Exploring Resilience via Lifes Burning Issues

Category: sustainability (Page 1 of 3)

My Mental Health Day

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Today started with me feeling agitated and out of sorts…an uncomfortable feeling, one that needed an immediate intervention  .. or to put it another way a feeling that demanded that I grant myself a mental health day.

My preferred form of self intervention and form of mental health day is to disappear and go fishing. There is something about being around water that is healing. I love sitting by the water and just watching the world go by while I sit, exercising my patience.

For a raft of reasons fishing has a lot of parallels to life and provides an opportunity for some zen moments. Moments to absorb the scenery, like that in the photo above that I took today, and moments to think about many and varied subjects…. like poetry?

My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.

                               – William Wordsworth

Well not really.. as much as I love poetry, I was actually thinking about remembering to view the world with the joy and wonder of a child, because far too often we don’t notice the beauty that lies right before us, and Wordsworth’s poem is a beautiful expression of those thoughts.

When sitting by the water and letting the agitation wash away, I start to notice things.. the bird life, the movement of the water, the clouds, the interaction of the wind and trees and I am reminded about how connected everything is. The more I notice the more amazed and interested I am.

The more amazed and interested that I become the more a quote that I shared on Facebook the other day (well a paraphrased version of it, if I’m honest)…. a quote by Albert Einstein came to mind.

As our circle of knowledge expands, so does the circumference of darkness surrounding it.

It caused me to reflect on just how little I actually knew about the fish I was fishing for, the birds that I was watching, the trees, the interactions between them all. Sure I knew some of their names/species etc.. but in reality I knew very very little about all of them, and so began a cycle of being amazed at how much I do know, and how much I don’t know…..and how as one grows, so does the other.

An afternoon of fishing is a great antidote to the feeling of agitation.

 

 

 

 

Whack! Did that make you think?

Whack….

Sometimes something or someone comes along that just whacks you in the head and makes you think differently……

People who whack you in the head..

I’m lucky to have a connection to a guy by the name of Sean D’Souza who himself has that knack, but he also has the knack of finding and pointing to material and/or other people who do the same (there’s an example coming up below)

Things to be whacked in the head about…

You have probably seen a whole lot of things that tell you that the richest x% of people control y% of this or that.

The mere fact that you are reading this post on your computer or your smartphone says something about where your position in that equation, it also says something about where you sit in the energy consumption equation of the human population. All that energy consumption has to have consequences somewhere, and therefore you would have to have been living in a cave if you had missed the ongoing discussion about global warming and if like me, you are an Australian then you certainly could not have missed the debate about a carbon tax/emissions trading scheme.

Most of the debate has either been around dry academic arguments about the validity of the science of global warming and the need to reduce carbon pollution, or about pure politics associated with selling us the concept or scaring the hell out of us about the economic implications of attempting to do so, but NOBODY in Australian politics or media has cut through and delivered a lesson like a man (who is neither Australian, a politician or journalist) by the name of Hans Rosling.

Prepare to be whacked

Nick, Nack, you’ve been Paddy Whacked…

Hans Rosling and his magic washing machine have taken some pretty hefty concepts, whacked us in the head with a story that is easy to grasp and challenges us to think differently about our energy use, the implications of economic growth and power consumption and by association presented a challenge to think about changing to greener sustainable energy… WOW all of that in 9 minutes and 16 seconds (including TED’s intro!)

The ability to distil and deliver a message like that is amazing!

If you need someone to help whack you in the head regularly and help you work on getting your messages as good as the one delivered by Hans Rosling you could do a lot worse that connecting up with Sean D’Souza! Sean is a man who works hard helping other people think about presentation skills, marketing, customer focus etc etc and you can find him and his various programs at   psychotactics or keynotenut (please note these are NOT affiliate links but if you connect up with Sean give him a gentle nudge that it was me that sent you his way 😉

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