The biggest adventure you can ever take is to live the life of your dreams. — Oprah Winfrey

I spend many hours during my pre-teenage days flicking through atlases and reading any copy of National Geographic I could lay my hands on, imaging faraway places and adventures on foreign shores.  The fact that I happened to be living in the Seychelles during this period meant it was not a foreign shore to me.  My ambition was to become a sailor in the Royal Navy whose ships occasionally graced the islands’ shores and whose officers graced my mother’s guest house whilst on shore leave.

Time passed and we moved to Zimbabwe where, thanks to my job after I left school, I got to travel extensively throughout the country; a thing many people do not get to do in their own countries.  We were not obliged to stay in hotels (in many cases there were no hotels) so we roughed it.  I loved that part of my work but it all finally came to a halt with promotion.

“When you travel, remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable. It is designed to make its own people comfortable.” –  Clifton Fadiman

Fast forward some years and I am a married man and father of one living in England.  Here, I come to realise that many people take some sort of holiday every year, in some cases, two holidays a year, many times involving travel to foreign parts.  I never seem to have the finance to do that and for years, my holidays were spent fixing up the house or the garden.

What I came to realise about many of those who did go on holiday is that fact that they rarely got to know the countries they visited.  Many went to Spain and spoke no Spanish or knew anything outside the holiday area the visited, the Alps attract thousands of English people and many can’t tell you anything about the local towns near the ski resorts.  Many have been to exotic locations like the Caribbean and not even left the resort!

“A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.” – Lao Tzu

Eventually I could manage and with a much larger family, took a holiday in Wales.  We did it again the following year.  On the second visit, we left the resort and went to explore the major towns of Cardiff and Swansea on day trips.  Some years later we went to France and despite my initial reservations, I find I actually like France and its people.  My two eldest children then went to New York, I did Brazil and my two youngest accompanied their mother to Zimbabwe.

If anything, Brazil was the catalyst for me.  It no doubt played a part in my decision to leave work and do something new which led to Mixed In Different Shades project being born.  Planning and writing for the project awakened the dream of travelling and seeing the world and it led to the realisation that I wanted more from life than what the future held then.  The state of our marriage and my wife’s vision of her own future meant that we came to the realisation that we were both unlikely to achieve any form of long term happiness together and we agreed amicably to go separate ways; so much better than spending the rest of our lives resenting, with its negative impact on families, each other.

So here I am on the 1^st of March, 2011.  So far, there have been various reasons for why I have delayed stepping onto the plane, reasons that are starting to look like excuses and I do realise that I am apprehensive.  This month, I will take that first step.

“Not all those who wander are lost.” – J. R. R. Tolkien

This trip will not be one of comfortable hotel rooms and plush local foods – these comforts tend not only to make travelling expensive but they remove from the very people you travel to meet – so maybe a better description of what I am about to do is vagabonding.  Vagabonding requires stepping out your comfort zone, embracing experiences as they come along; a way to connect to the planet and its people and a way to find out who you really are.

May you find the balance.

Links

• Vagabonding
• The 50 Most Inspiring Travel Quotes Of All Time

Thanks and here we go again.  Life has certainly changed for me over the last few months and particularly since my separation.  I am currently in the throes of trying not to get buried under the enormity of it all and keep my project – which I also reviewed here – moving forward.  Have I practiced what I preach about balance over these few months?  No, and it shows in the stress level I feel right now.  No exercise, no healthy eating, all my mental capacity concentrating on what needs to be done and emotionally on a roller coaster.  At least, I feel alive!

Within the next month I will be leaving my home to undertake a sort of pilgrimage around the world, a sort of adult gap year if you will.  Now that of course does not do much for my contentment level at all.  Facing uncertain challenges is not the recipe for a happy person but I am hoping that once I get used to time on the road, I may find time to practise what I preach.  I hope to appreciate what life is all about.  Failing which, the lessons I will learn will no doubt be a source of some personal growth, if I don’t kill myself or get myself killed.  Maybe though I will find my true place in the sun where I can settle and attempt to achieve the balance I so seek in my life.

What more can I say?

May you find the balance.

“The first symptom of the process of our killing our dreams is the lack of time. The busiest people I have known in my life always have time enough to do everything. Those who do nothing are always tired and pay no attention to the little amount of work they are required to do. They complain constantly that the day is too short. The truth is, they are afraid to fight the Good Fight.”

Read More here

I’m not the only one saying this….

If You Are Unsatisfied With Your Life, You Only Have One Choice: Follow Your Heart.

France - By the Lake

I cannot believe that it is nearly a month since I posted here – where has the time gone? Maybe my project is turning into an obsession. Anyway, here goes.

Last week, I went to visit my sister in France and with the additional wish to catch the last of the summer sun that appeared to have by-passed the British Isles this year. My sister has an 11 year old daughter and a 3 year old son and both speak both English and French fluently. Her son who has never lived in the UK speaks is excellent for a 3 year old but has strong French accent despite both his mum and his sister not having one. What is even more fascinating is that the 3 year old can switch from language to language without thinking even in the same company – speaking to his dad and grandparents in French and to the rest of us in English. He was even teaching my daughter how to say some stuff in French. Quite amazing!

Growing up, I was lucky in that all the countries I lived in English was spoken widely enough for basic day to day and schooling life to be not much of a problem. Despite that I learnt enough of the local languages to get by, after all my friends would all speak their mother tongue on most occasions and I was not going to be left out!

Brazil - Carnival

It is quite moving when you read of the initial misery of immigrants as they try to learn new customs and languages. I follow a number of ex-pat bloggers in Brazil where Portuguese is widely spoken. Every one of them has made big efforts to learn the language including attending evening classes and displaying great frustration with perceived lack of progress. Just being able to do the basics without interpretation is the initial target. However, even when a reasonable level of language acquisition, these bloggers organise meet-ups so they can speak English and discuss living in Brazil. They need to do this because the deeper language of feelings and experiences are best communicated in the mother tongue and we need to do that occasionally.

Apparently, and I say that because we are still learning so much about our brains, adults process other languages differently from children growing up in a multi-language community, hence the difficulty we have with new languages. Not so sure that remains true for too long, my sister assures me she is even starting to think and dream in French!

France - Alps

It is not only with other languages that we have problems, communicating in our own languages can be problematic. Many misunderstandings and conflicts stem from lack of communication or miscommunication. How many marriages have you heard of that have gone to the wall because of ‘communication breakdown’? There can be no doubt that communication is a major aspect of the human condition and yet many times we erect barriers to communication; my favourite example is the widespread use of earphones in public. Can we, then, wonder why we feel that life is passing us by and we end up unhappy? Just something to think about.

By the way, the pictures in this post where taken by your truly with a simple point and shoot camera – good, innit?

May you find the balance.

“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.”  Bertrand Russell (1872 – 1970).

If you are a consumer of the countless American success formulas, you will know that the vast majority will educate you to remove not all your own doubts but any doubters that may be around you.  You must be certain of the path you have chosen and pursue it relentlessly lest you lose your momentum towards you goal of success.  Doubt is the enemy.

Now there is something I have learnt over my decades on this planet and that there is rarely a human trait or any other animal’s for that matter that does not have an evolutionary reason for existence.  Just how many times must scientists state some trait has no value only for it to be retracted months or even years later before we get the hint?  It may not always be perfect, it may be troublesome, but a lot of nature’s gifts are there for a reason.

Therefore, doubt must, no doubt, serve its purpose, so to speak.  All living creatures have an overarching purpose, to survive as long as possible in order to procreate as much as possible.  We may think we can overcome this principle with our will until such time as it is tested.  Doubt allows us to examine whatever evidence is before us to ensure that it makes sense and does not pose a danger to our survival.

Self-doubt is the having to examine your actions and your motivations.  Brushing it aside is a recipe for disaster because to be successful you must constantly review your environment and the effects of your last actions and review any assumptions you made about the direction you are traveling.

And so it is for yours truly.  Now that things have sort of slowed down a little and things have not been going according to plan, I find myself re-evaluating the big decision I made a few months.  What’s different is that whereas in the past, I would be beating myself up and being miserable, I recognise what is happening and though a bit deflated, I am letting my thoughts sort themselves out for a while.

Until next time, may you find the balance.

According to Wikipedia, “although the human brain represents only 2% of the body weight, it receives 15% of the cardiac output, 20% of total body oxygen consumption, and 25% of total body glucose utilisation.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain#Brain_energy_consumption).  Assuming of course that working the brain, like working the body, ups energy requirement and considering that I have spent over 2 months sweating my brain on a thinking treadmill getting my new project off the ground, I would expect that I would have lost some weight.  Alas, that does not appear to have happened. Why not?  Answers on a postcard, please.

Regular readers of this blog know that I propose balancing aspects of life in order to achieve some happiness.  Since leaving work at the end of July and working on my new project I have to admit that I have neglected my own advice.  However, as I have the initial part of project up and running now, I have recognised that I have to return to earth and have to deal with other earthly matters such as my emotions, health and wealth.  I am so much aware of my growing midriff and my growing unfitness.  This is what prompted my musings on the brain.

The truth of the matter is, I have never been a physical type of bloke.  Any physical endeavors, apart maybe from walking,  requires a major effort on my part and the only successful times I have engaged in any long term physical activity was when it was incorporated into my daily routine.  Any break in that routine, and it requires concerted effort to restart.  It seems so unfair that life expects a ‘geekish’ person like me to take up physical exercise to stay fit and healthy, so unfair.

Even my spiritual time, contemplation and day dreaming in my case, has been dominated by the project.  There are other things I need to contemplate though and I am becoming so aware that time is rushing past like an express train and I will need to deal with some of these matters very soon.

It would appear that being so engrossed in an activity can, at least for a certain period of time, overcome any shortcomings in your life balance.  I must admit I have not been particularly unhappy and I have been enjoying the change of working situation.  I know I have been firing on mental overload and emotional and physical suppression but I can feel I am heading for a ‘sugar crash’. 

Now the project is in the sort of ‘act, wait and see’ stage, I need to turn my attention to other things and my physical aspect is the most pressing need and that needs lots of work, rats!  Ah well, it means I can post more regularly again.  Any suggestions of a weight loss exercise regime for one of the laziest people on the planet will be gratefully received.

May you find the balance.

CAN money buy you happiness? The answer, it appears, depends on what you mean by “happiness”. High earners are generally more satisfied with their lives, it seems, but a persons day-to-day emotional wellbeing is only influenced by money up to a certain point.

via Money can buy you happiness – up to a point – life – 07 September 2010 – New Scientist.

When you get the choice to sit it out or dance, I hope you dance. [Lee Ann Womack - I Hope You Dance*]

Yesterday, on my ‘experience’ wanderings (that’s what I like to call them) I happened into a bar where a few, maybe 30 or so, people were learning to salsa.  As a side line, at £5 a head, that is not a bad little pocket money enterprise.   Salsa is big in the UK and I think most major cities have at least one salsa night at some local establishment.  Dozy Wolverhampton apparently has three!  Members of my family have occasionally tried to tempt me into ‘trying’ it.  It got me thinking.

I do not believe there are bad dancers; I believe that most bad dancers are people dancing to music that is not them.   Dancing to me is like dreaming awake, the music takes you on a journey in your head and your body wants to go with the flow.  Your thoughts are your body’s teacher and the dance may change depending on the mood, depending on the music.  It has been said that music and by extension dance is something we are born with – that is why mothers sing to their babies – and every human culture has music and dance.  It is part of being human.

I don’t like salsa or other types of learned dancing, a fact my mother realised when she stopped trying to teach me to waltz and foxtrot and that other nonsense.  I am a thinking man, translating other people’s actions into my own takes time and when the motivation is not there, it tends not to happen.   Yet I dance all the time. With young people in my household, music is always a background noise and if I like a song, I might do a quick few steps or a few more at anytime, just like that, sometimes to the embarrassment of my children.

Seriously though, if you have been told you can’t dance, you can, find the right music and keep dancing.  If you don’t dance, start right now, it is like a breath of fresh air for all of those 3 minutes worth of song.  Do it alone, do it with others whatever you do take a little time to dance.  If you really must take some salsa lessons near you and you get to dance with lots of girls/boys….

And here’s a plus.  My dear 60 plus mother, no actual age given due to the danger of her spoiling her chances of finding me a new step-father, has used her love of dancing to lose weight and keep it off.  She has done fantastically well.  With over 300 songs on her MP3 player – she is hardly likely to get bored very soon and she spends just an hour a day dancing away in her own little piece of heaven.  Not a new idea by any stretch of the imagination, you could use that for exercise instead of the tedious gym trips.  I plan to dig up some dance music later, time to follow my own advice.

May you find the balance.

*written by Mark D. Sanders and Tia Sillers

“I am available on most weeknights, not degree educated but well versed in matters of politics, economics, religion and the like.  Personal disasters like career disappointments and failed romantic encounters can be discussed and I am not too averse to bouncing balls, kicking balls and hitting balls with a bat but much prefer the kind of play available at the local night club.  I can hold my liquor quite well and am unlikely to return any curries eaten under the influence.  Being a little on the large side enables me to fireman lift any friend to whom the excitement becomes too much.  All this for the price of a taxi ride home!  Bookings being take now, form an orderly queue please, we’re British.”

Yes, my friends, this what we have been reduced to, on top of rent a TV, rent a fridge, rent a lady for a dinner date , we know can rent someone we can bore the pants off.  Unlike real friends who can piss you off, ask for their money back or simply disagree with your fascist views – this one you get to choose from a wonderful list of rental friends.  Be very careful how you type that into Google, will you please, we would want you finding out what other kind of ‘friendly’ services that are for rent.

Ignore these sourpusses at the Independent and at the Guardian, just because they have the time to be making friends and putting up with their boring lot, we know in the real world we need to get what we want and get it now.  I am sure the bank manager, a good friend if there ever was one, will authorise the overdraft extension to take out a friend a week,  Oh, OK then may be too much, once a fortnight then.  The rest of the time we can concentrate on working hard to pay of the overdraft – maybe two jobs will do it.   Apparently there are jobs currently available undertaken by illegal immigrants that no-one else would do for love or money, where a good British born worker would be gratefully received.  Who knows you might make an immigrant friend, you know the one you can say ‘I have a ….. friend’ in conversation with your rented friend.

By the way those of you on my Facebook friend list, please send me your credit card details, it’s nothing personal, just business.

On the other hand, go out there, meet people and make some friends.

May you find the balance.

My 60 year plus mother holds some very set view about certain sections of society that may have some basis in experience but most likely does not.  Since she comes for the generation of the great –isms, I assumed that my siblings and I just brushed off these prejudices, sometimes with argument. Imagine my surprise when discussing a certain serious family issue with one of my siblings when they strongly expressed an opinion consistent with one of my mother’s which I know is not based in their experience.

This got me thinking about some of the prejudices that haunt our societies today, things like racism, nationalism, tribalism and even classism.  Wikipedia states that ‘a prejudice is a prejudgment: i.e. a preconceived belief, opinion, or judgment made without recourse to reason’ and that is generally true.  I am not sure that all prejudices were originally without reason – historical reasons may have been the origin but that reason is lost when it no longer holds true.

Many times our prejudices appear to be passed to us by other people, our parents, our friends, our governments without the benefit of personal experience.  We are also more likely to accept these opinions if they originate from one of us – a family member, a tribal member or some other member of a group that we belong to.  The thing is that is one of the things that make us human, owing to our evolved communication and empathy skills, we do not have to experience unpleasant situations if someone else is in a position to relate that experience to us.  That is how we learn.

We all know that small children over a certain age get upset if they are introduced into strange environments or to strange people, strange is anything substantially different from the norm – like a different skin colour!   There must be an inherent fear of the unknown in all humans and that would make evolutionary sense.  Until it is proven safe, we must fear it for it may be looking for dinner.  Take that built in defence mechanism and add the prejudices of the group and we have what we have.

For that reason I believe everyone has some prejudices, even me.  It is the people who take a chance and explore and challenge the prejudices – those who have relationships outside their race, class and tribe, those who travel to experience the world and her peoples that have an increased their potential of finding happiness, finding contentment.  Many find friendship, many find love and many find their place in the sun.

Continuing to hold on to those –isms reduce your life options, hold you back from experiences that enrich life, maybe it is time to challenge them.

May you find the balance.

Unlike many of my peers, when I was in my middle teenage years, I knew that I wanted to have a family; I wanted to be a father.  I was going to find the right woman, get married, have babies and have a good job to support it all.  I knew this because I loved children, loved being amongst families, mostly other people’s, having had no real ‘family’ experience or so I thought at the time.

Eventually I did get married and I did have children and I have worked nearly all the time during the years.  Most of my jobs I suppose would be considered ‘good jobs’ by a high percentage of the population though some did, in my opinion, inadequately recompense me for my talent.  There is a little thing that spoils this happy picture; I have, on occasion, put the well-being of the family at risk in my selfish search for the ‘good job’ bit.

What is the good job?  I am not sure but I will know it when I find it.  I have an idea that it is work that will be satisfying and rewarding, something that I will want to do for the rest of my life or at least for the greater part of it.   The big question is, will it pay enough to allow me to support my family and if it didn’t, could I pass it up? 

Many people would do and feel proud that they have made the sacrifice for their family.  Many though would not even get to this stage, instead having found an acceptable, not necessarily comfortable, position are willing to sit it out to retirement.  I suppose I should be thankful for people like these because the success I have experienced so far in my life is because of their lack of ambition.

And there you have it, the description of my ailment, ambition.  I am talking about is not the limited ‘I want the promotion at work’ ambition but something bigger.   I am not the only one and I would hesitate a guess that some 10 to 15% of the grown population have this affliction.  I accept that it will vary from society to society, for instance, the US American attitude of entrepreneurship may result in a higher proportion.   

Not wanting to start a gender war here, my observations lead me to believe that a woman, who has not started her high power career by the time she starts a family, is likely to become more accepting of  her circumstances,  maybe even complacent,  and will endeavour to make it comfortable for her family.  The biological clock phenomenon is not pseudo-science, it is fact.  Nature has provided a natural ambition for the female, the production of children and their nurturing.  Additionally, the presence of a permanent partner is not a requirement but a ‘nice to have’ and most societies have obliged.  I do not suggest that is the only ambition and obviously there are exceptions to the rule.

Rarely are things that simple.  We have a fair number of men, some dragging along nervous partners and children, blundering about looking for that ‘something better’.    Here is a question, if I am unhappy, unsatisfied, discontent, how likely is it that I will be able to provide a stable and loving environment for my family in the long term?  Unfortunately, sometimes this uncertainty upsets the mother’s endeavour to provide stability and families split up.

Many content people do not do what they do for the money; they do it for the passion, the love, the satisfaction.   That is what makes this special bunch better people, better partners, better parents.  I have a burning ambition to be one of them.

May you find the balance.

We do not need to look for statistics to prove that the rate of marriage breakdowns is growing. Many of us have many have experienced it ourselves or have close family and friends who have and those of us with children will know that a significant proportion of their classmates come from ‘broken homes’.  Some of those classmates will come from ‘single parent’ families where a marriage was never entered into in the first place but may have been a co-habitation or ‘break-up before marriage’ scenarios.

The politicians, particularly in the UK, would have us believe that this core family breakdown is the root cause of some of the worst social problems.  Those who spout ‘family values’ harp back to the good old days of life-long monogamous partnerships.  Why don’t they harp back to the life-long partnerships of polygamous marriages, both polygyny (man has more than one wife) or polyandry (a woman has more than one husband), which existed prior to, most probably religiously instigated, monogamy?

I am a believer in evolution not only in the biological sense but in the social context as well.  I am always pointing out to particularly my poor long suffering children, some reason why some ‘backward’ behaviour has roots in the distant past which improved the survival odds of the society that practised it.  For example, there was, at some point in history, a matriarchal kingdom on the English mainland where society was run by the females for the same reason that a tribe in Eastern Africa practised within strict behaviour guidelines what basically can be called group marriage – simply because the men were war-mongers and kept getting killed!

Marriage has evolved from the caveman kidnapping a mate with a club over the head, through various polygamous iterations in different parts of the world to the predominately monogamous relationships of the recent past.  Even today in societies where other forms of marriage are acceptable, the logistics and resource requirements of maintaining two or more families usually results in a fairly monogamous society.   

What  the ‘family values’ people forget that we are a society hell bent on being happy.   Whilst past generations held onto relationships that were basically dead, we have no such inclination.  After all, which one of us is entitled to be happy and which one of us is not?  Which one of us gets to ‘get ahead’ and which one of us has to remain in the shadows?  Which one of us gets to have the dream career and uproot the family to the other side of the world?  Which one of us must continue to take mental or physical abuse for the sake of the kids? 

Why is it that we expect someone we married 20, 10 or 5 years ago to be just as compatible with the changes that you have undergone in those years?  Why do we expect that what you want now is what your partner will want for the rest of their life?  We no longer regard acceptance of the status-quo as an acceptable compromise to achieve contentment. 

The ‘family values’ goody two shoes with their tax breaks for families and stories and statistics about the relatively longevity of married people and the happiness that children will bring hold us back.  They hold us back from working out an acceptable social framework so that those families facing break-up can look to their future knowing that all parties can find contentment if they so choose and avoid any further unhappiness.

This post in no way is intended to condone break-up but nor is it intended to discourage it.  If you happen to be in a relationship, it is you and you alone who can decide whether it is good for you, your spouse and any children involved. 

May you find the balance.

Here is one man’s view of how the simple, not necessarily the easy, can make you happy.   Though written from the sense of the simple home in the Brazilian favelas compared to the high life in the USA, it is the emphasis on simplicity, difficulty and community that the sense of wellbeing is being found – What is Home?

A Buckinghamshire man diagnosed with terminal cancer in 2006 who won £10,000 betting he would be alive years later, died at the age of 60 a few months short of collecting another £10,000 (BBC News – Buckinghamshire man who bet to beat cancer dies).  On the face of it, it would appear a classical example of the power of positive thinking.

However, when faced with a hungry lion advancing on you in an open savannah, it would be very stupid to think that positive thinking will assist in this matter, the use of ones’ legs and a dose of negative emotions might be the better solution.  Of course, most people would recognise that the lion situation calls for more than positive thinking.  But what about other situations, less straightforward, like when faced with cancer?  The author, Barbara Ehrenreich, in her personal story entitled “Smile or Die: How Positive Thinking Fooled America and the World” describes just such a situation.

Some attribute the popularisation of positive thinking to the book and DVD ‘The Secret’ but Ehrenreich’s book goes further back into American history of the phenomenon.  Slowly though, a healthy scepticism of the concept is growing for example The selfishness of the self-help industry and Christina Patterson: Heaven knows we’re miserable now.

Positive thinking is one of the tenants of the self help industry.  Numerous guides advise that not only must you continuously avoid negative thoughts but you must also surround yourself with only those who are constantly positive.  This you will be assured will help you be more successful and happier.  It is even attributed as a pre-requisite to achieving ‘whatever you want’. 

However, I put it to you that “to realise that you are crap at most measurable activities and that your talents are so small as to barely dignify the word, is one of the essential lessons in life.” (Three cheers for failure | MT Hughes | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk).  This will mean that you will not expect positive thinking to work for you in cases where it is unreasonable to expect it to.   I suspect that many of the ‘hopefuls’ that appear on “Xfactor”, “XXXX’s Got Talent” and “XXXX Idol” and even those on “The Apprentice” and in “Dragon’s Den” that many are gifted with massive doses of positive vibes but that does not pre-empt them from being rubbish.  Some even threaten us with their return!

If you think that positive thinking will make a super salesman out of you when you’re shy and honest or a film star if you can’t act to save your life then you are heading for a lesson in long term discontent.

May you find the balance.