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How are the above 3 topics linked?  Well, the last two are easy to put together, but it would seem a bit of a stretch to join them to achievement!

Firstly, the achievement.  It’s been a dream of my son’s - a bucket dream (”what I’d like to do before I kick the …….”!) - to jump from a plane, freefall and land safely.  I certainly concur with the last bit of that sentence!!  Anyway, it was his 21st birthday on Friday, and he’s not a lad who has asked for much for Christmas or birthdays, ever, so his Dad and I decided that we would like to splurge out and give him an experience that he would never forget for this landmark birthday.  His choice was to do accelerated freefall from 15,000 feet.

Gulp!

Anyhow, (and slightly envious), I signed him up for a course.  What neither of us had realised was that there was an intensive day’s training in the classroom before he would be allowed up to jump.  Obviously safety is the paramount focus, and students are drilled in techniques designed to keep them alert, focussed and safe whilst in the air, having to report in to their instructors all the way until chute deployment. 

Accelerated freefall is when you jump solo (ie not strapped to anyone), but you do have two professional instructors holding on to your suit to ensure that you are safe.  The suits have stuffed padded tubes attached to the side of the arms, body and legs, which the instructors can hold on to.  As you get more experienced, they hold on less, until eventually, after several assisted jumps, they don’t hold on at all. 

Chris was initially disappointed that he wouldn’t be likely to jump on his birthday, but he got over it quickly and decided to enjoy the day which was amazing.  9 hours of training in body position, drills, parachute checks, alertness checks etc, was quite challenging mentally.  Then the forecast came up that wiped out Saturday and Sunday because of rain and high winds.  That was a disappointment.  

They sent up a scout plane to check on conditions at the end of the day, and with only light cloud cover at 7,000 feet, (they deploy the canopy at 6,000 feet), and wind velocity within safe parameters, and because he had done well with the course, Chris was offered a jump on Friday evening which he took with alacrity!  So he experienced his first free fall jump on his 21st birthday!  And what an experience.  He was thrilled and elated! 

Who knows whether he will decide to extend his course and become a qualified freefaller, or whether he treasures this one jump as an experience of a lifetime - he was really pleased with his parachute and landing skills, but not impressed with his freefall technique! - but this one jump has been a tremendous achievement in his life!  And I am so proud of both his achievement and his attitude to disappointment!

Back to procrastination and laziness - ok, so whilst they may not have a direct correlation with Chris’ achievement, in one way they do.  I have always thought of procrastination and laziness as inaction or the inability to decide on action.  However, I have now been shown another way to look at them.  Everything we do is an action - even if we decide to sit on our butts watching TV all day!  Procrastination and laziness are ineffective action.  For me, that is enough of a mind shift to eradicate them in my life.  If they are an action, then I choose to do them.  If I don’t choose to do them, then I eradicate them.  So the connection with achievement is the opposite side of the same coin - achievement is a positive action, whilst procrastination and laziness are negative actions.  I can still choose to sit and watch TV (although life is much more interesting than that!!), but now I know that I have chosen to do that!

I originally wrote this entry a year ago, and was thinking about this very subject this week when my son and I were having a philosophical discussion on “how do you know when you know yourself?”  In trying to put down in words what we were discussing, I got myself into knots, and deleted the whole thing, when I suddenly had the impulse to look at articles I’ve written but not yet published.  And there, right at the top, was this!  Serendipity at work!  Enjoy….

“Know Yourself”

This is a local secondary school’s motto near where I live, and it always gets me shaking my head.

I can’t say too much about this other than to say that the children really don’t get time to know themselves!  But what I wanted to think about today is how this short phrase applies to each of us individually.  Do we really know ourselves?

There are certain things I know about myself because of how I feel in certain situations.  For instance, I have an intense dislike of confrontation and will sometimes not stand up for myself or seek to turn a conversation to avoid confrontation although these days I would not go so far as to compromise myself or my principles.  But the flip side to this is that I have a very active (or overactive) sense of fair play.  If someone else is suffering an injustice, I leap in to defend them even at the risk of personal injury!  Now how does that equate??  In Homer SImpson’s immortal words – Doh!!

Why do I do that?  Is it a sensible thing to do?  No – usually not!  But somehow I can’t seem to help myself!  Choices.  No-one can say whether any choice is right or wrong.  We have laws and social codes but they are only guides, and they can change over a period of time as society itself changes.  We each live by our own personal codes, so we can only judge each other seen from our own standpoint.  Also our own perspective changes as we mature (age!) and we can choose (if we wish) how to react to any situation. When we are born we seem to be hard-wired with one disposition or another but as we get older we can sometimes develop into the opposite of that. 

So I’m back to where I started.  And how do we get to know ourselves? 

For me, it’s spending time on my own.  Lots of time.  Thinking.  Reading.  Weaving.  Thinking some more. 

Also it’s spending time with other people.  Lots of different people in different situations.  Watching. Listening.  Talking.  Listening some more. 

I’m not a social animal by nature.  However, give me a group of people with the same interests – weaving, philosophy, travel, readers, writers, music, theatre – and I’m as gregarious as anyone else.  It’s like heads and tails, chalk and cheese.  And I don’t think I’m alone in this.  I cultivate what I’d like to become – so I don’t watch violent movies.  I read to expand my mind and my soul.  I travel to learn more and experience more about the world.  I walk with my dog and examine closely the nature I see around me.  I weave because I love art, and weaving and experimenting fulfils my soul. 

I don’t know if what I do really helps me to know myself.  All I do know is that I like doing these things and I feel that I’m getting to know myself.  And perhaps that’s all any of us can aspire to. 

The words and music from The King & I, “Getting to Know You”, are running through my head now.  Perhaps it is more about getting to know others and finding through that that we get to know ourselves.  Hmmm.  I’d be interested in your thoughts…… 

Imeant to post this on 13th May, but somehow didn’t quite get round to it.  So here it is a little late, but still relevant!

Quite frequently, I find myself out of balance with myself.  How do we achieve balance between earning a living, looking after our health and wellbeing, and stimulating our minds?  I frequently look at my lifestyle and feel I should be doing more of one, less of another, and taking more responsibility for my own welfare.

In our household, my husband does most of the cooking and also the shopping.  However, he likes red meat a lot more than I do, and I prefer one or two vegetarian meals a week, which he doesn’t.  But I also like the convenience of not having to cook in the evening, and he also enjoys cooking, so it seems the ideal solution.  But is it?  I’ve recently been feeling the need for more fruit and veg than he normally buys, and started getting small mouth ulcers on my tongue or cheek, as well as more aches and pains than I would like in my joints. 

Today, I decided to go and do some fruit and veg shopping for me, so I now have blueberries, cherries, red and green grapes, broccoli, carrots, curly kale, green tea, etc, some of it English produce, but the vast majority of it from countries far away – Chile, Costa Rica, Spain, France, Italy – so now I’m concerned about the carbon footprint of what I’m buying!  Food that’s supposed to make me feel better now is contributing to a feeling of guilt and my responsibility of contributing to the world’s ecological concerns! 

I saw a young soldier on my journey to the supermarket, and that led to my reflecting on priorities in our daily lives and living slower.  I know I’ve mentioned it before but I am a member of the Slow Movement and try to make conscious choices about how I live my daily life so as not to allow myself to be rushed into chasing my tail like the oozalum bird….  This young man was dressed in his battle fatigues, really smartly turned out with gleaming boots, smart hair and upright bearing, and it sent my memory back to my Dad polishing our shoes every night as a part of the daily round.  He was adamant that he learned a lot from his national service and that everyone should undertake a 2 year service to their country, learning to care for themselves and be proud of who and what they are, making them self-sufficient and useful members of society. 

This reflection of taking care of ourselves, spending time polishing boots and buckles, caring for our appearance, then led to another question in my mind.  When does taking care of oneself turn into vanity?  My Mum would say that care taken with your appearance before going out was good, but that constant checking of oneself whilst out was vanity, and I guess that’s quite a good dividing line.  Taking care of yourself also means exercising, and I feel guilty when this subject comes up because I’m not a person who enjoys exercising for exercising’s sake.  I can’t stand the competitive (and smelly!) atmosphere in gyms, I hate committing to a week’s regular class and when I did go to a regular yoga class, I was always measuring myself against everyone else!    (I had to be the best!!)

As far as weaving and weaving related things go, I’m there!  That’s my pleasure as well as my job.  And yet it means many solitary hours (which I love) which quite often stretch into the evenings (if my husband is not at home).  So perhaps I just need to take time out when having a cup of tea (green, of course!)and work in some simple strengthening and stretching exercises. 

Perhaps what I’m trying to work out through this blog is how to strike a balance that seems right for me.  It doesn’t matter if it is completely different to everyone else’s – they, after all, are not me!  So moderation in eating and drinking, ensuring good quality food from farmers’ markets that are local and only supplementing my food with imported items where the season doesn’t allow them to be in season here, regularly walking Charlie and walking to the local shops, allowing myself the time to do it.  In other words, not trying to cram as much into a day as possible (the downside of trying to live each day as if it were your last!) but aiming for one or two goals whilst giving myself the time to live and observe life and nature around me.  And above all, not feeling guilty for what I can’t or haven’t achieved, but taking responsibility for my own health and wellbeing. 

Sounds good, doesn’t it?!  But isn’t it hard to get that balance between individual responsibility and global concerns on an even keel?  Everything is so interlinked that every decision we make has consequences.  I guess that the only thing we can do is try to make decisions that are right for us as individuals, keeping in mind that we all belong to the global family and that things we do to harm the environment and each other harm us all in the long run!  What a responsibility being a human in today’s world carries….