There will always be joy - Day 7

Day 7 (Friday 7th December 2018)

Seven Deadly sins - they originated with the "Desert Fathers" (a collection
of Christian hermits , aesthetics and monks who lived in Egypt in the 3rd century AD).
The sins as we know them were described as evil thoughts by Evagrius Ponticus.
Originally there were eight - the extra one being "dejection"

It is a pleasure at times to look back as well as forwards. My most recent past has been pretty grim, so it was reassuring and uplifting for me to revisit this post, which was crafted in December 2014.  I am very grateful to its author.  What a lot has happened in the past four years. It has been a timely reminder of the fact that things change, dark times do not last forever and that there are always good experiences and learning to look forward to.

Today's post was written by my dear friend Michael Carty. Michael is often described, especially by those who know him, as the glue that binds the HR community on Twitter together. He is alert, interested and very well connected. However, he is much more than just glue - Michael is a cherished contact for many and always there to provide support and advice. His Twitter handle is @MJCarty. He writes a delightful blog, http://mjcarty.com , that illustrates how well read and far reaching his thoughts are. I love the powerful message of hope and anticipation behind his apparently simple words...

 

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You were there then. You are here now. You will be there then.

The path you perceive isn’t the only one that exists.

Path beside a lake, Croatia

The path you are on isn’t the only one available to you. No matter how long you have been on that path, or how far it’s taken you.

There are other paths...
Ewoks fleeing an All Terrain Scout Transport (AT-ST) walker on a forest path
Original story board visual by Ralph Mac Querrie for Return of the Jedi, Star Wars film

You always have a choice. You are always free to decide if you can live with the consequences of making that choice.

You can’t be anybody else but yourself. You can’t have any other values than your own. Trust in them.

I think it’s time, as it always is, to let your values guide you through. Being you has got you this far. Being you has got you much further than you would ever have thought.

You can travel further than you think possible
Dr Who's Tardis

Being you will take you to places of which you have just plain no inkling right now. That is nothing of which to be frightened. That is the most exciting adventure of all.

There will always be setbacks. There will always be reasons for tears. There will always be joy.

Unexpected path (inside an aquarium)

A different path



Darkness to Dawn - Day 7

Day 7 (Thursday 7th December 2017)

Seventh January - the date that Christmas is celebrated in Russia, Ethiopia, Jordan, Romania

and Greece, where Orthodox Christians rely on the Julian calendar to determine the date.

My god daughter and her family are Jordanian Orthodox Christians - she

had a wonderful Christening on the banks of the River Jordan at the site where John the Baptist

is said to have baptised Jesus. One of the best weddings I have ever been to was

celebrated in a Romanian Orthodox church in Iasi 

- with a party afterwards that went on for days

A whole week of the Advent blog posts has passed and what an amazing selection we have had - ranging from encouragements to be more considerate and kind to those around us, to extraordinary tales of family history and very personal reflections on the highs and lows of the year just gone. The quality of the submissions has been superb and there are still many great posts to come.

Today's piece, another gem, is written by Sheridan Webb, and it is her first time contributing to the Advent Blog series. Sheridan is the Director of Training Services and owner of Keystone Development and Training Ltd. Sheridan is based in Liverpool. She is both creative and highly numerate (her degree is in Maths and Management Sciences at Manchester). She blogs, mainly on learning related subjects via her business website (here is the link) and is active on Twitter (her handle is @sheridan_webb) As you will gather from below, Sheridan is a loving, working mum, but still manages to find some time for herself - you may discover her in a Zumba class or else gardening. She used to be a volunteer gardener at the National Flower Centre in Liverpool, which was established as a Millennium project. Regrettably, the centre was forced to close in January of this year (a victim of austerity) and then suffered both vandalism and arson this summer.

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When I was asked to blog on this title, I thought it would be easy – but it wasn’t. It immediately evokes an expectation of an epic personal journey: Overcoming obstacles and immense difficulty to finally arrive in a positive place all the wiser for the experience.  But I don’t have a tale like that to tell – no real dark places to emerge from. Maybe that’s because I’m an optimist, though I don’t think I am. I’m a resilient and practical person who deals with whatever gets thrown at me and moves on. However, I haven’t had any major crises to really test me. Am I lucky, or has my practical and resilient nature just prevented these things from occurring? We will never know. Which brings me back to the fact that I don’t have a story of difficulty and resolution to share, and why I sat on the title for a good while!

So, (being a practical and resilient sort) I decided to take the title a bit more literally and tell a story. It was about 6 or 7 years ago when we took the children camping for the first time to the Lake District. It would have been lovely, but it rained. 

Almost constantly. 

That in itself would not have been a problem if the tent that had been in storage for the last 8 years didn’t leak. 

But we may as well have been sleeping under a colander! We spent the night getting dripped on and having no sleep at all – apart from my son who was about 5 at the time and had somehow managed to find the only dry spot in the tent (plus even now, he can sleep anytime, anywhere!). Around 3am the rain finally stopped and the torture of water dripping on me stopped. I tried to get comfortable in my soggy sleeping bag and hoped to get a couple of hours sleep. No chance, because at around 4am the daughter (aged around 7) decided she needed the toilet. Obviously, at her age and at that time of night I wasn’t going to send her across the field on her own, so I got up too. I donned my coat and wellies and off we trudged to the toilet block, all the time me wondering how on earth this was supposed to be fun, and resigning myself to the fact that there would be no sleep tonight.

I don’t know what made me look up on the way back from the toilet block, but I’m so glad I did. The clouds had cleared completely and the night sky was like nothing I’ve ever seen before or since. The sky was illuminated with stars. Every constellation clearly picked out. The Milky Way as clear as any photograph I’ve ever seen. I just stopped dead and took it in. 

Lack of sleep and general sogginess forgotten. I got my husband out of the tent (who was not impressed initially as he was just about dropping off to sleep), but he too was awestruck by the sight. The three of us stood there in wonder and we quietly pointed out various constellations to our daughter. It felt we were privilege to a rare thing, or members of a secret club, and it made all that misery of the night so far worth it, because without it I would never have been in that field at that moment seeing that sight.

So although I don’t have ‘dark times’ to share, I have bad days like everyone, and on those bad days, I always try to look up: To see what’s ahead; To look for the glimmer of light. Sometimes, there’s nothing there, but often there is. And even if there isn’t…at least I looked for it.

Living the T-shirt

Day 7 (Wednesday 7th December 2016)

7 young adults graduated from High School in Iowa -

they are the world's first surviving set of septuplets and the first 

to reach maturity, the McCaugheys. Born on 19th November 1997,

the 4 boys (Kenneth Jr. Brandon, Natahn and Joel) and 3 girls

(Alexis, Natalie and Kelsey) were born at 31 weeks, 

weighing between 2 lbs 5 oz. and 3 lbs 4 oz.

Picture by Rachel Mummy, The Registrar

Today's piece is contributed by Gavan Burdan, the Managing Director of Burden Dare - an executive search and interim management business. You can reach him on Twitter via @burdendare. Gavan lives in Sevenoaks and is a passionate supporter of the local cricket team, Sevenoaks Vine CC, where he chairs the Management Committee and, when asked, still plays for the Old Vines (the Club's over 40's team). He cares about society and the people in it - he is a mentor supporting individuals down on their luck in London (but more of that to follow). Gavan commenced his career in Retail Banking (we are both Lloyds alumni - although not there at the same time). He transferred into consulting and has not looked back.

Gavan's piece is in some ways a tough read. It is for those who have a moral conscience and a realistic outlook. I find it interesting that this is one of a number of posts in the Advent Blog series this year that touches on society, our awareness of others, ethics and making the world better by understanding and being there for others. Gavan is one of those who has been prepared to put himself out, but it is clear that he gains and learns, as do those he interacts with. He is an all-round good egg (and a devoted dad to boot).

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Living the T-shirt 

I’ve lost count of the number of business courses I’ve been on: NLP’s folded arms, Myers Briggs’ types, Kübler-Ross’ denial, Johari’s double glazing, Hetrzberg’s Jelly Beans, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs – I’ve got all the T shirts!

This year I learned how they work in the cold, hard, real world that you and I live in.

I joined a private members club with a conscience in central London; it has a mission to break the cycle of homelessness by means of an employment academy that provides basic skills training to help get homeless people back into sustainable employment.

The Academy team are simply awesome, to a person; they regularly win awards and depend on the club for income.

You should join up.

The people they help don’t have even bread, but they want to be JAMS; they always need mentors to “just be there” for their graduates - I’ve now had two mentees.

The first was a young guy, disowned by his family, no job, no prospects, no real home and no real hope. After graduation, which is a truly magical ceremony sprinkling stardust over the really disadvantaged, he found a part-time job. For him, this was the first step back on the ladder back to our world, and then Christmas came along – always a hard time for those on the breadline – and I never saw or heard from him again; I felt hollow, I can’t really imagine how he felt. I don’t know where he is now, but I heard he is alive.

My second mentee was born in the UK and moved to the USA when 3 months old; he’s 34 now and was deported a year ago back to the UK, it doesn’t matter why but he knows he messed up.  He arrived with a T shirt, a pair of “pants”, trainers with no laces and a spine held together by tungsten plates. He was sent to live in a rat infested dilapidated house in Croydon and immediately received an eviction notice, at the same time as Universal Credit cut his benefits. I’d never seen anyone look so disengaged and sound so desperate. So alone, in a world he neither knew nor understood.

He could only afford to eat one 69p Iceland pizza a day.

For three months he talked, he denied, he got depressed, I listened, and Johari’s window began to open; his arms unfolded, we drank fruit juice and he ate beans and fruit, he smiled, he was bargaining; it became crystal clear that he needed to sleep without fearing eviction, to wake up without wet lips and wondering why?

We got him moved into a social housing enterprise in Kentish Town, a room of his own, with a key, in a big house with others. For the first time in 5 years he slept all night. Maslow clapped.

We sat side by side at a benefits tribunal, with a judge judging and a doctor interrogating him. He was passionate, he doesn’t want benefits or pizza. He wants help. We got it.

A few weeks later he got a part time job at Old Spike Roastery (you should buy your coffee there), an agonising trip across London that torments his spine– but he wants to do it, you see he wants to be like you and me; he’s jumped and grabbed Hertzberg’s Jelly Beans, now he wants JAM. He has a big heart.

He sends me texts every day, he keeps thanking me (what have I done...all I did was be there, and say what I thought - you could do that too), he does the hard yards; he keeps checking, we keep talking, now he listens, he’s full of ideas, he has dreams – and he thinks he could probably work a full week.

He’s accepted his lot. Next year he may even be accepted. Some high!

Happy Christmas Dr Kübler-Ross.