Age Is Just A Number...

I recently read a snippet from Seven Sentences called Why Age Is Just A Number In Your Head and it gave me pause.

The premise of this short article is not simply that age is no barrier but that overcoming perceived obstacles like 'age' inspires others. And that opting out denies the world your dream.

Here's why I paused. Should the world really be waiting for me, to live vicariously through my dream? Or should they be working on their own?  And how should they divine where to draw the line between bravery and the just plain ill-advised?

I've been surprised by the extraordinary emerging courageously from what I thought to be ordinary. By the same token, I've also been gobsmacked by belief in attributes actually in absentia - making me sometimes wonder whether my own truths are really so self-evident - and also in this glib sense that one should be able to have whatever one wants.

In our world of instant gratification and easy celebrity, there have been many moments when I have listened to someone declare their passion, that 'this' is all that they have ever wanted, and been torn between cynical disbelief and tearful admiration (although mostly I sit somewhere - unmoved - in the middle).

But where does hard work and doing what it takes come in? What part does luck play? And where is the balance between heart-felt self-belief and pragmatic acceptance?

After all, we can't all be good at everything. Life is full of knocks so how do you determine which of your passions to keep getting up for?


Thomas Edison claimed that genius was 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration, Ralph Waldo Emerson liked to start with laughing often and loving much and Robert Frost was a firm advocate of the road less travelled. Even Albert Einstein seemed to subscribe to the view of a 'lucky few':

Small is the number of them that see with their own eyes, and feel with their own hearts.

But why this sense of scarcity? Is it really so difficult to dream?

Or is it owning it - taking responsibility and accepting all of the consequences - that scares us into silence?

Moments of Joy...

It's that time of year when the world looks back, wonders at what it didn't achieve and makes a promise for the year to come.

Source: pinterest

I'm not really one for New Year, resolutions and all that. It seems pointless to me to wait for one day in the year to reflect and make plans.

But each year, while I don't make a list, I can't help but look back at where I've been, the unexpected paths taken, the unexpected moments of joy and sadness, and wonder where I might be this time next year.

It reminds me of the words from my favourite poem by Robert Frost:

So both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day

Yet knowing how way leads on to way

I doubted if I should ever come back.

From The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

Life has a funny way of showing you the path sometimes so this year there will be no plans, no resolutions for me.

Just a continuing hope to inspire, be generous, find peace and savour moments of joy wherever the road may take me.


Source: pinterest

Wishing you a 2012 filled with a million tiny moments of joy.

Of Hearts And Minds...(NB: 15 Sleeps To Go)

I have just spent a lovely few hours this afternoon with my friend A-mother-of-N, and little N.  They live on the opposite side of London so we catch up on alternate 'sides' once every couple of months or so.  Anyway, we were chatting today about how much life has changed for us both, particularly for me in the last 9 months, the challenges we have faced and the little victories we've celebrated.

One of the things we spoke about was my writing.  I will have been writing my blog for 3 years next month but it's only been in the last 9 months, I've started to consider where it all might lead.  I've 'guest-posted' a couple of times and been acknowledged by generous fellow bloggers (you know who you are - and for everyone else, you can find them on my blog roll) but am now starting to get encouragement from outside the blogosphere with family and friends commenting 'how well I write'.

Recently I started writing for weekendnotes, my first 'paid' gig depending on how many articles I submit and how many subscribers and page views I get.  I have just submitted my second article for publishing today. (My first, about my visit to the Museum of Brands, Packaging and Advertising, which I have also blogged about, was published last Monday.)  I love London. I love writing.  It seems a match made in Heaven.

But I feel...hesitant. 

You see, I am completely besotted with writing.  Even more so than when I was in high school (high school, not secondary - now that ages me!).  Some days I write what I see, hear, experience in the small things.  Other days it just seems that I can't help but put my heart on the page.  It's a joyful feeling, sometimes emotional, but always satisfying.  An expression of my creativity and passion that feels both cathartic and right in its current proportion.  

And that's the thing - the balance.  I also love my work.  It's commercial and fast-paced and dynamic and I'm part of a team - and it's a big part of me as well.  And right now, the two things together feel balanced and right.  Yet I can't help asking myself, could I still do both if I wrote more?  Could I keep managing the balance or would there come a tipping point, where the single, albeit dual purpose, path may naturally divide and I find myself standing at a fork in the road?

One of my favourite poem's of all time is The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost.  There's a line in it 'yet knowing how way leads on to way'.  I feel like that now.  I am desperate not to lose the joy I have rediscovered in writing but suspect that life will take me down the road that it will. 

I will just have to be brave enough to keep my heart and mind open to whatever happens next.