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Author: Juliet Bennett

A writer - photographer - model - traveller - student - exploring truth, beauty & the paradoxes of life...

Women and Peace in the Middle East

I’ve been a bit slack with my blogging the last few years, which is a shame given the great work that I’m involved in with the Sydney Peace Foundation, and the research I’m doing at the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies. Unfortunately there’s only so much time in the day.

Unless you’ve worked in hospitality you don’t know the work that goes into waitressing, cooking and the respect deserved for it. Everyone should work in hospitality, at least once life.

Same goes for organising events. If an event goes seamlessly, as you hope it does, it can appear as if there’s nothing involved. Snap your fingers and voilà. Anyone who has organised an event knows that’s not the way it goes.

A ridiculous numbers of hours go into creating marketing materials, emails, social media, responding to rsvps, guests lists, arranging audio visual set up, media arrangements, parking, chasing up on the above when people don’t get back to you, phone calls, etc etc. Maybe the same goes for most jobs. But certainly everyone should organise an event, at least once in their life.

Anyway, the work I did over the last couple of months paid off with a seamless success. Our partner the Australian Arab Women’s Dialogue, brought us three extraordinary speakers from Lebanon, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates.

A breast surgeon explained the cultural reasons that her title is “chest surgeon” (no one uses the word “breast”) even though in the medical industry that means something very different.

You can watch the full event on ABC’s Big Ideas: http://www.abc.net.au/tv/bigideas/stories/2013/04/24/3743694.htm

The next day I was invited to a reception at Government House. It was my first personalised letter with an embossed gold crown on it! And what a spectacular morning it was:

After lining up for a personal greeting, we listened to Her Excellency talk and enjoyed a reception inside (above) followed by morning tea on the steps of Government House.

It was a unique chance for girly conversation with women across many cultures, and even with Her Excellency, the Governor of NSW, Marie Bashir (photo below).

If you are interested check out the Sydney Peace Foundation website and blog here: www.sydneypeacefoundation.org.au. Or to sign up for notifications of our future events: click here.

In the “flow” in Cambodia

2 Apr ’13Written by Juliet Bennett

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“If you’re aiming for a goal that isn’t your destiny, you will always be swimming against the current… Find out what your destiny is and the river will carry you.”—Men Who Stare At Goats.

Nicola’s comment on my 2010 blog post on Optimal Trajectory reminded me of this philosophy. As I blogged last week, there are times in life where you are “in the flow”, and times when you are swimming against the tide.

When your destiny is carrying you, it can feel as if there are green lights all the way. Stars seem to align. You feel in sync with the world around you. Looking back over the last five years, I see a yin and yang:

My trip to South America in 2008 I was in the flow. It was the flow that allowed a travel book to evolve.

My trip to Europe in 2011 I was fighting against a dangerous rip. Most of my friends were out of town, I made bad money-based decisions and missed opportunities, I was not true to myself, I had a terrible accident on a scooter in Paros and my trip was cut short.

Getting back in sync took time – moments of clarity interwove with confusion. Writing and teaching in America, visiting a friend and doing yoga in Canada, teaching Pilates and hanging out in Nicaragua… some things helped, some things didn’t.

Returning to Australia the pattern continued: flow on, flow off, flow on.

The first two weeks of 2013 in Cambodia, the flow was definitely on.

Arriving in Bangkok with nothing planned, we looked at our guidebook and decided Cambodian beaches were the go. Along the way we had the lucky last room available everywhere we went. We found buses and trains at the right time. The lights were green most of the way.

The trip simply “flowed”, every step of the way – even some of the strangest experiences, such as a long conversation with a this stranger had a “meant to be” feeling about it (who might I add had an incredible toothless smile that even in my flashy shades, for the camera he wanted to hide).

There are at least ten examples, but I won’t share them all. Instead I’ll share the one that contained the most significant lesson for me about flow.

Angkor Wat, at sunrise, crowds flock regardless of the time. They find their spot to take “the famous shot” of the ruins, with reflection over the water. They wait.

Jonny and I started to do the same. But within a few minutes an idea struck us like lightening: “if everyone’s out here, does that mean no one’s inside?” It was still pitch black. We had time…

We walked passed the waiting crowds, up the main entrance, smiled at the security man, wandered around alone in this ancient spiritual wonderland. We arrived a few people sitting around near a steep set of stairs leading up to the top of Angkor Wat, but a rope blocked it off “for maintenance.” A policeman slow walked toward us. “You want to go up?” he asked.

“Yes, of course.” we answered eagerly. The policeman tilted his head, motioned a “well…” Jonny slipped him a $10US, and we were up. The top of Angkor Wat, alone at sunrise!

Bridge pose – at the top of Angkor Wat:

When we finally got outside, the first part of the sun started peaking over the trees. We hadn’t even missed “the shot”! But I like this one better – all the “suckers” who stood waiting, while we experienced the true wonder of Angkor’s majesty:

It’s moments like this one that are worth meditating on, at least once a day.

This is a snippet from my diary at 10am while eating breakfast back at the hotel:

“Angkor… words fail. Lifetimes of thousands of artisans, maybe millions of peoples life times, dedicated to building – designing, creating, carving – these exquisite temples. Life – humans, animals, plants and their infinite parts – emerge from their time and place to form patterns within yet greater wholes. Our breath is part of the pattern; our birth and death; our societies; our civilizations; come and go – all part of the pattern of “God” (if one wishes to call It that).

Today we experienced something that was ‘not atheism and not religion’ – an experience of wonder, awe and mystery, an experience of past meets present meets future, an experience of stars aligning and a natural yet surreal magic moment.

‘Good luck to you and your family, and for longevity,’ a monk handed us incense, we bowed three times, said a small prayer and he tied a red cotton weave around our wrists.

I feel a deep gratitude, and an all-consuming happiness, perspective and hope.

We were one of thousands to arrive at Angkor Wat for sunrise, and tens of thousands to visit Angkor Wat that day, yet we were the first and only two to enter the holy place upstairs, and to explore it, meditate in it, and photograph it without another soul in sight. Breathing in the past and sighing out to the future.

This was a reminder of what it means to ‘connect to the universe’ and be ‘one with God’ in the sense of being in tune, being on the frequency, that seems to pull, to persuade, and to facilitate, one to live their life to its full potential. It is a universal drive to greater complexity with harmony. Positive conflict is a key.

The tide is often strong. People naturally go with it, even if it is not going in the direction they wish to go. Yet we are strong enough to swim against the tide and discover worlds that lie unnoticed to sheep who follow each other.

Is this a secret that should be shared? If even anyone else had thought outside the square and entered Angkor Wat instead of waiting outside, then we would not have been alone. The policeman might not have taken a bribe, and we might not have climbed to the top.

Here lies a paradox: what is good for one is not good for all. Unique experience comes from exceptions, and if even a third of the majority were exceptions then it would no longer be exceptional.

Civilisations rise and fall.

Species evolve and go extinct.

Planets, suns and galaxies, maybe even universes, cannot escape the ebb and flow.

The phenomena of life. The ever-changing process.

This can be interpreted as futile and meaningless. Or as having the highest value and ultimate meaning. We are small temporal expressions of this infinitely large cosmic process.”

It goes on, and on, but I’ll leave it there…

It is interesting that we remember and admire the exceptional things that civilizations do, not their normal every day lives.

“Flow” for one person may mean swimming against the tide, but if it is flow the that tide will part and you won’t tire.

I think it can be hard to find your flow, but once you have found it and are aligned with it, the challenge is not to be caught up in the tide. You must listen to your intuition, have faith in the flow, in what your gut is telling you, and move with it. It’s in that space that the greatest moments and greatest achievements occur.

A few other examples of flow in Cambodia, January 2013:

We were the only guests on this island off Sihanoukville:

Or at least we thought we were—until the next day when we discovered another awesome hippy dwelling:

Maybe this one is not so out of the ordinary. It’s a small world when it comes to Aussies in popular backpacker destinations… 6:30am getting on a boat from Phnom Phen to Siem Reap, I hear “Juliet”—and I turn to see a member of the Sydney Peace Foundation’s Executive Council!

A friend recommended the Shanghai Mansion in Bangkok. The best value hotel I’ve ever experienced. Buffet breakfasts. And a grrooovy jazz bar:

On our last night, after days of travelling, we were welcomed with a free upgrade for our last night. If you need a place to stay in Bangkok, the Shanghai Hotel is a gem.

Now, back in Sydney, the clarity still interweaves with confusion. But moments of synchronicity affirm my path.

It takes active engagement to keep that feeling: questioning the direction I’m headed and adjust when it feels as if I’m losing my way. Right now I feel more or less “in the flow”, but it is a challenge not to let the tide take me in other directions.

When I’m in the flow I feel aligned with my destiny, even if I do not know what that destiny is…

In 4 weeks I am going on a work trip to Paris. I hope that the “flow” travels with me there.

Adventure

The Ecstasy of “Flow”

28 Mar ’13Written by Juliet Bennett

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The feeling of flow is that feeling you get when you are at your ultimate and you feel your body almost disappear in a spontaneous yet automatic type fashion. For example, a sportsperson running or high jumping or swimming at their peak; an artist’s moment of inspiration and clarity; a writer when it almost feels like a stream of consciousness directly channeling the right words in the right order from some otherworldly place.

One can feel flow when they play music, or when they make love, or share a deep conversation with another human. In moments of nature. When the camera snaps “the shot” there’s often a feeling in the air – whether you are in front of the camera, behind it, or an observer to the side – you can somehow sense everything was right.

I stumbled across this TED Talk about “Flow” by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXIeFJCqsPs[/youtube]

Csikszentmihalyi explains this feeling:

“Well, when you are really involved in this completely engaging process of creating something new, as this man is, he doesn’t have enough attention left over to monitor how his body feels, or his problems at home. He can’t feel even that he’s hungry or tired. His body disappears, his identity disappears from his consciousness, because he doesn’t have enough attention, like none of us do, to really do well something that requires a lot of concentration, and at the same time to feel that he exists.”

Csikszentmihalyi draws a connection to “Ecstasy”, which comes from an ancient Greek word that meant to “stand to the side of something. And then it became essentially an analogy for mental state where you feel that you are not doing your ordinary everyday routines.” That is, “stepping into an alternative reality.”

In that state, you feel:

He goes on to tell us: “There’s this focus that, once it becomes intense, leads to a sense of ecstasy, a sense of clarity: you know exactly what you want to do from one moment to the other; you get immediate feedback. You know that what you need to do is possible to do, even though difficult, and sense of time disappears, you forget yourself, you feel part of something larger. And once the conditions are present, what you are doing becomes worth doing for its own sake.”

The final question we are left with is: how can we put “more and more of everyday life in that flow channel?”

There are times in my life where I have been in flow, not only in the sense of the flow of a particular moment, but also in the sense of a wider life-encompassing flow. You might say “flow” in the sense of feeling aligned with one’s “optimal trajectory”…

I’d love to put both more of my everyday life and my life story in general “in the flow”. I believe this is where the greatest joy is found. Feeling part of something larger. If anyone has tips on finding flow and staying in it, please do share. This I am definitely keen to find out.

Random Life Stuff flow, optimal trajectory

Making sense of suffering

23 Mar ’13Written by Juliet Bennett

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How does one make sense of large scale suffering, like that of global disasters, Auschwitz, or even cyclical poverty? Is that God’s not-so-fine handiwork?

This TED Talk by Rev. Tom Honey, introduces a different idea about God that is well-known in intellectual theological circles, but not so well known outside of this.

Rev. Honey challenges the traditional conception of God as a “male boss”… a “celestial controller, a rule maker, a policeman in the sky who orders everything, and causes everything to happen.”

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wdkxdiOFJA[/youtube]

Honey poses some interesting questions:

Is God “‘The wind and waves obey Him.’ Do they?” … “Is God in control?” … “if God can or will do these things — intervene to change the flow of events — then surely he could have stopped the tsunami.”???
“Does God demand loyalty, like any medieval tyrant? A God who looks after His own, so that Christians are OK, while everyone else perishes? A cosmic us and them, and a God who is guilty of the worst kind of favoritism?… Such a God would be morally inferior to the highest ideals of humanity.”
“But what if God doesn’t act? What if God doesn’t do things at all? What if God is in things? The loving soul of the universe. An in-dwelling compassionate presence, underpinning and sustaining all things. What if God is in things? … In presence and in absence. In simplicity and complexity. In change and development and growth.”
“Isn’t it ironic that Christians who claim to believe in an infinite, unknowable being then tie God down in closed systems and rigid doctrines?” Could ‘I don’t know’ “be the most profoundly religious statement of all”?

I think this notion of God is sweet like honey 😉

Peace God Debate, TED, What is God

What is Fundamentalism?

19 Mar ’13Written by Juliet Bennett

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The word “Fundamentalism” might make you think of people with unwavering beliefs who refuse to consider alternative views. You could be thinking of people committed to a political ideology on the far left or far right, or maybe a form of religious fundamentalism.

The word is often used interchangeably with “Extremism”, which may make you think of suicide bombers, hate crimes against gays, sexual discrimination against women—anyone who use a “Holy Scripture” to justify violence. Yet you might be interested that its origins were much more specific.

Origins

The term “Fundamentalism” was originally coined in 1920 in reference to a Protestant Christian movement that spread from the United States via a short book entitled The Fundamentals: A testimony to the truth (financed by two Christian laymen to be distributed to ministers and missionaries around the world in 1909).

This series acted as a ‘new statement of the fundamentals of Christianity’ which condemned ‘Darwinism, Higher Criticism, liberal theology, modern philosophy, socialism, materialism, atheism, spiritualism, Romanism, Mormonism, and Christian Science;’ and affirmed ‘the virgin birth, atoning death, bodily resurrection, miracles, and a second coming of Christ, together with Scriptural inerrancy.’[1]

This movement spurred the “Fundamentalist–Modernist Controversy”, as Modernism was imagined to be a descent from Christianity to Atheism:

Why does it continue?

In The Battle for God, Karen Armstrong examines fundamentalism in Christian, Islam and Judaic religions, describing a perceived ‘terror of extinction’, a fear that secularists are trying to wipe them out.

Feeling as though their identity is under attack, fundamentalists have undertaken a campaign to ‘re-sacralize’ society, a cause that has become ‘aggressive and distorted’, initiating a ‘dialectical relationship with an aggressive secularism which showed scant respect for religion and its adherents’. This has essentially trapped secularists and fundamentalists in the ‘escalating spiral of hostility and recrimination’ that is visible today.[2]

Alternatives to Atheism and Fundamentalist Religion

It can often seem like one has a choice to believe in a literal interpretation of a Bible – be it the creation myths or the miracles of Jesus’ life, death, resurrection and ascension, or to live in a Godless world. Yet religion and theology is not so black and white. Good and Evil are ideals that are interpreted by different cultures to be discerned in different ways.

Many fundamentalists are not aware that their unchanging truth is in fact a new interpretation of a truth shaped by theological debates and politics over the last two millennia. Most are unaware that their interpretation of the Bible has been distorted by the modern paradigm from which they see it.

Fundamentalists do not realise that by adopting a simplistic literal interpretation, without regard for Jewish midrashim and the role of mythos, prevents an understanding of the “more-than-literal” meaning that embedded in the Bible.

There are many ways that people understand God without believing “He” [sic] is a supernatural God that is separate from the world. Many such understandings fall into the theological category of “Panentheism” (click to learn more about this natural philosophical theology).

Modern fundamentalism

Now the word fundamentalism, rightly or wrongly, is used in a much broader sense. It is easy to observe fundamentalist approaches not only within Christianity, but also within Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism and some say even Atheism.

Whether it is called fundamentalism, or something else, it seems that any ideology – political, religious or other – that holds a one-dimensional perspective as absolute, with a refusal to see that an idea or issue looks different from different standpoints, is dangerous.

Does that makes me a fundamentalistic multi-dimensionalist?

References:

[1] Stuart Piggin, Evangelical Christianity in Australia (Melbourne: Oxford University Press
Australia 1996)., pp. 79-80.

[2] Karen Armstrong, The Battle for God: Fundamentalism in Judaism, Christianity and Islam

(London: HarperCollins, 2000)., pp. 370-371.

Picture:

“The Descent of the Modernists”, by E. J. Pace, first appearing in his book Christian Cartoons, published in 1922.

Source=*File:Descent_of_the_Modernists,_E._J._Pace,_Christian_Cartoons,_1922.jpg Date=2011-07-17 04:3

Academic, Truth Fundamentalism, What is God

The Act of Living as the Meaning of Life

25 Feb ’13Written by Juliet Bennett

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“There is only one meaning of life: the act of living it,” wrote German psychologist and social theorist Erich Fromm in 1941.[1]

Some find meaning in their work, in travel, in writing, in loving, in obeying a religion, in creating babies—all of which are different acts of living. The meaning of life (a noun) is in the process of living (a verb).

This points to a fundamental shift from that of a static goal, to a dynamic experience.

In this view one does not put off the rewards of life, for example, gearing one’s life toward retirement, as when one reaches that place it will ultimately be empty.

Nor does one live life only for the moment. If it were, many of us would be drunkards, or obese. If one is so narrow visioned to only care about the fickle “now”, why would we exercise, wear sunscreen, study, make babies, or invest time to any form of creative endevour?

It’s easy to get caught up in some some long term goal, so busy watching the clock and working working working, that we forget to enjoy the process.

[2]

It’s also easy to get so caught up in the “now” that years pass and you have nothing to show for it.

The act of living involves a both the successive moments of “now”, and the consequential moments of “later”. Happiness, it seems to me, comes from a healthy medium between pleasure and sacrifice—some experienced now, and some in the years to come.

The meaning of life (noun) is in the living (verb), not in some ultimate end. While we live on a swords edge been our past and future, act of living is more than a series of moments. It is what we do with those moments, and the mark they make on others, that really counts.

[1] Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom; (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1969). p. 261.

[2] By Frank Gosebruch (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

Whales, pigs and me

22 Feb ’13Written by Juliet Bennett

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Richard Dawkins “The Ancestor’s Tale” audio book traces our ancestry back through the ages, recapping the tales of various animals as they join our “pilgrimage” all the way back to the dawn of evolution.

At one particular rendezvous we meet the Artiodactyls – the even-toed mammals i.e. mammals with hoofs like pigs and hippos. Here Dawkins tells the tale of whales.

What? Whales don’t have hoofs!!! No, but their closest ancestor does. Hippos are in fact closer to whales then they are pigs!

Apparently the hippo and whale had a common ancestor – a semi-aquatic deer-like ungulate – that is a now extinct. This particular ungulate had diverged from their common ancestor with the pig around 60 million years ago.

Around five million years later this creature split into slightly different versions of the same animal – adapting to two different environments.

Four million years after that one of these adaptations entered the water, and in the new zero-gravity world blew up to become the largest animals to inhabit our planet.

The story of the whale is, for me, is one of the most pertinent examples of life’s constant flux and the unexpected beauties and absurdities that can result.

All animals, including us, are in a constant state of evolution. As the environment changes we adapt with it. Those that are most suited to the survive.

What changes will occur in another few million years? Will we be the ancestor to another human-like animal? Giants, midgets or mermaids? Or will the lineage of mammals be extinct thanks to our reckless use of nature’s stones? Will some kind of fish come back out of the ocean after mammals are wiped out? Or might rats take over the world, dig up our artifacts and interpret the stars?

I suppose only time will tell.

Picture credits:

Jean-Renaud Boisserie/UC Berkeley

Sources: Reuters, BBC News, University of California, Berkeley

Random Life Stuff Life in Oz

Is colour real? Reality and rainbows.

8 Feb ’13Written by Juliet Bennett

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‘Extensive studies of colour perception over several decades have made it clear that there are no colours in the external world, independent of the process of perception.’[1]

Since I was a child I’ve wondered if what I see to be green is the same as what you see to be green. I wondered if I were to switch places with someone would I be horrified by everyone walking around with green faces or green hair.

That’s not the kind of un-real we are talking about here. I think we’re safe to assume our eyes have evolved to see things in at least somewhat similar tones – though we do tend to draw the boundaries differently. Lime and aqua are examples of contested colours…. what I call a limey green, someone else calls limey yellow. Same goes for aqua – is it green or is it blue?

Nit picking aside, the quote above points to an interesting phenomenon: colour, in fact, does not exist external to human perception.

The entire structure of our colour categories come from our neural structures – wave lengths reflected in interaction with colour cones in our retinas and the neural circuitry connected to them. Alan Watts illustrates this beautifully through a more easily understood example a rainbow.

A rainbow appears only when there is a certain triangular arrangement between: the sun, the moisture in the air, and an observer.

A rainbow is not an illusion – a number of observers can verify its existence. Yet it doesn’t exist external to our observation. Chase it and it disappears:

‘One could say that if the sun and a body of moisture were in the right relationship, say, over the ocean, any observer on a ship that sailed into line with them would see a rainbow. But one could also say that if an observer and the sun were correctly aligned there would be a rainbow if there were moisture in the air!’[2]

The observer is an essential part of this story.

Same story for colour.

Same story for reality.

There is no solid “external reality”. Watts asks: what if mountains and rocks and stars are also observed through a participatory observation?

In other words: what if, like the rainbow, mountains and rocks and stars also do not exist without an observer?

This points to the intrinsic connection between the observer and observed. Through our observation we participate in the creation of the universe as it is today. Through our actions we participate in the creation of the universe of tomorrow.

This is a central insight of “phenomenology”- the study of experience. It is also a central insight of “quantum mechanics” (although I admit to saying this with limited understanding).

Capra writes: ‘our bodies define a set of fundamental spatial relations that we use not only in orienting ourselves but in perceiving the relationship of one object to another.’[1]

Through limited senses we hear/see/smell/touch/feel/sense/act in an experienced world. Simultaneously other humans experience it differently, and other organisms experience it very differently.

Humans cannot know what it is like to be a dolphin in the sea, a bird in the air, an ancient oak tree, a rock deep in Earth’s ground, or a star in a galaxy far away. These entities have their own internal realities – absorbing from their environment, undertaking changes from within, and releasing something back out again. These entities have “intrinsic value” in and of themselves. They also have “utility value” to humans, even if only to appreciate their aesthetics. I’m getting side-tracked…

The point I’m trying to make here is that while each organism observes (and possibly co-creates) the “reality” of the environment that surrounds it, this cannot be seen as separate from everything else that exists. In this way the figure and the ground are one, and we are one with everything – as observers, participants, and the observed result.

Colour, rainbows and mountains exist – but they only exist in this way in relation to human perception.

[1] Capra, Fritjof (2002). The Hidden Connections : Integrating the Biological, Cognitive, and Social Dimensions of Life into a Science of Sustainability. New York: Doubleday. p. 54.

[2] Alan Watts, The book : on the taboo against knowing who you are, 1969. p. 95.

Beauty, Truth Alan Watts

Swimming forward in certain uncertaintly

1 Feb ’13Written by Juliet Bennett

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“You gonna swim back to the waves, or keep swimming forward?” an instructor asked. Yesterday I found myself sitting directly behind a group of fit, tanned bods in “North Bondi” speedos. An accident, I promise.

Lying on the beach these words (and images) struck a chord with a recent conversation, and a friend’s philosophy I’ve adopted and written about before – “always do rather than not do.” Yet this time the philosophy had a little twist: if one faces a number of options, which should one do?

I closed my eyes and imagined diving deep and swimming a straight line in smooth waters. To my sides and above me: waves of fear, misdirected intentions, confusion, distractions, and the temptation to let the waves carry me back to shore.

I imagined the journey of life like a path, that at times is clear but at other times is foggy. Sometimes you reach a fork in the road and it’s hard to know which way to go.

When you’re in “the flow” – when everything you do “feels right”, doors of opportunity open the path, it is green lights all the way – the “right path” will be clear. You feel smooth waters ahead, and you swim forward. Yet at other times you must rise to the surface, meet pounding waves, get caught in a rip, struggle for a breath, get distracted by your peripheries, or forget which way you were going.

I wondered: How do you know something (a job, a partner, a decision) is right? Short answer: you don’t.

Sure intuition and conviction can help but sometimes these thoughts and feelings are misconstrued. In one moment you can think something is right, and in a later moment of hindsight you see it is not.

How does one deal with such certain uncertainty?

I think the best thing to do is follow that “inner voice” and give it your all – swim as hard and fast as you can. Simultaneous stay aware of your “outer voice”, keeping watch with its vigilant critical gaze.

If your path takes you the wrong direction or leads you to a dead end, then retract and try another path – taking the lessons learned, skills developed, and new understandings with you. Even the most unfortunate detours may play important roles in your future.

There are no guarantees in life, and so much of what happens to us is outside our control. However, we do have control over our attitudes to our self and to others, we have a choice about how we think about our past, present and future, and it is up to us how we wish to frame our life stories. Making use of these tools gives us a tremendous amount of power – not over our life but over our experience of life.

So, if you find yourself going the wrong direction, take a big breath, dive deep beneath the waves, and swim straight. It’s never to late to try something different and find your flow.

Note on the pic:

I left my phone at home so I couldn’t take a photo of the twenty tanned bods 🙁 I found this shot online and have emailed the photographer – Carmen – for permission.

Random Life Stuff optimal trajectory