Is it time?

Is it time to make that change?

You know; that one that you have been thinking about, on and off for a while.

The change that has seemed just a bit too disruptive; difficult, maybe even painful, until now.

So when is NOW the right time to finally do what you really want?

Life, as far as I know, is not unlimited. An average man in Britain might live to be 74 years old, a woman maybe 80.

Maybe a little longer, maybe a lot shorter; who can tell?

I am approaching the point where I will have been alive for 50 years. By the law of averages that means possibly two thirds of my life have been spent. So I ask myself questions.

What have I done?

What have I done well?

What have I done badly?

Who did I help?

Who did I inspire?

Who have I loved?

As I ask myself these questions, I feel the same sense of curiosity and wonderment about life that I did at age 8.  

I ask myself the question; how will I do things better, how will I care more (for me as well as others), how will I achieve more?

In a sense it is the ego driven quest for immortality, the desire to know that somehow we will live on even when our body is crumbled to dust. But as motivators go it's a useful one for me.

Now, what about YOU?

Work anxiety leads to stress & not taking holidays

It's something that is probably obvious to those who have a job but work pressures are mounting as the recession goes on longer. (Those who argue the recession is over might want to talk to the staff at Comet stores this week.)

Today yet another stress story (YASS?) hits the newspapers, in this case the Daily Mail.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/news/article-2235280/Recession-means-half-work-unmanageable-stress-levels.html

Elsewhere in the news we can find that those who lose their job are more likely to die of a heart attack in their first year out of work and that the secret of raising children who will become wealthy is to raise them to be happy.

There's no doubt that in spite of the material wealth in the country, it's difficult for many people to cope at the moment.

Friday thought; a step backwards

It's a line from the novel Player Piano written by Kurt Vonnegut. The line itself is spoken by the main character in the book Dr. Paul Proteus, who has become disillusioned by the society systems now in place, where many people have their jobs replaced by machines and are left doing Government paid community work instead.

Paul Proteus comes to recognise that the system has gone too far, it has removed the ability for people to have worthwhile work as a part of their life.

In his court scene he says

...a step backward, after making a wrong turn, is a step in the right direction.

 I think this is something we can apply in our life.

So often we worry about taking a step backwards in case we lose face, or are seen as weak and yet sometimes a step backwards can truly be a 'step in the right direction'

Tea is good defence against diabetes

More good news if you drink tea.

Mrs Doyle says "Go on, go on, go on. Drink!"

According to an article in today's Daily Mail, drinking black tea helps to reduce the incidence of Type 2 Diabetes.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2229333/Drinking-tea-cut-risk-type-2-diabetes-suggests-study.html

Mine's a cup of Yorkshire please!

There's knowing and then there's really knowing

It normally happens with smokers who want to quit, sometimes with those who wish to lose weight.

They know that smoking (or over eating)  is potentially, catastrophically bad for their health but carry on anyway.

I term this knowing at an intellectual level. They know the information but are in no way engaged with it.

Do you see the warning or is it just 'white space'?

They look at the grim pictures or words on the cigarette pack, they have read all the warnings and still they carry on. They have not made the connection that this applies to them. It's seems to be almost a random droplet of knowledge that they picked up somewhere; "Oh yes I know that".

It seems slightly different to a state of denial, more a state of  uncaring.

Then we start work and my role is to have them know the information fully, that is on an emotional level as well as an intellectual level. When this happens, when they connect the information to their own life, the effect is often profound. It's as if they have put information into different boxes in their head that never got opened at the same time, but when they do, I expect tears or anger.

Then I find that positive change can happen quickly; intellect and emotions are aligned. Things happen quickly and generally very successfully from this point on.

This should be obvious but...

The only person who can make your life better is you.

Sure someone else can give you a pay rise or car or other gift but that just means that you gave control to someone else again.

Only you can change your life in a way that you choose. Only you can choose to exercise the control of your thoughts and emotions.

Others can aid you or make it more difficult for you, just like the wind can blow at your back or in your face. You set your sail accordingly.

Set your sail to suit the wind and make progress anyway

So today, decide to take one small step towards your goals.

If (like so many) you are not sure of where your goals are then your first job is to determine what they should be.

Decide today to set your sail in spite of the adverse wind that blows against you. Even the smallest progress is a magnificent win for you.

Anti-Depressants in the news again

Suicide and anti-depressant use seem inextricably linked together. We know learn from Peter Hitchens of the Daily Mail, that Film Director Tony Scott was taking them prior to committing suicide. On the Mail web site he wrote;

When I read in August that the talented Hollywood film director Tony Scott had killed himself without any apparent good reason, I was fairly sure that pretty soon  we would find that the poor man had been taking ‘antidepressants’.
Well, a preliminary autopsy has found ‘therapeutic’ levels of an ‘antidepressant’ in his system. I take no pleasure in being right, but as the scale of this scandal has become clear to me, I have learned to look out for the words ‘antidepressant’ or ‘being treated for depression’ in almost any case of suicide and violent, bizarre behaviour. And I generally find it.
The science behind these pills is extremely dubious. Their risks are only just beginning to emerge. It is time for an inquiry.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2224255/Enter-church-hear-echoes-eternity--Sugababes.html#ixzz2AfPCGnR8

This is not proof of a cause and effect link (yet), but yet another indicator that far more care should be taken by GPs and patients before prescribing and taking these drugs.

There are so many people taking them (possibly 7-8 million adults in the UK alone) that it can seem normal; it's not. At best they mask some unwanted emotional symptoms, at worst they are implicated in the suicide of those that take them.

If you are feeling depressed, a talking therapy will generally help you to resolve the underlying issue, rather than simply deal with the symptoms.

What is vital to know is however is that not all therapists and styles of therapy will suit you. Don't write off the idea of a therapist because you had one bad or even ineffective past experience.

Work with someone else, and/or work in a different style this time. From simple Rogerian counselling to analytical hypnotherapy, something will work for you, to resolve old issues. Drugs will only mask the feelings and potentially lead to worse situations (read the warnings on the leaflet inside the box!).

How a motorcycle racing technique can help you even if you hate bikes

If you ride a motorcycle you may have heard of an American called Keith Code. If you race motorcycles there is a possibility you may have attended his California Superbike School.

Keith literally wrote the book about how to ride motorcycles faster. He dissected the complex sequence of operations need to get a motorcycle to go around a corner faster not by making the engine more powerful but by changing the way that the rider thinks about the sequence of actions needed to corner more effectively.

That book is called 'A Twist Of The Wrist'.

Now what does this have to do with anything outside of motorcycling?

As it happens, quite a lot.

One of the core elements of Keith's approach is to recognise that attention has its limits; that each of us has a finite amount of attention to give in any given situation. He asks us to imagine that at any given moment we have only $10 of attention to give at any time. If we spend $5 on one thing then we have only $5 left for everything else.

Now how might this approach benefit you?

Think about that $10 of attention right now; what are you spending it on. A family feud? A workplace vendetta? An old wrong that has not yet been avenged? Each of these things is costing you. Each of these emotional entanglements is a drain on your $10 bill of attention.

Which means that you do your job less well, you learn a skill more slowly, you achieve less in your sales plan, you don't develop that deeper level of love and understanding in the relationships you care about most.

If part of your mind is still working out how to punish someone else for the wrong that they did to you, then you are losing twice over. Once from what they did and once again from mental and emotional resources wasted on your planned retribution.

The fix?

Let it drop. Hanging on to the anger is like holding on to a hot coal in readiness to throw it at the person who harmed you. You get burned more than they will from that same hot coal.

Let it go, drop it, cut them out of your life or even, forgive them. No because they deserve forgiveness but because the attention its costing you is stopping you from achieving your goals.

Sometimes I forget to count my blessings

Life is difficult, bloody difficult and then I read...

I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different.

 That's Kurt Vonnegut for you, straight in there with something to rattle your cage of preconceptions.

Kurt Vonnegut

So I sometimes forget to count my blessings; like this morning for example. I was the fraught, stressed grumpy man. Then three of my blessings went to stay overnight with their Nanny and Granddad. Now I miss them like crazy.

As Kurt has said;

Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why.

Count your blessings.

I am bang on with a prediction and I wish I wasn't

It has become an exercise of mine to predict trends and events for the year ahead. Of course there are some very well known people out there who do this, but why should they have all the opinions.

My forecast for 2012 was put on this blog:

http://johncburns.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/trends-and-forecasts-for-2012.html

Some of the events outlined there are happening now, some are still waiting in the wings.

One of the things I predicted was an increase in suicide rates because of the very poor state of the economy.

Sadly this is one area where I seem to have been accurate in my predictions.

One need only read stories like this one:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2219345/Why-did-banker-perfect-life-fatal-leap-Fourth-tragedy-City-restaurant.html
to see just what is happening.

These deaths are the by-product of the way we have chosen to life today. Perhaps chosen is the wrong word. We strive to be successful in the environment which we find prepared for us by others.

A workplace filled with similarly driven people, where success and money equal status and the loss of face implied by failure is too awful to contemplate; even death is better than that.

Actually though the numbers are more complicated than they appear. In truth it is suicides for men over the age of 45 that are rising as you can see in the chart below.

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171778_254113.pdf

So it seems that something more complex is happening. Is it more to do with the loss of status, the change in society from a basically patriarchal system to something more based on skill than gender?

Whatever it is and whatever part drugs (including prescription medications play in it); it is surely worthy of more consideration. Of course this chart only runs up until 2010, the next two years may change the story.

From my own perspective  I feel that so much of this is about the loss of core values and meaning in a person's life. If you sacrifice all to your career to provide for your family, but the family relationships fall apart because of the single minded focus, what have you really gained?