Money’s too tight to mention

There's one thing that I'm really trying to get to grips with - money. It's not money, per se, as I have enough to eat, sleep and make merry, but I seem to find myself beating myself up over nothing at times. A case in point - I have a pretty tatty and rubbish mobile phone and have been thinking quite a lot about getting an iPhone or some other new-fangled smartphone. I can afford it and quite like the look of those kind of things. But I just can't quite dig into my pockets.

Without wanting to over-analyse the basis of this, I was brought up to be very aware of how I spent money. We didn't have much and knew how to make money stretch so to speak. I guess I developed a sense of the importance of value. To be fair, I'm quite good with money - I don't get enticed into spending by a nice window display or a bad mood. I tend to know how much I've got in the bank, where I can get discounts and when I should be investing. But I still don't think my relationship with money is as healthy as it could be. That's because I think I'm limited by fear. Fear that I'll need the money one day, perhaps. I can almost feel the caution overwhelming me everytime I go into a mobile phone shop. Very strange.

And being limited in such a way I kind of feel I'm symbolically doing the same for life generally. I don't have any great urge to splash incessantly, and I guess I'm reasonably generous towards others. Maybe I need to get it into my head that I can deserve some of the nicer things and damn the cost. I need to be a little more trusting that I'm actually pretty decent with money and always will be. I can't let this limit the need to upgrade things generally in life. Food for thought.

Relax

I had one of those breakthrough moments today. I've been doing Wing Chun kung fu for about 18 months now and I go through moments of trying hard to really get it right. But, let's face it, Jackie Chan won't be losing any sleep over my performances. But today I stopped forcing myself to do things in a way that I felt I was meant to do things and just relaxed into it. Okay, the instructors have been telling me for months and months to just chill a bit more but today I actually couldn't be bothered to force things. And, voila, things felt so much easier. The focus was just on relaxing. That's a message for many things in life for me. I really must do what I'm told more often.

My favourite things

Once in while I’m so in the zone it just feels bizarre. I see things I’m “meant” to see, hear things “intended” for me and just basically find all sorts of inspirations. And so it was today that I was suddenly thrown into this vortex. I guess that in recent weeks I’ve been trying to ask myself some of the powerful questions that the gurus suggest you should be asking yourself on a daily basis: “What’s my unique gift to the world?” or “What makes me happy”. Well, a few minutes of thinking about it earlier in the day and there I was in the gym, trying out the rowing machine, when out jumped the word “goal” ahead of me. I could see it written on a running machine to denote how much time had been used or calories burned. I just focused on the word.

And I don’t recall what music had been on my iPod prior to all of this but up popped the song “My Favourite Things”. It was a version of the song by Al Jarreau (it’s safe to say I don’t have much Julie Andrews in my collection) and all of a sudden I felt more aligned. Yes, it could all have been something about nothing and might not last long but at least for a little while things felt different. I simply remembered my favourite things then I didn’t feel so bad…

Words

I always love reading inspirational writing. It gives me that warm and fuzzy feeling that just seems to come from nowhere. Let’s face it, they’re just words. No one has come up to me and given me a big old hug, handed me a winning lottery ticket or promised me that I wouldn’t age a single day from hereon in. But words of inspirational always add a certain something.

Sometimes they help me reframe my little old world into seeing it as a big and wonderful abundant universe. Sometimes they help me remember the great memories I had from another, more carefree time. I could go on. Bottom line is, for me, words of inspiration add value rather than subtract.

But then what? You’ve had the non-saccharine sugar rush and you’re flying higher than a kite. But what happens next? For me – and it won’t be the same for everyone – for the sensation to last a little longer I need to act upon it. I don't have to do anything big. It doesn’t necessarily need to be relevant to what I’ve just read. It just needs to be something that reinforces my mood. Anything that kind of reflects some gratitude for what I've just read really. And today having fallen upon some wonderful insights from Jim Rohn I was inspired to just get down some thoughts of my own. And here we are - actions speaking louder than words and all that.

Glad that I live am I

You know those days when you can't get a song out of your head that you had heard earlier on the radio. Every time you get a bit of silence you just keep on getting that catchy chorus jingling between your ears. Well, imagine that the song that keeps on playing isn't one you've just heard but is in fact one you can safely say you haven't heard since you were about nine or ten years old. That kind of happened to me last week. I don't know where it came from or why it did but I recalled a ditty we used to sing in the school assembly: "Glad That I Live Am I".

I'm guessing I was having one of those really good days, where everything felt right with the world. We all have them, probably not often enough. But we all have them. And so it was the song just popped into my head and the words - that hadn't left me after all these years - seemed to make so much sense to me. It was a good day:

Glad that I live am I,
That the sky is blue.
Glad for the country lanes
And the fall of dew.

After the sun the rain,
After the rain the sun,
This is the way of life,
Til the work be done.

All that we need to do,
Be we low or high,
Is to see that we grow
Nearer the sky.

What the world needs now

Well, there we have it. One whole year of blogging. It was only last January after months and months of umming and ahhing that I finally got round to putting something down. And what a fun experience it's been as well! Even writing it down and reading back months later is a learning experience for me. It's kind of like looking back at a thoughtful diary without the moany and stessy stuff.

Okay, I kind of messed up on the blog address and blog name - basically I was determined to have a Burt Bacharach moment but ended up using two song titles rather than a more sensible one title. Hence it juggles "What the world needs now..." and "Always something there to remind me" - which quite frankly are both cool ways at trying to look at life a bit differently.

So we're in 2010 now and I'm keen to keep evolving this page in the same vein and with the same spirit as it was originally intended - keeping the positive vibe. For those that have been reading it on occasion, many, many thanks and hopefully once in a while you've found something to make you stop and pause.

Anyway, off we go towards the next anniversary...

Perfect Year

Well, here we are again. For me it’s been a year like any other – highs and lows and lots in between. I’d like to think I’ve moved on as a person over the 365 and in better shape for the next. But clearly 2009 has been another strange old year for a lot of us. My non-blogging alter ego works for ‘Evil Bank Plc’ and it's been an interesting time, even though I haven’t had and will never see the crazy sums the tabloids tie to the pantomime villain banker. But I shouldn’t and won’t complain about the broad brush applied to all in the financial industry because, let’s face it, a lot of people are in far worse positions due in no small part to the workings of the banking system.

It may have been an odd year but in reality most years are - it’s all about degrees and your personal perspective. It's never plain sailing. Over the last two years I've known some bereavements (the expected: old age; the unexpected: suicide and a car crash; the inbetween: illnesses). But I wouldn't say 2009 was fundamentally bad really. I've seen a lot of good amongst it all. And I'm sure loads had a great year - some estatically happy on their wedding day, some with their first child, some with their first love. And although the media will provide a historical dimension to all that's been before us, 2009 is just another year. In one of those decade in review moments there’s a lot of history rhyming, as Mark Twain would say. Ten years ago we were getting all in a tizzy about the Millennium bug. Now, we’ve got swine flu. We had mass shootings in Columbine ten years ago. We had mass shootings in Fort Hood this time. We mourned the passing of John Kennedy Jr. ten years ago; this year we had Uncle Ted. And so we could go on. The world keeps on turning.

But beneath it all we (or maybe I should just say "I") shouldn't stop being grateful for what's there, right here, right now. I’m still standing. I’m still in the game.

So I'd like to wish you all a blessed New Year and in the words of the song "Perfect Year":

Ring out the old
Ring in the new
A midnight wish
To share with you
Your lips are warm
My head is light
Were we alive before tonight?

I don't need a crowded ballroom
Everything I want is here
If you're with me
Next year will be
The perfect year

It's New Year's Eve and hopes are high
Dance one year in, kiss one goodbye
Another chance, another start
So many dreams to tease the heart

We don't need a crowded ballroom everything we need is here
And face to face we will embrace
The perfect year

What a wonderful world

A slab of cheese and a heavy dose of schmaltz are par for the course at Christmas time. I’ve got to admit that the ending of films are brilliant at capturing a utopian ideal far removed from the stresses and strains of any Christmas that I’ve ever known. And I can’t say that I’m a great follower of the art form – the Christmas film art form, that is – but there are one or two that deserve a mention.

Okay, there’s “Love Actually”. I hated, absolutely hated, it with a passion, the first time I saw it, to the extent that I nearly walked out of the cinema. To this day I don’t know why it induced such an extreme emotion in me. Maybe it was the weather – having just spent over a year in Florida and too much time on the beach, the Odeon Holloway Road in North London was never going to cut the mustard on a bitterly grey December afternoon. Even Angelina Jolie wouldn’t have been able to shake me out of my mood (though I would have let her try hard). But over time, maybe in an effort to show my sensitive side to a young lady here or there, I decided to watch again. And before I knew it I was actually into the darn thing. And I still think it’s pretty cool.

Other than that there’s, well, “Die Hard”. Okay, it’s not a Christmas film in the conventional sense but it is set at Christmas. And Bruce is cool, so that’s alright by me. But the grande fromage of all Christmas films has to be “It’s a Wonderful Life”. I watched it again yesterday. I’ve probably seen it about 5 or 6 times now, I guess, but every time I see it the film leaves a warm and fuzzy feeling. The highs and lows of the human condition with James Stewart playing the lead. Exceptional. I’m no film critic but if you haven’t seen it yet and have 2 hours and 10 minutes to spare just watch it. "The Muppet Christmas Carol" it ain't. It’s a film for our time or any time. I'll spare you the Wikipedia moment and leave it to you to hunt it out but it’s one of my favourite films ever, Christmas or not. Wonderful.