What’s the most profound piece of advice you’ve been given? Did you take it?
My mum left Ireland in the 50s to go work in the UK. She was from a small rural village in Co. Meath. She went to join her older sisters in London. It was a live in job working in a bar/hotel. She was 16 years old.
Having worked behind a bar myself for a good few years, starting at age 19, I came to realise you see the world and all its charachers there. The good, the bad and the ugly.
It was a great eye opener and a great place to hone in the skill of observing human behaviour.
The piece of advice my mother gave me when I was about 14 was “flattery is like perfume, smell it but don’t swallow it”.
When I worked behind the bar in particular, I smiled to myself at this piece of advise. All the chat, the chat ups, the drunk men, young and old, thinking they can charm you with with a ‘what a lovely smile, bum, legs, eyes etc etc. Some were sleezy, grabbing my hand and holding it as they placed their money in it, slurring across the bar what they perceived to be compliments…. I knew what they really wanted and I thought uh oh, not from me buddy!
Flattery always made me feel a bit nervous, and that men were really quite disingenuous., that they had an ulterior motive and that they would say things in an attempt to ‘get things’. I know this is an unfair assumption and it certainly is to label ALL men.
However, it did help me to separate the wheat from the chaff. To know a charmer from a genuine interested party when I saw one and it gave me the wherewithall to just politely say, thank you, but no thank you.
So for all the girls out there remember my mums piece of good advise…flattery is like perfume, smell it but don’t swallow it !
Is there really any ‘meaning’? We are born quite by chance or accident when biology collides and creates us.
I guess, however, as we are born into a certain society, we are guided by certain rules, structures, regulations and we conform or perform.
Therefore, when we become independent of our parents/carers , we must decide who we really are. Shed who we think who we ought to be and just be.
Then, hopefully we will find meaning in certain things we do and decide if that is good or bad or indifferent and if it sits well with how it makes us feel.
We just have to live. Live a life that we shape into something that we are happy with.
If that means a certain career, vocation, or otherwise, then so be it. But most experience conflict within their chosen careers, vocation or otherwise seeking meaning.
Writing this, what does it even mean? To me, its just my opinion. When we navigate our lives, our paths are not usually linear. Not all happy, not all sad, not all meaninful. We just get on with it.
We suffer, we struggle, we laugh, we cry… other people give us meaning. We give others meaning…in the way we treat each other. It’s in the way we treat eachother that determines how we feel, how we act, how we react.
The higherarchy of life, of people, of institutions, influence us, have power over us, inform us. It may be good, it may be destructive….is it right, wrong, indifferent?
You have to give your own life your meaning, and that can be diferent to someone elses meaning… it doesn’t mean it is right or wrong. Doesnt mean its necessarily good, or bad or therwise.
So really there is no meaning like your own meaning so make your life mean something!
What’s a mystery from your own life that you’ve never solved?
Ive never found them…my red reading glasses…perched on the end of my nose for close up work or reading….where did they go!
I’ll find them when cleaning the salon, I told myself….they will tilurn up.
I carry on about my evening, cooking, chatting to kids, watching tv…(no glasses needed for that back then).
Everyday I looked, every day a mystery. The black ones, the spare ones, would have to do.
Fast foward 8 years…8 years of looking and wondering, but nay, still no red glasses.
I’ll find them when im packing the house up, but nay, nowhere in sight were the red glasses to be found….
Every nook and cranny was searched, every cupboard emptied, as we were moving house, every hand bag checked…. still no sign of the red reading glasses.
It must be the ‘little people’, ‘ the borrowers’, the ‘others’.
Perhaps it was a client! Perhaps the striking shade of sexy red suited her newly applied crimsen coloured lipstick…perhaps, perhaps, perhaps
Perhaps Iaccidentally chucked them out with the waste! 😁
So now purched continously atop my nose sits, my purple varifocal glasses….the beauty of ageing eyesight!
Well for this prompt the first thing that came to my mind was work for the civil service!
We spend most of our lives working. so work in the public sector. They offer lots of different departments to suit lots of levels of experience and education. Their jobs are pensionable meaning you will contribute automaticcaly to a pension….it’s an automatic savings plan for the future!
In the private sector, well thats a different story. You work just as hard, could work identical hours or longer hours but dont pay into a pension automatically if at all.
So I would tell my younger self to pick a job that is automatically pensionable and don’t waste time in the private sector….unless at a young age I was wise enough to pay into a private pension!
What do you enjoy doing most in your leisure time?
I like to get lost….painting and creating. I left school at 16 but my art teacher would tell me that my painting was rubbish and messy.
I didnt paint a picture again until about 6 or 8 years ago, in my early 50’s but first I began by painting and decoupaging furniture.
It was then I realised that it wasnt necessarily the outcome, but the process of squeezing the paint from its tube, dipping the brush into it and just getting lost and so focussed at the same time.
It is like gojng down a rabbit hole on an adventure and it is fun and therapeutic.
I have large gaps inbetween painting/creating due to other demands on life but when im in the mood or have time for it, it totally takes me over !
So if your art teacher tells you that your work is rubbish, just carry on and enjoy the process…
I love a good daily prompt to get the mind focussed and thinking. So what does make a good leader?
Is it a list? if so, can it be applied generally across the board to all and sundry? let’s see:
Edward de Bono said the Blue hat, from his six thinking hats, is a good leader. The blue hat is, and I quote ” used to manage the thinking process. It’s the control mechanism that ensures the six thinking hat guidelines are observed……
What are the other hats I hear you ask. In summary they are:
White Hat – collects the facts and only the facts.
Yellow Hat – symbolises optimism and brightness, ie. explores the positives and benefits.
Black hat – The risk management hat. Spots the difficulties and risks.
The red hat – Feelings, intuition, hunches, likes and dislikes,
The Green hat – focuses on creativity, possibilities, alternatives. This hat sees opportunities to explore new concepts.
So collectively, in the board room we effectively could do with a person to wear each hat and put their thoughts, feelings and ideas to the blue hat, or the blue hat must ensure that he has covered the thinking processes of the other hats if he is to make a decision all by himself/herself.
Lets test this with Winnie the Pooh. When there is a problem it is usually to him that most of the other creatures go. He usually responds with optimism, consideration and empathy. He is definitely a problem soother but is that enough to lead?
What about Christopher Robin, the only human amongst the creatures. He generally is the one that the animals go to when they have a BIG problem. He is most certainly, more often than not, a problem solver.
What about the ‘what I say goes’ type of leader. The organizer, the planner, the hit the ground running, even if other’s do not necessarily agree…mmmmmm, Rabbit is a bit like that, wouldn’t you say? Me too sometimes! yikes, my bad!!
Do we need a mentor to lead, the knowledgeable one. The one with the facts, like Owl. He reads a lot and knows a lot. Surely he can show them all the way?
and then there is Kanga, the steady, nurturing, caring, understanding creature. Can she lead on that alone or does she need the knowledge, the planning, the organisation, the optimism and consideration of all the facts?
What about courage, tenacity, honesty, ability to listen but also plough on in the face of adversity? Does a good leader need to step back, observe, listen, delegate, give responsibility to, his team, his friends, his family, whatever it is he/she is supposed to be leading?
I think a good leader is all the above, a person who knows that they cannot do it by themselves, for that is just ego. They must trust others, support others, allow others to contribute at the table, and understand that in order to lead you must also stand back.
Now the only other thing to consider is in terms of leadership, is to know that not all leaders are necessarily good, or have good intentions for the greater good of others. Some leaders are driven by greed, power, control and dominance.
Watch any Marvel movie, watch any piece of history, recent, or otherwise, and you will see what consequences have been as a result of poor or insincere leadership.
So, like in the world of the 100 acre wood, lets be a Winnie the Pooh & gang kind of leader.
Well, I guess that would be a nun I had in my school. I had just moved from the UK to Ireland and was 14.
She took an instant dislike to me. She said “we didn’t ask to have you English people in our school and would be more than delighted to see the back of you”….
Also that i was “a savage in the jungle and would amount to nothing”……just delightful for a nun.
I learned:
Don’t take people in uniform at face value or too seriously. Don’t believe they took the Oath, with good intentions, necessarily.
Be understanding of difference.
Not to be racist/discriminatory.
Treat people with kindness and understanding.
Strive to do the best that I could in all that I do.
Be a good person. (Or good enough)
Religion is a man made rule book and set of beliefs, not necessarily followed by those who preach it.
Again, be a good enough person.
Go visit the jungle before I die.
I guess she gave me a challenge, and I became more than she could ever predict!
So lately I have been doing some ‘exercise’ routines around the house. About to enter into my 6th decade, I want to go in fit and strong and these days, what better way to motivate and inspire, perhaps, is through tiktok…. New age fandangos!
So I have been uploading my little demo routines and my children of course, quite understandably, mortified. I say with a smile on my face and think, payback for their teenage years (I am joking of course, they were all little darlings, cough cough).
So, one of my daughters was on her phone and my tik tok came up and she apparently said ‘Oh god, what is nanny at now’ and my grandchildren rushed over to see, what indeed, I was up to now.
Charlie, my grandaughter, who is 8, quickly jumped to my defence and said to her mother, and I quote “would you rather have a lazy old weak mum or a fit, strong cool mum?”
I laughed and laughed and laughed and so did my daughter. So rock on Charlie, you have given nanny THE best compliment and for you, I strive to remain cool!
I fluctuate between what I believe when it comes to the question “do you believe in fate/destiny”.
When I was younger I think I believed we were put here for a reason, and it was up to us to discover what the reason was and wherever we ended up, would be the answer, would be our fate, our destiny.
For example, having a certain plan for the day, and the day goes completely astray and looks nothing like how it was supposed to look, but by the end of the day, wherever and whatever has occurred, was meant to be. A lesson to be learned, or a new path laid out to show us the way.
The Robert Frost poem, ‘The road not taken’, has been interpreted by many and thought to be a metaphor to generalise life. However, perhaps he wrote it just because he came to a fork in the road and thought, “Hmmm, I wonder if I go down this road, where it will lead”. A road of discovery, of now knowing where it lead, and that is that.
The many trials and tribulations of life can drive us to the depths of despair or the heights of euphoria. From them, we learn a lot, usually about ourselves and how we responded to them. Highs can become like a drug and we seek it more and more and it can be addictive. Whereas lows, can bring us down, make us avoidant, or we may retreat, hibernate for a while.
Which ever scenario it is, we respond. So is the response a matter of fate or a matter of fact?
Is the drug of the high, whether it’s in a successful capacity or a damaging capacity, where our fate, our destiny, lies?
Are some people fated to be successful and rich because the universe says so, or is it because they are driven and worked hard? Is is because of their passion, their desire, their innate determination and tenacity? Billions of people work hard every day, but are not rich and may feel they are not successful.
Does the universe decide, well this is your fate because of the set of circumstances they are in. Perhaps they didn’t have the same opportunity as others, but none the less, work just as hard. Perhaps they are born in a poorer country that measures success in a different way to other countries.
Likewise if their drug, is literally a class A drug, or alcohol dependency, or gambling addiction, or sex addiction etc etc does that mean they are here, because that is their destiny, that is their fate?
As for the lows, the knocks, the blows that we inevitably have to accept as part of life, because that is life, it can harden people, it can soften people, it can open the minds of people, it can close the minds of people, because people have their own unique code and personality. They have their own internal set of skills to navigate and deal with life. Their own resilliences and coping mechanisms. So is that fate or personality?
Along this journey, we interact with people and places. Circumstances change and we have to adapt. Is this fate? Is this where we were meant to be in the first place, is this trial or tribulation a necessary thing to take us to this place? to this person? Perhaps. There is no knowing, is there?
I think it is a romantic notion. People often think of their relationships when they think of fate or destiny. We can make up answers to everything. We just have to speak it. Convince ourselves. Convince others. Influence others and believe that yes, it is fate.
Or, we can sit back and think i’m here because this is where I am choosing to be. On the journey, we meet people by chance. They may become an acquaintance, they may become a lot more than that, but we met them by chance. After that chance meeting, we make a choice as to what kind of relationship it will be.
We take a step in the dark sometimes, a leap of faith and hope for the best. Hope is just hope, it’s a desire, an expectation, something internal. The desire and expectation may be realised, or not. So does that mean it is down to fate or destiny? There is no way of categorically answering that question.
All we have is our own belief, our own opinion, and that is fine, we are entitled to have our beliefs and our opinions.
I have used that word before. I have had good and bad relationships. I have moved from house to house, country to country. I have met people by chance and chose to keep some close to me. I have learned a lot about myself along the way. My journey is not over. I can make connections of certain coincidences and say ‘it is fate’ and at that time I believe it to be so, but that doesn’t mean, it is the final destiny, because it can change.
There is one thing for sure and that it everything is certain to keep changing and that is all of our destiny’s.
Relay shun ships 
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