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Dirt and beauty
In 1974 Saudi Arabia was a fabulously rich country, yet its streets were piled high with rubbish. There was no garbage disposal system other than the goats that roamed the streets. The reason? “No self-respecting Saudi would ever collect trash.”[i] Being too proud to deal with their garbage meant that effectively the Saudis were left […]
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Comparisons
Everything is relative. To answer a question like: “How happy are you with your life?” we cannot answer without comparing our situation with some point of reference. If that point of reference is how much poorer we were three years ago, or our unfortunate friend who has just had heart attack, or the plight of […]
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Striving for perfection
Humans strive for perfection in so many ways; we want the perfect house, body, partner. A mental picture of how something should or could be gives us something to work towards. Yet we all know that perfection is impossible. The word ‘perfect’ comes from Latin roots, meaning ‘completed’ or ‘finished’ (like the perfect tense). Perfection […]
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Compassion and challenge
For years I cultivated compassion, not wanting to become desensitised to the suffering in the world. At times I felt overwhelmed by all the suffering around me and wanted to alleviate it wherever possible. A couple of years ago I attended a seminar with Caroline Myss, a spiritual leader whose books I had been reading. […]
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Power and humility
In our daily lives there are people who have a certain amount of power over us (our employer, landlady, teacher) and people over whom we hold positions of relative power (our children, employees, students). To maximise social happiness, power must be used wisely and with humility. I remember one work situation where my boss started […]
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Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics
We say that actions speak louder than words – and indeed they should. But in actual fact we have to be extremely vigilant in order to avoid simply accepting what we are told. Our human brains seem to be wired to process information quickly and efficiently by slotting it into pre-existing sets of beliefs. Something […]
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Another Finder’s Kindness Story
This morning a work colleague came around searching for her phone. She wasn’t sure whether she had left it at work, or placed it on top of her car before she drove away. We looked everywhere and I phoned her number, but to no avail. A couple of hours later she texted me to say […]
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Nelson Mandela, politics and spirituality
Nelson Mandela is no longer with us. I find myself quite tearful, perhaps not from sadness, because he had made the most of his 95 years on this earth, but simply in recognition of the wonderful qualities he embodied. Nelson Mandela will always remain my hero, not because he was an extraordinary person, but because […]
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Immunising yourself against other people’s venom
Feelings and attitudes are like germs – highly infectious. To promote our own happiness and that of the people around us, we need to protect ourselves from toxic attitudes and emotions that might come into our circle from time to time. But how do I stop myself getting angry when someone is angry with me, […]
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Other People Can Be So Annoying!
You’ve probably noticed that other people can be a real pain at times. Interfering, making too much noise, demanding, whining, doing a sloppy job, messing things up, wanting their own way – other people can find a million ways to get under our skin. Yet before we react to them, we must look to ourselves […]