Beginning to Look Back

Looking Back

As 2014 ends, I can only hope 2015 and future years contain less personal trauma. I hope in future years I can compose blogs more regularly and without obscuring too much of what I am truly thinking and feeling. The images below contain (for me) total pleasure and excruciating pain. And also contain (for me) love beyond belief. And some bewilderment. The end of the year is a good time for looking back…. 

Harriet home from India/Nepal, Egypt, goodbye teaching, home from the hills and, in images below, Emily home from Dorking, Kerry and Norah on the Moors, Surrey and the South, Barr-Lancelots, the Tower of London, Fountain's Abbey, the wonderful Margaret Atwood at the Ilkley Literature Festival

Last Christmas

Between October and December 2013 everything changed – in my world, at any rate. Last Christmas felt very fragile but this Christmas, everything feels different. No doubt next Christmas will feel different again. And the one after that. Change happens.

Change and the Illusion of Time Management

Change happens. Constantly. I used to believe in Time Management. But I now think it is a redundant concept. Time cannot be Managed. All that can be managed is what you do and what you say. You give your attention to chosen actions and that attention affects naturally occurring changes, hopefully changing things in a direction you want. Anything you ignore will undergo changes anyway. Because change is a constant. Time marches on. Change happens. Constantly.

Get Everything Done: and still have time to play

So I’ve increasingly over the years tried to live by the following philosophy, espoused by my friend Jane Howson and written about eloquently by Mark Forster: you must Give Attention to the things you want to affect. You can never Manage Time; all you can do is Give Attention to what you do and what you say. Because Change will happen anyway. Give Attention to the things you want to change. As Linda Loman says in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman

attention must be paid.

Resolutions

Approaching 2015 is a time to look back and a time to look forward. Next year I’ll be 55. 55 years before I was born it was 1905 - a lot of Change has happened since 1905. A lot of Change will no doubt happen in 2015.... and in the five years following.... what will 2020 be like? Time will tell. Excelsior!