What is happiness?

Just before Labour Weekend, an actor friend asked me to record a short video of me “musing on the thought of happiness,” adding that he chose me “specifically for your very unique perspective on things”.  Unique is right.

And like everyone scrambling to pack in a life time of activity before a long weekend, I was up to my ears in all sorts of busy-ness. So it was, after getting home some time after midnight on a Wednesday night, post-shower, I lay on my red shag-pile under my orange lamp, held my iPhone above me and recorded this:

And that to me, is my musings on happiness.

Loss = expansion

Loss. It’s what I am feeling at the moment. Loss of value, loss of colleagues, loss of friends and loss of family.

Loss.

I am however completely wrong, of course. I haven’t lost anything. Not a single thing.

No one is gone from my life. No talent I had before now has trickled away. I haven’t lost any friends and my family is 100% intact. In fact, I haven’t lost a thing.

Last night, Fred, the cat in my photo above, moved to Grey Lynn. I hear he’s holding his own, marking out his place in the pet-dom hierarchy. I shed a wee tear (naturally), but Fred’s OK. And so am I.

Which brings me to my point. The “loss” that I believe myself to be feeling is actually, in tactical terms, an expansion of my world. The colleagues I have “lost” are making their way in Auckland, the UK, the US, Oz and the world. My tentacle-acular connection to them has stretched right across the globe in every direction and reaches right back to me.

Added to that, I have the luxury of social media and am able to see, hear and feel them every day.

The people I left behind in London, Brighton, Devon, Ireland and Scotland are still there, being the talented, savvy, smart people they always were. Only better. And they’re only a couple of flights and an adventurous stop-over away.

The jewels of my life who live in Hawke’s Bay, Ruapehu, Perth, Sydney, Melbourne, Singapore, Bath, London, LA, San Francisco, New York and beyond are padding down the grass ready for me to pitch up with my tent. And there’s not a single thing stopping me from joining them.

As for loss experienced through death… I have decided not to go there. Aside from saying that for me, the immediacy and overwhelming grief of loss evolves over time to expand the mind and heart, and to connect the soul to an infinite belief system. But as I say, I am not going there. I have my beliefs and I respect yours.

So… my world has expanded lately. What about yours?

WHAT I SHOULD COULD HAVE DONE TONIGHT (no more “SHOULDs”)

• Phoned my mother
• Helped my neighbour move boxes (soooo wasn’t going to happen)

WHAT I DID TONIGHT

• Had the BEST BodyJam class of my life (I’ve only been going six months, so hey…)
• Made a weird salad with iceberg lettuce, salmon and cream cheese
• Popped into Linkedin
• Reminded myself that when I point my judgy finger at someone, four fingers are pointing back at me

Join me on my trip to freedom. RIP Rin, three years this Sunday. Always missed and probably laughing at me not with me. And happy night all ♥

xx

I choose freedom!

It’s time to re-energise.

So I am starting with my blog, to be re-instated to (almost every) Monday night.

This year for me is going to be momentous. I have challenges ahead that will take all my courage and strength for me face them head on with grace. So as I really jump into 2013, I find myself in the brace position.

Waiting.

As I wait, I am undertaking housekeeping of an internal nature. Some of it is easy – exercise, socialising more, eating well and drinking less. And some of it less so. Taking care of the creative, emotional and spiritual me is proving to be quite some task. I figure then, why not crack it with an external audience of you?

It’s time for me to see the world differently. It’s time for me to see the positive, to see my world as expansive and open, packed with abundance and opportunity, and filled to the brim with hope and possibility. It is limitless and so am I.

I am one of the lucky ones. I am a Western woman who is extremely highly educated. I have an amazing, intelligent and kind family. I can support myself and have money to spare. I can save. I can travel (almost) anywhere and live where I want in the world.  I have two passports. I have religious and spiritual freedom. I have the most incredible, talented friends anyone could ever hope for in one lifetime. And I have the world at my fingertips.

Basically, I have the power to call the shots; I have freedom.

So… I may as well bloody choose it, right?

WHAT I SHOULD HAVE DONE TONIGHT

• Worked on my novel #2

WHAT I DID TONIGHT

• Made (and ate) pancakes
• Updated my LinkedIn profile
• Connected with heaps of people in LinkedIn

Happy night all ♥

xx

You don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone

My siblings and me by the swing Dad made

There’s a threshold crossed by siblings, probably traversed without fanfare. It’s the day they consider their brothers and sisters with feelings of admiration and respect.

For me, this deep-running river of feeling did not arise in the best of times but in the worst of times. It flowed – and flows – at our lowest ebbs. When my brothers and sisters face their grossest challenges; when their souls have been needled and they call on all their resources of strength to get through.

And now, whether we accept it or not, we children are perched in the greatest precipice of our lives: facing our parents closing the phrase of their lives. It’s inevitable. We all gotta die some time. And without being bleak, our father has a thriving, curious brain fighting against a tired and injured heart. And we don’t think the brain has the stamina needed to win. Our mother, by contrast, will punch on for years. We think.

To my siblings, my closest peers, I know what I’ve got. It’s not yet gone, and I’m going to nurture my friendship with you for as long as we’re all still around.

So, however and whenever the inevitable unfolds, I will be lucky to have these people to share my worst of times with.

WHAT I SHOULD HAVE DONE THIS MORNING

• Read my academic papers

WHAT I DID THIS MORNING

• Made Dad breakfast in bed
• Ate my breakfast in bed with Dad as he ate his breakfast in bed
• Hung out three loads of washing
• Went to the pharmacist for Dad
• Bought a dozen free range eggs
• Bought the winning super-duper, mega extra Lotto ticket

Happy weekend all

xx

Hello, my name is Peter Pan

Me as I appear in real life

Hello, my name is Peter Pan and I have stunted growth. Not upwards (although I’m not what you’d call tall), but inwards. That “growing up”, “settling down” gene has clean passed me by. As have my peers.

They’re partnered, with children marking time on mortgages and careering ahead in careers. Colleagues are rocketing past, moving into the heady heights of leadership. Former peers are now my boss’s boss’s boss And me? Well, I’ve landed at age “23”. With crinkles.

I’m not complaining, far from it. But I am pondering. Given my theme of procrastination, this appears as a mighty example.

It’s not simply that I haven’t reached certain expected Western society milestones but that I just haven’t wanted too. And no psychologist yet has unearthed a reason why. Or said it’s a bad thing.

So now I am creating new dreams and seeding the future with alternate plans. 2012 stacks up to a mortgage for a house I will never live in, finishing a degree just for personal growth, publishing a book online instead of in print, building a house in Sri Lanka I will never live in, seeing India through the lens of a camera, hitting South East Asia again for New Year, and 2013 plans start with taking 30 women and their teenaged daughters to live in a Mumbai slum for a month and hopefully end with working in Ghana in an orphanage.

Maybe I’ll never grow up. Maybe one day I’ll be the oldest youth in the country. But so what? I reckon I’ll always have something unique to offer.

I hope this inspires you to be the you that you want to be. And inspires me to believe in new dreams.

WHAT I SHOULD HAVE DONE TONIGHT

• Read my academic papers
• Emptied the dishwasher
• Uploaded my Laneway photos to Facebook (sorry Matt)

WHAT I DID TONIGHT

• Aced my run at training knocking a whopping 2 mins off my time
• Rewarded myself with Whittaker’s dairy milk chocolate (officially usurped Trade Aid milk choccie as fave)
• Clambered into my jammies at 7.16 pm
• Put on a load of washing

Thank you all for your personal comments to me about my last post, Is depression the soul’s procrastination? 

Night all

xx

Putting the P in Procrastination

 

This is not an illusion. It’s real.

The P in Procrastination stands for Positive. And if not, it should.

Procrastination is the direct cause of some of the magic in our lives that planning squeezes out. It’s the bits in between; the surprises along the way. It’s the journey not the destination.

Take Splore 2012. We planned to leave sometime between 10 and 11am on Friday. Naturally, we didn’t. We didn’t leave at 12 either. But we did manage to hit the road at about half one. Perfect timing to reach Splore-land about 2.30pm. Here we’ll ignore the one-hour queue wait, because procrastination (and the one-hour wait) added up to Splore magic: The Best Campsite Ever; a dazzling blue sea view; The Most Awesome Neighbours Ever (some trick of fate had us in with the artists, a.k.a. cool crew) adding up to The Best Splore Ever.

Had we NOT Perfected the Positive art of Procrastination and instead risen with the birds, loaded the car and hit the road as “planned”…. well, none of THIS would have happened:

• Eating the neighbour’s (posh) camping buschetta
• Sprawling over two campsites not one
• The Red Panda vs. Fox dance off (too hard to explain…)
• Walking past a tent two tents down hearing an English guy say: “The problem with Kiwis is…”
• Eating Ghanan goat stew (delish BTW, sorry Vaughn)
• Discovering that Payless Plastics sell sealable caps for Warehouse brand lemonade (who knew?)
• Being offered three large rump steaks
• Having an impromptu marquee party after the Erykah Badu EPIC downpour of 2012

Result? A whole lot of laughs and a P for Positively Procrastinated SPlore!

WHAT I SHOULD HAVE DONE TONIGHT

• Read my academic papers
• Put my Splore camping gear in the cupboard
• Put away my clean washing

WHAT I DID TONIGHT

• Ate some Whittaker’s milk chocolate (the best after Trade Aid milk choccie)
• Loaded 283 Splore photos to Facebook
• Drank a tall glass of Old Mout cranberry cider (with ice)
• Emptied the dishwasher
• Had a shower

Night all

xx