Enthusiasm. This is one of my favourite words because it is so powerful. It will carry all before you. Look in the mirror as you say it out loud and what happens?
You’ll smile! You can’t help but smile. You feel so good simply saying it and the “th” sound is made which forms your lips into a smile. See! You’re trying it now and smiling. You’re on the way to becoming an enthusiastic person who attracts friends easily and who hasn’t any enemies. Enthusiasm. You’ve gotta have it and if you haven’t you’re a sad sack and you’re going no-where fast. So get Enthused. Excited. Energised. Enraptured. Entertaining. Entralled. Enlivened. Then surround yourself with similar people. And let the world know you have boundless enthusiasm. Enthuse about enthusiasm! You can’t have too much!
R A S. The reticular activity system is a little known and not fully understood component in the human brain. We all have a built–in antenna and the R A S is the “device” which enables us to use it. When you are disinterested in something there is no reason for you to look or research that subject but the situation comes where you need more information or you hear about something for the first time and this is when your R A S will automatically kick in and alert you. It directs you to learn more. When the R A S is utilised you will begin to see and find anything in rapid time. Your antenna is activated and intense concentration occurs along with increased powers of observation. The R A S is your gateway to conscious awareness. It creates the outcomes you want and helps you focus on what you want to achieve. Try this simple exercise: close your eyes and focus on a colour (any colour) then glance around the room (or wherever you are) and see how much of that colour catches your eye. Even tiny spots of colour will be noticed. The more you use R A S the better results. Get powered up!
Beauty. It is all around you. Perhaps use your R A S to discover just how much beauty there is in your life. We often don’t see beauty because we don’t look or we speed past it in a blur to meet some deadline (perhaps that should be dead-time!). Flowers. Animals. Light. Sky. Trees. Waves. Kids. Sunsets. Gardens. Clouds. Smiles. Endless beauty. Do women see
beauty more often than men? Who knows but love is a beautiful thing. Celebrate the love in your life because it doesn’t visit all that often and it can always change direction and leave you stranded.
Try making a list (why not do it right this minute) of all the beautiful things in your life or surrounding you. Feed the beauty and see it thrive.
Dither. Defined as “to be indecisive or uncertain”. Well, here I am dithering about just trying to write something about dithering. And I’m enjoying it. There’s nothing else I’d rather be doing at the moment. If there was I’d go and do it! “To dither about”, what a lovely old English phrase it is and one we don’t hear often enough. Who wrote “Is there
anything to match the joy of messing about in an old boat on a sunny afternoon?” It was some ancient English git but he was quite right. “Messing” about perhaps but dithering sounds better and it takes more time. To dither is to be a little wacky but we ditherers couldn’t care less. Dithering feels good! So there! Just get into it and start dithering
regularly. People say, “He’s such a ditherer!” Well, good on him! We are surrounded by uptightness – just look around at the drivers at traffic lights. They could all do with a class on dithering. So get into it (without rushing!) and you’ll be immeasurably happier and more relaxed. And you’ll get a lot more done when you eventually stop dithering!
One Word. For some unknown reason years ago I asked a group of people to describe their lives using one word only. The answers were surprising and entertaining and sometimes puzzling. Women generally used “love or compassion or caring or devoted or duty or committed”. Men were less forthcoming but the most common adjectives were “working, determined, effort, striving, action, challenging, tough.” I still to this day ask the one word question but often now people throw it back at me. Previously I would answer “fuckup” as a joke but it is not all that inaccurate! But lately the word I chose is “adventure”. Everything in life is an adventure to me. Even writing something like this article I treat as an adventure. I never know where it will lead. And if you do find one word to describe your life to date, you aren’t stuck with it. You can always change it or take a new direction in life and use a new word like “exciting” to define it. Ask your partner when you next see them!
Price of Grief. We had a friend who was happily married to a financially successful husband and they had three healthy children. She confided to us when she visited from Sydney that she was in love with another man and had been having an affair with him for eighteen months. We’re not judgemental at all and it didn’t concern us. Two years later, on her next rare visit, Sarah told us that her lover had died of a heart attack, whilst driving, soon after she returned from the earlier visit. She heard about it on the six o’clock news. His death left her isolated on an island of grief. She couldn’t express her feelings of loss to anyone. No tears or comforting words. Just emptiness. And longing. Couldn’t go to the funeral. How to endure? She felt she had withdrawn from life and the feeling lingered for years. We had no words of consolation for her and she paid a heavy price for her love. There is truly a price to be paid for everything in life whether it be in time or lack of choice or emotions or lost love or death. When the time is upon, you the debt or settlement has to be paid, one way or the other.
John A Wilson, Gold Coast, September 2017
Comments