is no Dutch team playing sadly.

The music is a repeat of one of my favourites, anything starting with Imagine-John Lennon then Memory Motel by the Rolling stones …you know must be good

This weekend should see some higher temperatures to enjoy, the fur babies will enjoy it !