Life Via a Line

I have not posted for a while, I will not lie to you, I have been struggling. My father, who I love dearly, has had a major heart attack and now has pneumonia.  Emotionally and mentally, I am struggling.   As this year comes to a close, I am looking towards 2018.  I do not really make New Year's Resolutions to be honest.  I truly believe that the most important thing in life is to enjoy it and to be happy. The endless pursuit of happiness has always  fascinated me and like everyone, I will either awake happy or unhappy.  My unhappiness is honestly caused by pain, pain from my condition.  I am grateful for my life, the ability to keep going through plasma exchanges every fourth week.  But..... everyone else, what is the difference that makes the difference with happiness? I’d love to have the answer because I would bottle it and hand it out for free.  “Focus creates feeling.”  Daily, believe it or not, I actually decide whet...

I’ve always battled with anger. I have learnt from my anger that it contains useful information about me and what I want from life.  It alerted me to the fact that one of my boundaries had been crossed or that there was something I needed to speak up about.   Anger let me know when I was hurt therefore I began to accept it as a normal part of me and actually it became an extremely helpful part.   I was muddling through my life as best as I could, hedging my bets and working to accept my anger without amplifying it.  I realized that when I felt the first flush of anger, I knew that things shouldn’t be this way.  She/he/they shouldn’t have done that. It’s her/his/their fault I’m feeling like this - all I was doing was assigning blame.   Anger actually doesn’t seek to blame or make anybody right or wrong. When I am angry, I feel a burning sensation, a warmth on my face, a rush of intense energy. Tha...

I believe we all struggle with work life balance.  I have just finished my first week in my new part time role, 25hrs a week.   The benefits to working less, I believe are obvious such as having more time, time for hobbies, friends, family, health, or even working on bigger and better projects and then there are the less obvious benefits, such as improving creativity and productivity.   Work-life balance is very difficult to achieve as our brains have not evolved to determine exactly how much we need to work. Our brains want us to survive and reproduce, and working more seems to contribute to those end goals. Our brain’s anxiety about survival and reproduction motivates us to work more, even though it’s not usually in our best interest.   Maybe our brains are hardwired to think that working excessively to gather resources contributes to survival and reproduction.  We have all learnt though that more work doesn’t always...

Lately I have gone through a lot of stress and my insomnia is back so I am feeling increasingly tired.  Long ago I broke myself out of the habit of projecting my happiness into an imaginary future and instead I concentrate on the present moment.  For so many years of my life, I know that I didn’t know how to be happy. I continuously kept busy always on the go so that I could achieve more.  My happiness was nothing more than a project and I was continually waiting for  big things to happen so I could finally feel joyful and satisfied.  I was stuck in the  rat race, this is actually an archetype.  People in a rat race often sacrifice  current pleasures and benefits in anticipation of future rewards. I have learnt that this is the most familiar archetype to many of us - continuously setting new goals, never pleased, always busy.   Trust me, I am not saying that setting clear goals for the future is a bad. Everyone in life needs a purpo...

I can openly and honestly say I love being an aunt.  I have had 3 years practice with Elliott and my whole life has changed since he came along.  I am now lucky enough to also have Amos who was born just over a week ago.   When Elliott came along, three years ago in October, I fell in love with this tiny little bundle.  I knew right then that I would love and cherish him forever.  When I cuddled Amos last Saturday  I felt exactly the same. I know I will get to watch them both grow, learn, develop, smile, laugh, cry, love, live and become their own person.  Watching another family member grow in size is amazing and exciting and I know I can taunt them in years to come about their little phases growing up.  I hope then our bond will grow into friendship and they will always be able to call me, call us anytime of the day or night even if it is just to be picked up or because they have been dumped or need money.   The past three years I...

The biggest thing I have had to learn this year was that  who I am now is what matters most. My past does not make me the person I am now. My golf and my achievements to date shape who I am now and I believe my golf helped me to overcome the line going in and helped me to overcome some personal issues over the summer that I have gone through.   My past does not make me who I am now but set me on the right steps to becoming the person I am now—the person whose kindness shines,  the person whose love for my wife and family takes center stage, my choices this year have not always been healthy, and I have undergone some self-abuse and will start to work on changing this very soon.  I will now begin to focus on my new future and building the person I need to become.  Today, I bumped into Joe in Deal, I have known Joe since he was a young lad playing at St Augustine's before he even started his PGA Training, he has changed careers and is waiting for his amateur s...