Happiness isn't all it's cracked up to be?

It seems like everyone these days just wants to be happy. Pharrell's singing about it, there's endless self help books about it, all the lifestyle magazines are selling it. But what is happiness anyway? And is it all it's cracked up to be? Read on for ten magic steps to find happiness!! (Actually I don't have ten steps, sorry to disappoint some of you so early, but please bear with me and read on anyway).

In my somewhat faded Concise Oxford dictionary, after 'happi' (a loose informal Japanese coat if you didn't know), and before 'haptic' (relating to the sense of touch - obviously), there are various definitions for 'happy'. These include 'feeling or showing pleasure or contentment'; 'pleasing' and 'slightly drunk'. 

I have to say that I was slightly surprised by these definitions, as they don't seem to match the 'happiness' sold throughout our media and culture.  I don't know about you, but I think we've hyped happiness up into some kind of heavenly and perfect state of affairs that we should all individually aim for. These dictionary definitions of happiness are all pretty superficial and slightly selfish, focused on our own pleasure, maybe even to the extent that we become 'slightly drunk' on satisfying our own wants and desires. Perhaps the problem with the search for happiness is that we end up wanting "everything, all the time", to quote the Eagles.

If I'm painting an unnecessarily negative view of happiness then I apologise. Of course we can be pleased with things working our well for others etc, but I do think we have a tendency to seek our own personal happiness over and above everything else, and perhaps at the expense of others (knowingly or unknowingly).

A problem with the search for happiness is that it can lead us to an unhealthy focus on ourselves, perhaps a degree of isolationism, and also to a short-termism in our thinking and actions. In the short term, I'd happily binge on Jaffa cakes, Pringles and burgers at mealtimes rather than take the time to prepare some decent food. This bingeing may make me feel temporarily happy but pretty quickly my feelings would degenerate into guilt and (moderate) self loathing at my bad food choices and short-term perspective. Left to my own devices I know it's much more tempting to take the short-term view and make bad food choices! Food does seem to be one thing we can turn to when we're feeling unhappy! 

Reflecting on happiness, it does seem to be a shallow thing in many ways. If (as the dictionary states) it's so linked to our feelings then this makes a lot of sense, as my feelings fluctuate and don't always reflect reality! Perhaps happiness really isn't all it's cracked up to be, and if we've been sucked into the worldview that our ultimate aim is the search for happiness then maybe we've been duped!

So what should we be searching for instead? 

I think there's something deeper than superficial happiness that we can find, and it's around the idea of peace, completeness, prosperity and welfare. There's a Hebrew word which sums this up - Shalom. The idea of Shalom is more than "just" peace, but a broader sense of becoming whole - more than just the absence of conflict but instead the active presence of peacefulness. What I like about this idea is that it's less individualistic, since we generally need others to complete us, for us to prosper, and for our mutual welfare.

The word Shalom is often used as a greeting, in the style of "peace be with you", and I like the richness of meaning it conveys. I like that it's a phase used for blessing others, compared to the notion of seeking our own individual happiness. As an aside, I remember from growing up going to Mass that there's a particular moment in the liturgy where you are encouraged to offer each other the sign of peace - usually a handshake and a muttered "peace be with you" (in my experience often a slightly awkward moment). I distinctly remember an occasion as a stroppy teenager when I was clearly in a mood about something or other, and after telling me that I was "going around like a bear with a sore head" (a family saying), my Dad said to me (out of context, since we were probably in the kitchen at the time) "Peace be with you". I remember thinking this was a bit strange, since we weren't at Mass, but as I reflect on it, isn't it usually the case that we need to be reminded of this in the everyday-ness of life.. and especially when we're going around like a bear with a sore head!

So is happiness all it's cracked up to be? Probably not, and maybe this week we should stop (just) seeking our own individual and short term happiness and start seeking out a broader, deeper Shalom instead. You never know, we might just find this makes us more happy in the long run after all..

Footprints or Tyre tracks?

Are you travelling slowly enough to leave footprints?

Earlier this week my wife Kate and I went for a fantastic walk together. About 50 yards from our front door, next to our allotment site, there's a path which leads to a large area of fields and woodland. 

Over the seasons we watch from our kitchen window and see the crops being planted, growing and then harvested. 

We love running various routes through and around these fields, and as a family we've hunted and found hidden geocaches. 

Last summer my daughter and I spent two hours one sunny Saturday afternoon foraging for elderberries and sloes.. we love this area of countryside on our doorstep, and on our walk around there this week Kate and I noticed the heavy hum of many bees noisily buzzing away at their daily business, magpies and other birds calling and flying. We also noticed and explored new paths, fresh growth on the trees and bushes, as well as enjoying some quality time together. All in all it was a great walk, and something we should do more often. 

"I've been wondering what trail I'm leaving in different parts of my life"

As it happened, the paths were hard after a dryish spell, so I didn't notice us leaving any footprints (although I did see some hoof marks from horses). Sometimes there are tyre tracks on these paths, and some evenings we can hear younger members of our community tearing around the fields on motorbikes. I doubt that these young chaps notice the bees humming, the birds calling or particularly enjoy quality time together - for them it's mainly about speed!

Reflecting on this difference, I've been wondering what trail I'm leaving in different parts of my life. Am I leaving footprints, travelling at an appropriate pace, or am I impatiently leaving tyre marks as I scramble my way to the next goal, the next rung on the ladder, the next achievement?

I should point out that there's nothing wrong per se with travelling quickly, but for this post at least I want to use the comparison between footprints and tyre tracks as a metaphor for whether we're living life with a deep sense of awareness and "noticing", or whether we're just desperate to get where we're going without enjoying the journey to get there. This is another angle on whether we're destination-focused or journey-focused, which I've touched on in a previous post.

Are you leaving tracks in your haste?

Over the years I've spent a fair bit of time in the mountains of North Wales, not least because until recently my brother lived there with his family. I've climbed Snowden (the highest mountain in Wales) numerous times, and by various different routes.

"Am I impatiently leaving tyre marks?"

Once I climbed it with a group of friends as part of a 3-peaks challenge. Another time two friends and I "accidentally" climbed up via the precarious Crib Goch route (not ideal for someone like me who's not a fan of big drops, and we were wearing cowboy hats as well).

In each case the climb itself has been an essential part of the whole experience, sharing companionship, encouragement and enjoyment with those others I'm climbing with - leaving footprints along the way, and having a shared satisfaction at reaching the trig station at the summit.

If you know Snowden, you'll know that there's also a steep rack and pinion train track which winds up the mountain from Llanberis, enabling you to enjoy the view in comfort as you ascend, and scale the summit with minimal footprints. For the record, I really have no problem with people who choose this as their means to ascend the mountain, and I know that for some people this is their only way up, through disability or illness. For me though, while I am able, it's a richer experience to leave footprints on the side of the mountain, especially when sharing it with others.

Perhaps what I'm getting at here is the difference between getting somewhere quickly all by yourself compared to getting somewhere together. Anyone who's ever looked after small children (even older children) will know that getting somewhere quickly together can be a hard task! Putting coats and shoes on reluctant toddlers can be like trying to fit an octopus in a string bag, let alone the subsequent pace of the journey with little and/or reluctant legs! But it's more important to be going somewhere together at a shared pace - much as we'd like, it wouldn't be right just to stride off to our destination and leave the kids miles behind to catch up!

"...it's a richer experience to leave footprints on the side of the mountain, especially when sharing it with others"

As an aside, as we look back over our lives it can be easy to be hung up with the footprints we've left, perhaps our trail hasn't been entirely where we intended or wanted - through our own decisions or by life's circumstances. Wherever our trail has led us, it's our footsteps going forward that can begin to lead us in a new direction. We often underestimate how far we can go. As I plod to and from the station during the week, I often take encouragement from Rosie Swale-Pope (not literally I should add!). Rosie ran around the world, exhibiting amazing determination, guts and strength, and is a fantastic example of what you can achieve simply by placing one foot in front of another - I'd recommend her book "Just a little run around the world".

Are you allowing your steps to be guidied?

In terms of our footsteps going forward, I love the description of God in the book of Genesis as
someone who walks with us in the garden. We are not alone on our walk and have a God who can guide our next step.

As a family we are very excited at the moment because in a few days we are due to get a Guide Dog puppy to foster for a year or so. Guide Dogs are amazing companions for blind and partially sighted people, and often mean the difference between someone being afraid to step outside their own front door, and someone being able to confidently step across the threshold and walk to wherever they need to go.

How much more confidence and direction can we have when we allow God to guide our steps, to guide our path? Our vision for our lives is small in comparison with God's great design for us.

"It's more important to be going somewhere together at a shared pace"

Thanks as always for reading this post, and I've love to hear your thoughts. How grounded are the different areas of your life? Are you leaving casual and hasty tyre tracks, or connected and relational footprints? Perhaps there's areas of your life where you need to slow down to shared walking pace?

Here's to taking that next step!

*************

Thanks for taking the time to read Footprints or Tyre Tracks. If you've enjoyed it please share it with your friends on social media! Why not subscribe to The Potting Shed Podcast on iTunes for the audio version and much more (direct RSS feed is here).

I'd love to hear from you, so feel free to comment below or email me at stricklandmusings@gmail.com 

If you want to stay up to date please sign up to my mailing list, and do check out my book Life Space on Amazon.

The only thing to fear is fear itself?

'The only thing to fear is fear itself', as President Roosevelt famously announced. But is it? I think there are plenty of healthy fears we can have - for me, I have a healthy fear of big hairy tarantulas (not quite a phobia I'd say), and a healthy fear of big drops (again, not heights per se, it's the drops that worry me more!). 

Recently I've been enjoying watching extreme sports on Red Bull TV (currently my favourite channel by a long long way) - people with seemingly no fear climbing up and jumping off buildings, extreme snow sports, insane mountain biking.. All things that are well beyond my comfort zone. I definitely don't have the killer instinct to do that kind of stuff! 

I don't know about you, but I have a tendency to play it safe - possibly even a natural bias. I'm not the natural risk taker, adrenaline seeker that you see on Red Bull TV. That's not to say that I don't like pushing myself and I've completed my fair share of triathlons and less extreme sports events in my time. A few months ago I finally dusted off my road bike and went cycling with a friend for the first time in about three years. I've had no problem keeping fit in the meantime (I've been doing a solid amount of running while my bike was hibernating), and all was going ok on the ride to begin with. The flat sections were fine, we even climbed up Clent, a very steep and long local hill, which went really well. 

Unfortunately I discovered that I had a problem when we got to the top. The problem was this - I'd completely lost my guts for going downhill at anything more than walking speed (hard to do on a roadbike built for speed). It was embarrassing, and it was a shamefully slow ride down. I've been wondering quite how to regain my cycling mojo ever since. I need to build my confidence up again, and regain a healthy relationship and trust in my bike and bike handling skills.

Notwithstanding my current lack of mojo for cycling down hills, in general as I've grown more and more into my skin in the last decade or so, I've felt more able and empowered to take positive risks. As I reflect on it, I think that often the fear of what other people may think of me has held me back, along with the fear of the unknown. Perhaps being more secure in myself helps me to make decisions more consistent with who I believe I'm made to be, rather than who other people think I should be.

None of us are exempt from fears, and whilst I'm not necessarily seeking a cure for my fear of giant tarantulas (I see Dudley zoo offer 'hands on' sessions to overcome this.. No thanks!!), it's often the everyday fears that delay us making a decision or doing something we should.

Something I've found helpful on a day to day basis is asking myself (often but not always at work) the question: what would I do if I wasn't afraid? I find this helps me get a sense of perspective, to step to one side of what I may or may not be feeling, and take positive action. Sometimes the answer is to make a phone call, speak to someone, put something 'out there' - I find the question a helpful way of overcoming roadblocks in my thinking or doing. My gran used to say 'the sooner you face up to your problems, the sooner they go away', which is a good point! 

While I don't think that the *only* thing to fear is fear itself (big hairy spiders and big drops being valid in my opinion), I do agree that fear for its own sake can be debilitating. For me, knowing the love of my God, my wife, kids and family has made me happier in how I'm made, and more able to face those fears and take those positive risks to be the best expression of 'me' that I can be. 

Maybe, like me, you need to rebuild your confidence with something. I literally need to get back on my bike and face some (smaller) hills. What could you do today, this week, this year if you weren't afraid? Maybe asking yourself that question will help you to take a sidestep around roadblocks in your mind and heart to find a positive way forward.

Thanks for reading, I'd love to hear your comments, or any stories you may have of overcoming your fears. 

I ask not for a lighter load..

..but broader shoulders (Jewish proverb)

To be honest, broad shoulders aren't something that really runs in our family, something I found particularly disappointing as a tall and skinny teenager. Back in the 1990s I used to love watching Gladiators on Saturday evenings, and even now I could probably name most of the competitors and individual events in 1990s era Worlds Strongest Man competitions (possibly a specialist subject to keep in reserve for that Mastermind appearance). Sadly, no matter how hard I tried, I could never bench press as much as my schoolfriends, and whilst some of them bulked out to resemble Atlas, I didn't! My dad and I even spent a day casting my own set of lead weights, which were suitably heavy but so much denser than the shop bought weights my friends had they looked pathetically small by comparison - but none of them had the satisfaction of melting lead with a propane torch until molten and then pouring it into their own sand-filled moulds! (In hindsight, I've realised that many of the ways my dad expressed his love for me and my brothers and sister were unorthodox, often involving making things together in the workshop using dangerous and not so dangerous tools and techniques - as a dad myself now, I love him all the more for doing this with us).

These days I've made my peace with not being broad shouldered, but as a culture we do seem to value individual strength - only the strongest survive, survival of the fittest etc. Now I'm all for meritocracy to a degree, but I think we fool ourselves if we think that we entirely rise and fall on our own actions - life is too random for that, events happen, and a nasty flip side of the coin can creep into our thinking in which we see the poorest in our society as "losers", deserving of all that's happened to them. Unfortunately we can see this all too often in the media, and I'd recommend watching Alain De Botton's TED talk on a kinder philosophy of success, which explores this idea in more detail.

I've noticed this strength-cult in the workplace, where we're expected to be strong men and women, but in reality we can't do everything in our own strength all of the time. As I've said before, we all have different and varied strengths as individuals anyway! So often we can feel (or be made to feel) like we need to face problems alone, to prove ourself in some way. It's funny how we can perceive asking for help as a sign of weakness - especially in the workplace!

Much as I want to be able to do everything in my life in my own strength, there are times when I do feel weighed down with life, circumstances, situations and tasks. Today is a good case in point when I would gladly have wished away a situation in my workplace! Sadly, there's rarely a magic button that makes our troubles vanish and we have to learn to deal with them as best we can, as well as deal with our relationship with our troubles too.

I've never been a huge fan of assault courses. Inevitably there are sections which require good upper body strength - broad shoulders actually - where I fear I would get stuck (pull ups are another area I'm not naturally gifted in). And at times, life can feel like an assault course can't it? Army assault courses have a reputation for being fearsome, involving submerged pipes to crawl through, barbed wire to crawl under, and other tough challenges. The thing is, I'm led to believe that the toughest army assault courses require you to work as part of a unit.

I believe that it's right that our expectation of ourselves and our capacity to do things increases over time. With experience and practice our skills and knowledge increase. In that sense our shoulders do broaden over time. But in a world where it's increasingly 'every man for himself' who have you got around you? Who's sharing your load? Conversely, who's load are you helping with?

Today I was glad to have supportive colleagues to share the load - the cliché is true that a problem shared is a problem halved. Also clichéd but true is that by working together you are able to shoulder more than the amount you can each shoulder on your own. Two people working collaboratively can do more than two people's worth of work!

For those of us with faith, we believe in a God who invites us to cast our burdens on him, who isn't distant and remote but who is actively offering to stand shoulder to shoulder with us in the midst of what we're facing. We may be praying for a lighter load, but instead our shoulders can be broadened when we share our loads with God. Too often I think that I try to be Atlas, attempting to carry the world all by myself, and buckling under the weight. Increasingly I want to turn to the one who instead set the stars in their place (see Psalm 8). God isn't at our beck and call, he doesn't sprinkle fairy dust to make our lives magically easy, but he invites us to "yoke up" with him, to share our troubles and receive his peace and love. Our circumstances may not change in ways we expect (although they can and sometimes do in response to prayer), but we have a God willing to sustain us in the midst of whatever it is we're going through.

This week I've finished reading Mark Batterson's excellent book "The Circle Maker", which I've found an inspiring and encouraging read on how to share our biggest fears and dreams with God - how to place them on his shoulders. I've found it so helpful I'm planning to read it again, and I'd heartily recommend it to any of you reading this post.

Perhaps today it's time to stop asking for lighter loads, but to ask instead for extra shoulders..

Thanks for reading, and as always I welcome your comments and contributions. Please feel free to share this post with anyone who may be interested.

Thriving weeds or flourishing seeds?

Our allotment was very weedy when we first got it...

Or "Everything I needed to know about life I learned on the allotment" (in homage to Robert Fulghum's kindergarten passage).

This week I'm thinking about "thriving", a word we maybe apply more to gardening or horticultural situations, as it implies flourishing growth. 

To me this immediately makes me think about the thriving weeds that we wage incessant war against on our allotment.

If you're not from the UK you may not be familiar with the peculiar things we have called allotments. Napoleon may have called us Brits a nation of shopkeepers, but in many ways we're a nation of gardeners, and allotments are really just community gardens where you can rent a plot of land to cultivate your own crops.

They're a national institution, enshrined in various arcane laws and bylaws and have been around for hundreds of years. Our allotment site is at the end of our road, about 50m from our front door, and our plot (number 39) is about 15m long and 9m wide (or about 50ft by 30ft). It's a big plot (one of the biggest on the site) and as much as growing anything, the main challenge is keeping the weeds down - they thrive with much less care and attention than anything we intentionally plant!

"It feels like we only have to turn our backs on our plot for a week in the spring and the weeds are waist high"

It feels like we only have to turn our backs on our plot for a week in the spring and the weeds are waist high.. especially as so many fellow plot holders are retired and therefore keep immaculate "show" plots. However, something I have learned is that it generally looks a lot worse than it really is. Weeds have a habit of spreading themselves out, taking up as much room as possible, but often they're only anchored to the ground in one place.

This is an allotment lesson we can apply to our daily life, as our situations often feel worse than they really are, crowding our thoughts, when actually decisive action to the root can easily rid us of the stress they bring. We need to be good mind-gardeners, as I talked about in this post not so long ago.

It takes potatoes time to grow...

One thing that having an allotment has taught me over the years is about the time it actually takes things to grow - it's a long lesson in patience, and in gentle consolidation. However impatient I have been about various crops growing, you just can't rush them!

They grow in their own time. It's the same with us - we can get so impatient (well, I can anyway) when things don't happen in the way we want them to and with the speed we want them to.

But I'm sure that so many of us can look back on situations that seemed endless at the time, but in hindsight timing was perfect and things actually worked out better as a result.

Many things in life are better for maturing longer - wine, cheese, even brewing a pot of coffee! Patience is an undervalued commodity in our "instant"culture.

Consolidation is also important. When we got our allotment it had been fallow for some time, the entire plot was waist high, and to even think about planting anything, let alone reaping anything was some way off. It's easy to be daunted by our circumstances, but as Saint Francis of Assisi said: "Start by doing what's necessary; then do what's possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible."

"Many things in life are better for maturing longer - wine, cheese, even brewing a pot of coffee!"

When I read the story of God's people in the Bible, after numerous trials and tribulations they enter "the promised land" (incidentally divided into allotments for each tribe). However, before they go in, Moses emphasises the need for them to take it slowly, not to over reach themselves:

"The Lord your God will clear away these nations for you little by little. You may not make an end of them all at once, lest the wild beasts grow too numerous for you." (Deut 7:22, ESV)

It felt the same on our allotment, the need to clear it and conquer it slowly, and it can be the same with our dreams and the promises we feel God has given us in our lives.

I'm not saying that we can't accomplish big dramatic things - I do think there are times for big decisions and big action - but I firmly believe that many things are accomplished little by little. Steadily sowing, feeding, weeding and cultivating. For me this is not just physical weeds on our allotment (and I do take great pleasure in digging and hoeing the soil), but also our ideas and dreams.

Much of the stuff that starts to grow on our allotment is unintentional - whether perennial weeds or dandelion seeds blown in by the wind. I once watched a documentary about weeds (yes, I know how to party), which simply defined them as a plant in the wrong place.

Maybe we've got a lot of unintentional things in our lives, good or bad, weeds or not. What are we allowing to thrive in us? The trick is to spot the weeds early and pull them out before they root too deeply. Maybe we need to consolidate some of the things we have intentionally planted and weed out the things that are crowding out the space our seeds and saplings need.

"I firmly believe that many things are accomplished little by little"

Change in our lives doesn't necessarily happen overnight (although it can), much the same way that I can't magically get rid of all the weeds on our allotment (napalm isn't really an option). We need to give ourselves time to grow, to mature, even to grieve. 

As well as cultivating our ideas, dreams and God-promises, there's also a time and a place for cultivating our circumstances to enable us to thrive where we are.. and more than that, to move in the direction we need to go in (like the heliotropic movement of plants following the sun).

A book I'd recommend to help you with this is "Now discover your strengths" by Marcus Buckingham and Donald Clifton. Like many others, I have found this really helpful in discovering the things that I naturally flourish in, things I can cultivate to make me thrive. It's helped me articulate the things I love doing, and helped me make decisions at both work and home to cultivate my strengths. For instance as well as writing this blog, I'm also finding more opportunities to write for my employer. 

The more we play to our strengths, the more I believe we'll thrive - but we still need to keep those weeds down!

*************

Thanks for taking the time to read Thriving Weeds or Flourishing Seeds. If you've enjoyed it please share it with your friends on social media. Why not subscribe to The Potting Shed Podcast on iTunes for the audio version and much more (direct RSS feed is here).

I'd love to hear from you, so feel free to comment below or email me at stricklandmusings@gmail.com 

If you want to stay up to date please sign up to my mailing list, and do check out my book Life Space on Amazon.

"You can't make an omelette..

..without breaking a few eggs."

This phrase has been in my head this week as I have mused on the topic of eggs. I've been wondering about it's deeper meaning, and since I couldn't find it in my dusty copy of Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (an essential tome for any reference shelf in my humble opinion), I had to resort instead to Wiktionary for a good definition: "in order to achieve something, it's inevitable and necessary that something should be destroyed". An unverified internet source also suggested that the phrase emerged out of the tumult of the French revolution, giving it a somewhat darker slant - guillotine humour.

I take great satisfaction in the very act of cracking of an egg into a frying pan, let alone the resulting enjoyment of egg on toast (if I'm honest I don't actually make many omelettes). I suppose you could also interpret the phrase along the lines that you can't enjoy your eggs without breaking their shells, since not many of us eat our eggs with the shells on (I say not many, because I am sure that there are people in this world who do actually eat eggs with the shells on).

Regular readers will know that I've been thinking a lot around creativity and innovation these past few months, and among the many interesting books I've been reading, Steven Johnson's "Where Good Ideas Come From" has some really interesting thoughts on creative environments and (as the title suggests), where good ideas come from.

Increasingly, it seems that the best ideas come from collaboration and openness rather than (just) the solo effort of an individual. In fact, Johnson suggests that many of us need aspects of other people's ideas to complete our own, as they also need ours.

For creative people, our ideas, dreams and visions can often feel like precious eggs which we sit on for months and years waiting for them to hatch. Maybe some of these do hatch, but I bet that the vast majority remain incomplete and unhatched in some way. We can feel very protective of our idea-eggs, but perhaps this protective attitude isn't actually serving us in the way we think it is. Perhaps it's actually slowing us down - reducing us to waddling speed, earthbound like Emperor penguins desperately protecting their eggs between their legs.

If what Johnson suggests is true, and it has a strong sense of "truthiness" to me, then if we really want our ideas, dreams and visions to fly then we need to crack open our eggs and set them free to connect with other people's ideas and dreams, to become something bigger than our own imaginings. Perhaps we need to crack our dream-eggs into the collective pan to make an omelette! By keeping our talents in their safe eggshells we run the risk of them never reaching their potential.. or to extend the egg metaphor further, to go off. If we think our ideas stink, maybe it's because we haven't given them enough air.

I believe that we're given our talents, passions and dreams for a reason, by a loving creator God. Without stepping into these, setting them free, letting them hatch, the danger is that we miss out on the adventure planned for us and settle for something less than we're able. Like the servant in the parable who buries his talent rather than putting it to work. Instead I want to be the one who makes the most of what he's given. This doesn't necessarily mean being the very best in our field, but it does mean becoming the best expression of who God has made me.. perhaps it's less about the magnitude of our talent and more about what we do with it.

I'm an adopted Midlander, and I love the industrial history of the Midlands - it really was the birthplace and heart of the industrial revolution, which changed the face of the planet. The BBC have recently been publishing a series of essays on the Midlands, and this week's (here) is about the so called "Midlands Enlightenment". Suffice to say it's a great historical example of people like Erasmus Darwin, Matthew Boulton, James Watt and other members of the Birmingham Lunar Society who cracked open their eggs, shared their ideas and came up with a metaphorical omelette of world-changing technology, thinking and action. We can learn much from these polymaths, not least the power of collaboration and connection with those both similar and different to ourselves.

In my day job, the company I work for has a phrase "Stronger Together", echoing the well known words of the Bible that "a cord of three strands is not easily broken". If you're anything like me, then it can be a vulnerable thing to share your precious dreams and visions with others - but if we want them to grow wings, if we want them to grow and develop in ways that are bigger than we can think, then we must embrace openness and set them free. In my experience, God has a great way of helping us step into our passions and use our talents in unexpected and adventurous ways, especially when we bravely put our ideas "out there" rather than keep them in their protective shells.

So this week, why not ask yourself whether you've been sitting on any eggs too long, and whether there's an omelette of some kind you need to contribute to.

One final thought, from my friend Dan (a keeper of quails). To make good eggs you need plenty of grit in your diet (his quails certainly do) - so whatever your area of talent, whatever shape your dreams take, whatever field your ideas reside, are you feeding yourself enough grit to make good eggs? In other words, where are you taking inspiration from? Are you getting enough diversity in your reading/watching/listening/praying to stretch, challenge and feed your dreams? Perhaps you need some extra grit, something to chew over, something to get you thinking again..?

Thanks again for reading, I'd love to hear your thoughts, and happy cooking this week!

Rooted to the spot?

I'm sure you've had an experience like this. Your mouth has gone dry, your heart's racing, your palms are sweating, you're in full "fight or flight" mode as the adrenaline is coursing through your body - you're facing something frightening but somehow you're rooted to the spot. Like a rabbit in the headlights you can't move and time seems to have slowed down like a scene from the Matrix.

One summer I found myself climbing across the famous Aonach Eagach ridge in Scotland with two best buddies from University and one of their dads. Now if you know me you'll know that I haven't really got a great head for heights - it's not the heights that particularly bother me but sheer drops! With this in mind you might be wondering what on earth I was doing traversing Aonach Eagach, which has sheer drops aplenty, and to be honest I was wondering that myself but didn't want to be a killjoy to my friends, who were skipping away like mountain goats.

Fortunately for me there was low cloud that day, and while this didn't take away the thousand foot drops either side, it at least meant that I couldn't see them, which sort of helped. Until the clouds parted that is, and I could suddenly see how big a drop was beside me. My heart rate soared and I clung for dear life to the ridge! 

With some steady nerves and calm encouragement I'm pleased to say I made it across the ridge (to everyone's surprise if I'm honest), but it remains one of my most vivid experiences of being rooted to the spot.

Strangely enough, after that introduction, this week's theme is actually trees (and not fear, as you might have been led to believe), and I'm hoping the connection will become clear as you read on.

One of my favourite types of tree is a Plane tree. Here in the UK you tend to find them in cities, lining Victorian boulevards and especially in city centres. I pass at least a dozen of them on the walk to my office each day. What I like about them is their mottled, almost camouflage multi-layered bark. They are well suited to urban situations as they can tolerate higher atmospheric pollution as well as root compaction - something almost guaranteed in our cities!

Trees are great, and public health studies show that we experience lower stress levels and the corresponding health benefits when we are amongst trees. A colleague of mine recently travelled to Doha, and when I spoke to them out there they were looking forward to being home and seeing trees again!

Different varieties of trees have different personalities, they're suited to different places - a willow tree wouldn't last long in a city centre like a Plane tree, since they need to be around water. Pines like acidic soil. In order to thrive and flourish, trees need to be planted in the right places with favourable conditions. The thing is, living in a dynamic environment, conditions have a habit of changing around us, and if we're rooted to the spot we can find ourselves over time in a position that's doing us no good, or in which it's harder for us to flourish.

I heard a Swedish climatologist speaking about potential changing climate scenarios for Sweden over the next hundred years. Sweden's a big place, and average temperatures vary from south to north by about three degrees C over around 500km. A possible future scenario for some parts of Sweden is that temperatures increase by three degrees over the next hundred years, which means that the average temperature line would begin move north by around 0.5m an hour. This is not very fast.. in fact a snail's top speed is (apparently) around 1m an hour, so this pace of change is not even at a snail's pace! However, if you're a tree that's very sensitive to temperature ranges, then within your lifetime you could find yourself in conditions that don't suit you at all.

Sometimes I think that we can be rooted to the spot in our opinions, our behaviours, our relationships - 'stuck in a moment that you can't get out of' to quote U2. We've planted ourselves somewhere, but over the years circumstances have changed around us, perhaps without us being fully aware of the changes! In terms of our 'fight or flight' response, there's an argument that says this developed specifically in response sudden and urgent dangers (like predators) - and that it's not trigged by gentle changes in our environment. The classic story of the frog being slowly boiled comes to mind.

So a question for us to think about this week is whether we might have become rooted to the spot anywhere in our lives. The good news is that unlike trees, we can change. We can re-plant ourselves somewhere else, in a different position or better place. Perhaps in this manner we're more like Tolkien's Ents instead!

I'm writing this during Easter week, and this Easter marks twenty years since I made the decision to plant myself in the best place of all, in relationship with a loving God. I've had my ups and downs in this time, but I passionately believe that my life has been immeasurably changed for the better as the result of a relationship-based faith in God. These past few months I've been reading and re-reading the book of Psalms, and I love the picture painted in the very first psalm about people living in relationship with God:

"They are like trees planted along the riverbank,

bearing fruit each season.

Their leaves never wither,

and they prosper in all they do"

(Ps 1:3, NLT)

Over the last twenty years I've been sinking my roots deeper into this relationship, and I want to encourage you to consider doing so as well. Maybe you feel rooted to the spot, stuck in one place in your relationship with God. How about this weekend you get out amongst the trees? It's good for your physical health, but perhaps if you take that time to listen to God's whisper to you amongst the rustling of the leaves if might do your spiritual health good too. 

As we celebrate Easter how about refreshing yourself with God's story - why not read one of the gospel accounts in the Bible? If you don't feel you know about God's story, let alone God himself then why not look out for an Alpha course near you? This is a simple course which enables you to ask questions and find out for yourself.

Let's not find ourselves rooted to the spot, and lets be willing to make changes in our lives when we realise that our environments have changed. And on this note, I'll bid you a Happy Easter and leave you with a quote from George Bernard Shaw:

"Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything"

What are you building?

I don't know about you, but there are certain things that happened in my family growing up that have developed legendary status. Events, occasions, mishaps which we've told and re-told over the years, things which we continue to feel deeply about. One of these events happened before I was born, in the mid 1970s, but so strong have been its after effects that I feel like I was there. 

It's the story of when my oldest brother won a Lego building competition. 

Lego was a big part of our childhood. I credit it as the reason I've become a professional engineer. For at least a decade we had 'the heap' in our sitting room. The Heap was a pile of toys which just got pushed into the corner at the end of the day. I remember it mainly being Lego. Another legendary family story was when one day, out of the blue, there was a knock at the door and an older boy gave us his own huge box of Lego (they were emigrating, but we didn't know that, we thought it might be a semi usual occurrence, leading to a life of disappointment when every ring of the doorbell WASN'T a huge box of Lego).

Now, as I wasn't actually there, I'm sketchy on the exact details of the Lego competition win, but suffice to say that my brother's winning entry was displayed in the shop for a while, he probably even won a small amount of Lego (no doubt eventually assimilated into The Heap). The main thing was the kudos he earnt with my other siblings and his peers - kind of superhero status, tempered with grudging jealousy that my other brother and sister's entries weren't deemed prize-winning. We're a fairly competitive family anyway, so from then on, building things with Lego was a serious matter. As a side note, even though I've not ever won any Lego competitions myself, I do think I'm pretty handy when it comes to building Lego spaceships, something I hope I can pass on to my own kids! (We're still at the duplo stage though, which has more limited spaceship building potential).

In a recent post I talked about our 'daily Lego', our lives being the accumulations of individual moments and days lived well (or not), which leads onto this week's question: what are you building? Building things with Lego is a serious subject, but we've all been given lives with which to do something glorious.

I heard a good joke recently (well I thought it was anyway). It goes like this: five frogs are sitting on a log, four decide to jump in, how many frogs are left on the log? Of course, the answer we'd like to say is one, but in this case that's incorrect. The answer in the joke is five, because thinking and doing aren't the same thing. Now you may be groaning, but it's a good point I think - it's all very well having big dreams, and many of us have, but arguably what's the point of having the big dreams if they just stay there and we never build them into something real?

I'm not intending to induce a guilt trip here, and one of the most freeing pieces of advice I was ever given was by a friend and pastor shortly after starting work. As I was beating myself up that I didn't have the same time to do things that I did when was a student, he set me free, telling me not to expect to achieve all the things I felt God had planned for my life in the next five years! Whilst we have a lifetime to achieve our life's work (whatever that may be), at the same time it can be easy for our dreams to become bow-waves, always being pushed further forward into the future and some mythical perfect time. Or for us to start out, get knocked back, lose our confidence, wrap our dreams in tissue paper and put them back into the box under the bed. 

I had a friend at school who had lots of motivational sayings which helped him through his GCSEs and A-Levels, and one in particular has stuck with me ever since: 'inch by inch it's a cinch, yard by yard it's hard'. What I like about this is the honest truth that we need to break big things down into manageable chunks. This is fine with GCSE revision, but we often don't know how to do this when it comes to our big visions, dreams and plans. I certainly don't!

There's clearly no one answer to this. Your dreams are different to mine. All of us have many dreams which are varied and diverse, nearer or further away. Whatever they are, however far off they may seem, it's important for us to continue to take small steps towards them, to build momentum, however slow. Maybe this is just about giving ourselves time to learn skills, to think, to try things out, to put together the little pieces of Lego one at a time, which will slowly accrete into something bigger, more magnificent. 

Seemingly small things often open doors to new things I've found, but so often in our busyness or discouragement we often put off even the small things. I read a book recently where the author took a year off work (sort of forced, but nevertheless), and he commented that we often overestimate what we can do in a year (and maybe give up), but underestimate what we can do in ten years. The middle ground is often hard, but it's here where battles are often won. Our changing seasons of life present different challenges. The time of life I'm in involves small children, deep weariness and difficulties to do all the things I want to do, but it seems to me that the trick is to keep the pilot light going on our dreams and visions whatever the circumstances, and to keep building - however small, however seemingly insignificant. 

As a child the  joy of Lego was that there were no fixed rules and an endless variety of pieces. You could create what you wanted as long as you put the pieces together. And it just took as long as it took, with plenty of iterations and mistakes in between.. And unlike my brother's prize winning creation, most Lego creations weren't perfect, but they were built, and in many ways therein lay the value. A box of disassembled pieces and some plans of what you could build have potential, but that's all.

So what are you building? Embrace those dreams, dust off those plans, and let's focus on bringing them to life.. Small step by seemingly small step.. You never know where it might lead.

Spring Forward

Blackthorn blossom...

Spring has sprung, as they say, full of budding potential. On our allotment and in our garden there are plenty of green shoots. Leaves unfurling on fruit canes we planted from cuttings over the winter, recently sown seeds germinating in pots all over our house, and all around us many fruit trees are in blossom. Vivid pinks, bright whites, hinting at fruit to come later in the summer.

When we moved to the West Midlands a few years ago we were really struck by all the blossom around the place. It felt like there was so much more blossom in the Midlands than we were used to seeing on the sunny South Coast. Maybe there are more fruit trees here, who knows?

Blossom has a special place in Japanese culture, where it's a sacred thing. I read afascinating book the other year about a chap making his way across the Japanese islands by bicycle, chasing the cherry blossom as he went. If not quite to the same extent, I also appreciate the coming of spring that the blossom heralds. It's a sign that winter has thawed and warmer weather is on its way.

"I appreciate the coming of spring that the blossom heralds"

Spring also brings more light into our lives - we "Spring Forward" when our clocks change to Summer Time (although we lose an hour's sleep.. fine in general but having spent all year trying to get our kids into a good sleeping routine, this really sends their body clocks haywire!). After the short days of winter, and the cold weather, I can finally crack on with my to-do list in my workshop and on the allotment, now they've both thawed out (I really need to think about some heating in my workshop over the winter).

The other Christmas my wife Kate gave me an inspired present which was the complete set of Star Wars films on Blu-Ray (along with over 40 hours of documentaries etc). Needless to say, it was the perfect opportunity to introduce my daughter to the films, and I was delighted that she loved it so much! In 'The Empire Strikes Back' Han Solo gets frozen in carbonite and sent to Jabba the Hutt. When he's finally rescued (in 'Return of the Jedi') he has to be thawed out from his frozen and captive state.

"it can sometimes feel that parts of our lives are 'on ice'..."

As I've been thinking about Spring, I've wondered if it can sometimes feel that parts of our lives are "on ice". Maybe we've shelved some dreams until circumstances are better. Maybe, through no choice of our own, we've been forced to stop doing things we love through illness or other external factors. For whatever reason, parts of us may be in hibernation mode. Like Han Solo, we may be frozen and in need of thawing out.

I'm reminded again of Narnia, where the ice thawing and Spring returning are a sign that Aslan has returned to free the country from the tyranny of the White Witch. I was speaking to a Finnish colleague once, who said that where he lives there's often snow on the ground for six months of the year!

For those parts of us "on ice", now might be the right time to come out of hibernation. Maybe it's time to allow God to de-thaw some of our dreams or those aspects of our personality that we've hidden away through fear, hurt or circumstance. Maybe it's time to allow these things to blossom!

We love growing things on our allotment. We love the community aspect of it, and we really enjoy eating our home-grown produce - yes, it really does taste better! Personally I like the connection with the seasons that "working the land" brings, and one of the main things I've learnt is that most of the time you've just got to let things grow and keep the weeds down in the meantime. This can be surprisingly hard work, especially in the spring, since this is the time that the weeds seem to grow the fastest!

"Maybe it's time to allow God to de-thaw some of our dreams..."

Weeds seem to get everywhere, but this isn't a reason not to grow things in the first place. If you want to reap a harvest then you've got to plant seeds - it's inevitable that weeds will grow up, but you've just got to manage them, and the end result is worth it.

The reason I mention this is that we can often be discouraged when we step out into new things and allow them to blossom, but the main thing is to manage the inevitable weeds that crop up around us in whatever form, and let our skills, abilities, dreams and relationships grow until they bear fruit.

This can take a while believe me, but just because it's going to take a while doesn't mean we shouldn’t plant the seed in the first place. As the Chinese proverb says, the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago - the second best time is now.

I think that my mind is like our allotment in some ways. There's some good stuff that's been planted in there over the years, but I need to be a good mind-gardener to weed out the unhelpful stuff that just keeps cropping up, and instead to nurture those things which I really want to see develop. Those things that really define who I am and who I've been made to be.

"As the Chinese proverb says, the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago - the second best time is now"

It's great to have new ideas, to step out into new areas - I want to encourage us all to do that, but we need to allow ourselves time for these to develop. This is, I think, pretty counter-cultural in the midst of the now-now-now, instant gratification society we find ourselves in. But in many ways, it's often the things that take time that are the most rewarding in the long run - another whole subject in itself.

As I wrap up, why don't you prayerfully ask yourself if there's anything in your life that needs thawing out so it can blossom and bear fruit? Maybe you just need to do some weeding in your mind, to give all the good things in there more space? Maybe you just need to sit back and give yourself time to grow?

Whatever it is - I pray that this year you Spring Forward rather than fall back. And if you're serious about making space for your dreams to grow, you need to read my book Life Space...

*************

Thanks for taking the time to read Spring Forward! If you've enjoyed it please share it with your friends on social media! Why not subscribe to The Potting Shed Podcast on iTunes for the audio version and much more (direct RSS feed is here).

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Who Dares Wins?

Today's musings are on the theme of risk, and as I was thinking of a title for the post, the motto of the SAS came to mind: "Who dares wins". Or maybe that should be who risks wins? The very language suggests that the SAS have a mindset where war is a game to be played. A game in which risk-takers (like the SAS) win, and everyone else is on the losing side. I would certainly prefer the SAS to be on my side if I found myself in a war!

For someone known to be a big fan of board games (local Settlers of Catan champion no less - frankly to the surprise of my family), you may be surprised to know that I've never actually played the game Risk. We even own a two player version that we've never quite got around to playing! But this seems to reinforce the stereotype that war is a game, and implicitly that maybe life is as well.

I wonder how competitive you are? Do you take more risks when playing boardgames than you would in real life? How about Monopoly? It's easy to stake plenty of money on an investment when it's only monopoly money.. different when we face tough financial decisions in "real life" though.

As I've been musing on the subject this week, I've been wondering whether it would help us live our lives better if we were more playful when it came to risk. Now I'm not advocating taking unnecessary risks with our health, our families, or our work - but I do think that there are plenty of times in our lives when we are faced with the choice of playing safe or taking a positive risk.

In my line of business I spend a lot of time assessing risk, often flood risk. This can be complicated, as flood risk can have many different sources (I won't bore you by listing them). Many of my clients would like me to say that there is NO risk of flooding, however this is never true. There is always a risk of flooding, however small, as you can never completely manage risk away. There can always be a bigger storm, or some unexpected circumstance which could lead to flooding. Whether or not risk remains is a moot point, the question is really whether the risk is something one can comfortably live with.

Risk takes on a whole new meaning when you have kids. Risks that you normally live with - plug sockets, cups of tea, crockery in cupboards, flights of stairs - all of a sudden these become life threatening issues, as our children don't have the same frame of reference or understanding to comfortably live alongside these risks. We introduce additional mitigation measures - plug socket covers, stair gates, cupboard locks, placing everything increasingly high up - to minimise the likelihood of the risk. But you can never eliminate the risk completely - that cup of tea gets put down within reach, that socket gets left open.. we still have to be on high alert as parents until our children understand some of the consequences of the risks around them.

Sadly, in many ways we live in an increasingly risk-averse and litigious society. Whether implicitly or explicitly, our culture seems to value conformity over diversity - evidenced by the incessant testing, measuring and standardisation imposed on the school system, seemingly to force as many of our children to conform to an arbitrary and increasingly meaningless standard. The truth is that we are all "fearfully and wonderfully made", unique in our potential and diverse in the passions, gifts and temperament we each possess.

There's a famous verse in Saint Paul's letter to the Romans, in the New Testament, in which we are encouraged not to "conform to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind" (Romans 12:2). In a society obsessed with standardisation, the best way to stand out is to embrace who you've been made to be - all the uniqueness and "you-ness" found in the deepest part of your being.

How often have we played safe, held ourselves back, suppressed our passions because we haven't wanted to risk disapproval of friends, family, or colleagues? Perhaps we've entered careers which we know will give us a steady income, but in which we feel we are secretly an imposter, or in which we wear some kind of professional mask to hide who we really are.

And yet, is NOT being the full expression of who you were made to be worth the risk? Is it worth the risk of settling for less, knowing you have more to give, living with regrets that you played it too safe in the big decisions?

There's a strong link between how passionate you feel about something and the risks you're willing to take. After I had been going out with Kate for a little while, the love I felt for her emboldened me to take the huge risk of asking her to marry me.. and I've been delighted ever since that she said yes. I can imagine the regret I would have lived with if I'd never been brave enough to pop the question. Strangely, I was more nervous buying the engagement ring a few weeks before than actually asking the big question itself! Go figure!

I'm a big fan of TED talks, as I love ideas and I love learning new things. As with anything, some are better than others, but I watched one this week (by Richard St John) about passion which was great. He'd interviewed dozens of teenagers, and something like 80% had said their number one goal was to make money.. which in his mind was tragic, as the people that tend to be most successful are the ones who follow their passion - who essentially risk being who they're made to be rather than playing it safe and settling for less. He encourages people to follow the "zing" and not the "ka-ching".. in other words follow your heart and not your paycheck.

Now I know that this is easier said than done, and maybe for many of us it's the ability to pursue our passion in our spare time that energises us to do what we need to do to provide for our families - we're all different (and in case any colleagues are reading, I do genuinely enjoy what I do for a living!). But the message is clear - in the long run it's worth taking those positive risks and embracing the passions that define you. For me, restarting this blog and intentionally spending more time writing, making and being creative has been a deliberate choice to risk putting some of me "out there".. but I have to say that it's been so energising and life-giving that I wish I'd done it sooner. I feel more "me" as a result, and am excited at where it might lead me.

When it comes down to it, I think we should all risk being a little more playful in some of the decisions we face. It's too risky to settle for being anything less than the person God made us (and to fully embrace who we really are we need to fully embrace the God that's made us - sometimes we need a heavenly mirror to see how we're really wired).

Instead, to embrace ourselves, our passions, who we really are, and step into the perfect plans God has for our lives - now that's a risk worth taking!

(This post was written as part of the Blog Buddies group. Here are some other thoughts on the subject by . If you want to join our blog buddies group contact  nicola@braveheartsolutions.co.uk)

Poem: Spilt Milk

A sad walk this morning, from the station to the office.

Grief surrounds me like the morning’s mist

Grief at the injustice in the world (brought on by a sad book).

The people I pass seem gloomy too today, heads down.

Outside a café a drying channel of spilt milk, dripping into the gutter.

Far too many spilt lives dripping onto the streets too these days.

More cries of “spare change” spilling from desperate lips and cold hands.

In the alleyways, on steps, on street corners.

It’s closer than we like to think. 

Only yards from my office.

Another spilt life sleeping in a split sleeping bag.

Leaving my banana won’t clean up the spill,

but I leave it anyway, although my misty sadness remains.

Poem: The first day of Spring

Running home through gentle rain.

Drifting through the creamy light,

the last few minutes before sunset.

Twilight reflecting off rinsed tarmac.

Vivid pink blossoms on lollipop trees.

My muted footfall a signal switch,

as I awake sleeping streetlights.

Metallic pinks and yellows and whites.

Running away from the deskbound day,

the congested train, my crowded brain.

Cars passing me with splashing sighs,

tiny tyre waves breaking on an asphalt beach.

Cresting the hill,

leaving the orange embers of daylight behind.

Returning home,

to grins and giggles, purrs and pasta.

Spring has sprung.

Musings on.. peace

Perhaps you can relate to this. Your baby's been grizzly all day, now it's way past their bedtime, they're overtired, you're under-slept, and after yet another 20 minutes of 'shushing' you've carefully placed them back in their cot, crept out of their room and now you're listening at the door, hardly daring to breathe until you're sure that this time they really have gone to sleep.. A moment's silence, then another, and then.. Peace. You can finally breathe out, collapse in a chair, have a cup of tea..

Do you have to go somewhere to find peace? Maybe peace and quiet? Perhaps climbing a mountain, or finding a remote wilderness.. even just shutting the bathroom door and soaking in a bath?

Or is peace something you're waiting for? When the kids have (finally) gone to sleep, when you can get home from a busy day, or when a difficult situation is over?

Is peace something you encounter on your own - on a cloistered retreat, shut off from the world? Or is it something that occurs on a bigger scale - like countries making declarations of peace after war?

Perhaps peace is something you have to make - making peace with a situation, a person, God?

I've been musing on the subject of peace this week, and when I think of the questions above it seems to me peace is needed in many ways in our lives, communities and world.  In some ways, I think that peace is like carbon. If you can remember chemistry at school (one of my weaker subjects I have to be honest, although having a chemistry teacher called Mr Work probably didn't help!), carbon famously has three forms - allotropes - ranging from diamond: crystal clear and the toughest material on earth; to graphite - black, opaque and soft enough to enable us to use it in our pencils. Peace also takes different forms.

I'm sure that we're all longing for peace in many areas of our lives and in the world we live in. Not a day seems to go by when the news headlines aren't dominated by conflict - on a domestic, political or international scale. We desperately need peace in our relationships, within our families, in our workplaces, in our hearts.

But how do we find it? Is peace a destination, a place we go to, or is it something we have to make? Is it an exterior thing or an interior thing? Personal or corporate?

Maybe it's all of these things at different times - maybe these are all allotropes, and maybe we need all of them.

I know that we have have many demands on our lives, and that life can feel relentless at times - the treadmill of the everyday, the rat race, can grind us down and leave us agitated, depressed, even ill. Perhaps we feel like peace is something we can only find occasionally - perfect peace like a diamond that's precious because it's so rare.

But I wonder whether if we're only looking for diamonds, for perfect peace, we can miss the other more everyday forms of carbon-peace that are all around us. Like carbon, I think peace is there to be found in our daily lives - in fact especially there.

Often on my lunch break I will seek some reflective time in the cathedral near my office. It's usually quiet, muffling the sounds of the busy city outside, and I find it helpful to be able to gather my thoughts and escape the tyranny of my inbox for a few moments. Often I pray, and herein I think lies the secret to discovering this 'everyday' peace - not necessarily in a cathedral - but in the deep knowledge that you are unconditionally loved and accepted by God. Diamond peace, perfect peace may be hard to find, but God wants us to receive his everyday peace in the midst of our turbulent lives.

Amorphous carbon is a third allotrope of carbon, aside from graphite and diamond, and as the name suggests, it is the least 'formed' of the three. In fact, this form of carbon creates more compounds than any other element, and carbon compounds in general form the basis of all known life on our planet. In a similar way, maybe we can allow peace to become a part of all the different elements of our lives.

This ability of carbon to form amazing new materials leads me to a different slant on 'blessed are the peacemakers' - what are we making with the peace available to us? Some carbon compounds are known for their lightness - carbon fibre for example - and in a sense I wonder whether prayerfully allowing 'peace compounds' to form in our lives can bring a lightness to situations and circumstances which normally weigh us down.

I've probably raised more questions than answers in this post, but also think that it's good for our health to be considering how we can engage with God's peace in the midst of our daily grind.

So I'll end with a simple blessing: 

Peace be with you.





(This post was written as part of the Blog Buddies group. Here are some other thoughts on the subject by Wendy. If you want to join our blog buddies group contact  nicola@braveheartsolutions.co.uk)

When the going gets tough..

What's the hardest thing you've ever done? And what's your relationship with it? 

The phrase we're musing on this week is "The toughest thing you ever did could well be the best thing you ever did". This has got me thinking on my own achievements: which ones hold the most value to me, and why do I feel that way?

Compared to many people's incredibly tough lives around the world I am aware that life hasn't been too unkind to me on the whole, but we all face challenges whatever cards we are dealt. 

Reflecting back on my life, I can see that things I may have considered tough at the time when much younger I now take for granted - for instance speaking in front of others, singing and playing guitar at the same time, long runs - all of these have felt tough challenges at different times and for different reasons.

In my mind, there is clearly a link between facing (and overcoming) tough circumstances or situations and growing as a person. In some ways it can be a means of developing our inner strength in a similar way that resistance training can build our physical strength.

I'm resisting the urge here to regale to you all the amazing achievements that I have made, as this isn't meant to be that kind of post - and I'm in a more philosophical mood as I write anyway!

I do think we can often take ourselves and our abilities for granted. If you're anything like me then you can overplay the circumstances and situations that trouble you, and underplay your own powers of endurance, imagination and creativity. 

This brings to mind a quote from Dr Mike Stroud who as a doctor has been researching the ability of the human body to endure. He has famously accompanied Sir Ranulph Fiennes on some of his more extreme polar adventures - and more close to home was also attached to the same Dietetics and Nutrition department as my wife when we lived in Southampton! 

In his excellent book 'Survival of the fittest' he talks about the delay between starting exercise and our brains sending out the signals to activate the required energy systems in our bodies. Counter-intuitively, it can feel harder to do a short run than a long run, as we start by accumulating an oxygen debt, and by the time the brain gets round to sorting this out, we've accumulated lactic acid which needs clearing: 

"This takes some time, so the first couple of miles of any run can be rough. It leads to an odd phenomenon. Most people feel less fatigued after running five or six miles than they do when they have run one or two. Some inexperienced runners never realise this, and even quite reasonable athletes may believe that distance running is not for them. they have never run far enough to reach equilibrium and comfort and so have never found the capability that evolution bestowed on nearly all of us".

So thinking about tough things reaping rewards, sometimes we just need to go further to realise that we can actually do it. Enduring will be worth it - perhaps we will gain a new perspective, perhaps facing a tragedy will help us come alongside others in the future, other opportunities will arise as a result, and like resistance training it's all strengthening and shaping our character (perhaps knocking off rough edges!). We may even find that we feel less fatigued after enduring for longer!

I deliberately haven't gone into detail in this post about the difference that a healthy relationship with God can have on our perspective of tough times and on the manner in which we approach and endure them - that could be an entire blog post in itself! Suffice to say that I passionately believe in a loving God who plans the best for us no matter what happens, and helps us to make the best of what we consider to be broken situations, circumstances and lives. God can, and does, help us be the very best representation of who we can be and I do not believe we can reach our full potential without God's help - but that's a topic for another time.

Some years back I had reached the point in my career to undertake my professional review with a venerable engineering institution. I carefully prepared all my documents, submitted them in time, prepared presentations and with some trepidation travelled to London to be interviewed by two reviewers. I felt prepared, I felt I deserved to pass - but it didn't go well. In fact I felt utterly ripped to shreds and in due course I received a letter going into great detail about how I hadn't made the grade. 

Needless to say I was crushed, my colleagues cried foul and family and friends provided much needed support. I slowly picked myself up, took a long hard look in the mirror, tried to take the review comments on the chin, rewrote all my documentation and re-sat the next year.

Except this time, although the day itself went better, I still received a regretful letter identifying how short of the mark I still was! At this second setback I did seriously consider leaving the industry, but while I was picking the pieces of my professional confidence up off the floor a wise old colleague suggested an alternative path with a different institution -  and in hindsight one much more suited to my experience and skills. 

Happily the story ends well, and the more I look back on it the more grateful I am to have gone through the trial I did, since focusing on water and the environment rather than pure civil engineering has actually been much more fulfilling and has opened much more interesting doors for me since! One of my toughest things has proved to be one of the best.. and I'm sure many of you could relate similar stories.

I'll finish with a quote from Sir Ken Robinson's book 'The Element' (a book about finding your passions.. the place where you're in your element, so to speak) in the context of how we can underestimate the potential we have for growth and change: 

"For the most part, people seem to think that life is linear, that our capacities decline as we grow older, and that opportunities we have missed are gone for ever. Many people have not found their element because they don't understand their constant potential for renewal."

So when the going gets tough, as it often does, let's remember that it's often the first few miles that seem hardest, but that we can go much further than we initially think we can..





(This post was written as part of the Blog Buddies group. Here are related posts by Nicola and Wendy. If you want to join our blog buddies group contact  nicola@braveheartsolutions.co.uk)