I read a quote once that the days seem long but the years are short - by a father to his son watching how fast his granddaughter was growing up and it resonated with me.
I remember when I was young, time seemed to go on forever. School especially but I also recall spending hours in the garden, playing with our dog/s and sitting in a tree waving at a neighbour sitting on her jungle gym. ( Hi C! We reunited on Facebook)
This year, I feel older. I feel like the quote really has struck with me. The year has been and is speeding by and every time, I look, I think of updating this blog all I am reading is how March, April, May, June, July just sped by (boring!) and it just seems like I could write this whole year off. Bring back 2011!
Work balances between feeling like I need to fill more of my days and not having enough time in the day. Having a small business has taught me more about life than I ever expected. It has given me the chance to try so many alternatives, resource so much information, assess a multitude of choices and meet people, fascinating small business owners who have so much to share.
I have always believed - no - I have been lucky. I am highly educated, I come from a great deal of support, I have been taught values and principles, I am lucky. I don't have to, I have never felt forced to work in a job or make career choices because I have to, because of a financial or other reason. I can believe that I can do work I love and sometimes struggle with the confusion of too little or too many clients, too much or too little work to do to month by month. But I am of the lucky few - who can go around stating this.
I often feel like I cannot blog, I cannot say things publicly on this blog, because I am exceptionally lucky. And so I spend my time, my days trying to learn about others. When there were rioters in London last week, looting shops, burning cars and buildings, damaging properties and small businesses, I was reading people's comments, reactions and judgements on social media accounts.
It's easy to sit behind a computer screen or a mobile phone and make comments and assumptions. I couldn't, I was shocked and disgusted, because looters were stealing TVs and then smashing them outside shops and I couldn't understand why. I still don't. I would love to hear from them. I would love to understand or if not understand than just get a glimpse into their choices. I don't want to see pictures of them, I wanted to hear someone talk about his/her life, whether he/she was broken, lost, bored, unhappy -
Part of being on social media for me is training. I am lucky because I have been and am highly educated. I don't carry masters and I haven't graduated and thrown my black hat into the sky, where I came from education was vital. I cannot even begin to tell you how important I think books are, maybe because I am obsessed with books but honestly no matter what mood I am in, no matter my situation, my circumstance, whatever my day or week has been like, I turn to books.
Being a bookworm ( and meeting other bookworms) is funny. Introduce me to someone who loves books and reads - connects me. I have met online through blogging and joining all those book websites like Shelfari, online friends who became real friends.
I have been reading, getting lost in words, learning through reading and when I look up from a book, it seems that somehow I need to find more of a balance. I want to understand this world and social media training is brilliant for me. It means that I get to spend hours with clients and teams, getting to know them while training and days when I am training, advising, assisting are the best days - the days where I love my business the most.
It also means that I am getting paid for researching and reading, how amazing is that? I get to do the things I love and still call it work. And then I meet people who have to work, who have families, mortgages, are carers and get a swift knock on the head that my role, my path in life should contain 3 things, kindness, compassion and education.
It took me a long time to get here. To get to this point in my life. I never understood those 3 things, until I realised that those where the three things that guided me. Sometimes, on my worst days when I am angry and impatient and snappy and just plain ^&II^%%#, I think of those surprising unexpected moments of kindness.
I have many; a woman giving me a spoonful of honey when I was low and shaking and couldn't talk and she stroked my shoulder and feed me until I calmed down. A man and his friend who came up and talked to me and then hugged me when I was crying . Strangers just telling me things about of the blue, things I really needed to hear at that moment. Most of the acts of kindness and compassion are completely and utterly random and they come from strangers.
The days might seem long but the years are short. I seem to spend most of my days, trying to find out who I am - if only people in Somalia, India, Vietnam, China, Africa, in poverty stricken countries had that fortune.
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