So I realised yesterday that even though I’m halfway through this challenge, I haven’t given anything to my man yet… Or my family, actually. I think sometimes when people are very close to you it’s easy to take them for granted a bit.

So I decided, today, to rectify that. My language of love is gifts (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, check this out – I’ve spoken about the 5 love languages before) which is why this challenge appealed to me so much. But my man’s language of love is affection… I often think it’s an easier language to have, because when someone loves you they’ll obviously be affectionate. When you open your arms for a hug, you’re pretty much guaranteed to get one.

But just as a gift doesn’t mean as much when you have to ask for it, affection doesn’t mean as much when you have to ask for it either. So yesterday evening I made a conscious effort to be as affectionate as possible – to step out of my circle of ‘this is me on a Friday night, watching a DVD, eating (yummy) naan bread’ and give him extra hugs and kisses. And don’t you know, he was in the best mood by the end of the evening.

I think it’s something I’m going to do more.

PS: Had to improvise a little with the picture, but these toys are on his desk and they kind of look like they’re hugging, don’t they?

Those words are all caps on purpose. You see, I think it’s the Small Daily Challenges that turn us into the people we really are.

Allow me to explain…
As most of you know, I recently got a job. This might not sound so extraordinary, except that for the last couple of years I’ve been working for myself – from home – freelancing. That means minimal interactions with people I don’t like, and no work I don’t enjoy. It might sound like a dream-world, but surprisingly, after a while, it starts feeling stagnant. If you only do what you like doing, you never learn how to do anything else. Aaand if you don’tt ever interact with people you don’t gel with, it’s difficult to learn Advanced People Skills (again, all caps intended).

So what I’ve learnt in my two months on the job (woohoo! Two months already!), apart from the heaps and heaps of practical stuff that has made me way more hireable, is that it’s the Small Daily Challenges that shape the kind of person you become. When faced with a snotty colleague, how do you respond? Do you retaliate or smoothe things over? Given the option of badmouthing someone who really deserves it, do you speak out or hold your tongue? In situations that are delicate and full of subtext, do you stir the waters or try to play peacemaker?

I think it’s this delicate dance of learning how to work with other people that turns us into someone who is admirable and trustworthy, or someone who you have to watch every word around. And I am trying, as much as possible, to be the former and not the latter. Who knew? An office job is as much about personal relations as it is about sitting in front of a computer.

I wonder what I’ll learn next?

Photo: Incase

Driving to work this morning, the clouds looked like they’d been splashed across the sky with luminescent pearly paint. The outline of a cathedral against the brightest blue of the sky looked like something out of a painting. And when I pulled in to work, I saw the tiniest scrap of a rainbow lurking among the clouds. (Can you see it? A little pixellated, but it’s there!)

Lovely!

I had a very, very lazy weekend and that, too, made me so happy. Lying in bed reading with my man, lingering over a cup of tea on the verandah and looking at the mountain, feasting on a lazy lunch with my siblings… I’ve come to realise that, for me, it’s all these tiny little moments that make up a happy life.

Don’t you think?

As all those who know me will attest, I’m nowhere near ready for kids. I’m far too selfish for that – I love being able to come home and read for hours without interruption, I can’t imagine having to look after someone every single day for the rest of my life (even after your kids leave home, you never really stop worrying about them – we all know that). But this lack of desire for children is underwritten by a deep belief that as soon as I want to have a baby, I’ll be able to. And more and more these days, that isn’t the case. Infertility is becoming more and more common, and it’s one of those problems that nobody wants to talk about. Isn’t that crazy? It’s just like any other physical condition – it shouldn’t be something to keep hushed up.

But it is. Which is why I am so moved by this beautiful video by Keiko Zoll. It gave me goosebumps. When you have five minutes to spare, give it a watch. It’s the kind of video we all need to see, so that we can start talking about infertility and sharing the burden a little more.

What if we stopped dealing with difficult things on our own, and shared a little more? What if?

What IF? A Portrait of Infertility from Keiko Zoll on Vimeo.

For more from Keiko, visit her blog – Hannah Wept, Sarah Laughed.

I just wanted to throw an idea at you, and see what you think. It’s about effort vs. intention. Esther Hicks, who I’m rather a fan of (could you guess?) says that why things come to us has less to do with how hard we try, and more to do with how much in alignment our energy is. So, for example, if you really want a new job you obviously have to pitch up to the interview and do your best, but when you go home it would be more valuable to spend some time getting your energy to a good place – feeling happy and inspired and lucky and ready to receive a new job – than it would be calling the secretary every five minutes and hanging up before you say anything!

It’s an interesting idea, I think, because it could have the most extraordinary effects if it turns out to be true… I’m going to experiment with it and let you know how it goes, care to join me?
My experiment involves a long story about how I started applying for my Irish passport renewal in February, but due to me being a dummy and smiling too much in the photos and then having to take and post new photos, and then having them get lost in the mail, I’m now scarily in danger of not getting my passport before I leave for the USA. It takes 4 weeks, I leave in 3 and a half.

Now, apparently sometimes it takes 3 weeks, so there’s hope. And I plan on calling the Irish passport people (in Ireland) today to state my case – my book’s coming out! I need to get there on time! I will make every effort to do as much as I can to get my passport in time. And then I will let go and wait for it to come to me. Because stressing about it and trying to make up things to do to make it arrive won’t work. At all.

I don’t think.

What do you think?

UPDATE: 24 hours later, and I’ve spoken to the charming Irish Embassy people in Dublin (I was stating my sob story for her and she interrupted to ask me what my novel is called and how to spell my name!) All I had to do was supply the South African office with a telephone number, and the passport could be processed. The Irish folks seem to think there’ll be no problem getting it in 3 weeks. *Phew!*

Only… I have so. much. to. do.

I was reflecting, last week, on what serendipitous timing it was that this month I have desperately needed long weekends to recuperate from the busy-ness of the week, and that it’s a month full of these zen spaced-out weekends. But then I realised that the reason I need the weekends so badly is that I’m cramming a full week’s worth of work into 3 or 4 days. And that extra day is all the time I usually take off – time in my hammock, catching my breath, doing a meditation, watching movies, going for walks. So essentially, all these long weekends have taken the pockets of breathing space out of my days, and made them exhaustingly busy! Nobody’s fault but my own, of course, but I do miss my more laidback pace…

I’m sure it will be back soon. Most of the busy-ness at the moment is planning for our round the world trip, and trying to sort out sponsorship for it. Oh yes, did I mention? We’re getting sponsored to go around the world… More on that when it’s in the bag!
It seems like my man and I are running all week to fit in normal work and trip planning stuff, and then we get to the weekend and we indulge in luxurious nothingness – watching DVDs, eating really good food, sleeping 10 hours a night, drinking countless cups of tea, reading, and catching our breath. So I suppose my pockets of breathing space have been crammed into the weekends. Not much to complain about, then!

What about you? How was your long weekend?

But here they are anyway…. Are you ready for it? Welcome to the shopping paradise of my mind!

1. That was a really yummy lunch.
2. I have so much to do.
3. Why won’t iTunes let me submit my podcast, just cause I’m in South Africa?
4. I hope everyone in SA voted yesterday.
5. It is alarming how quickly winter arrived in Cape Town.
6. I’m worried about a friend who broke up with her boyfriend yesterday.
7. I’m anxious/excited for a friend who’s reuniting with her boyfriend today.
8. Thank goodness it’s a long weekend!
9. I really need to get some work-work done.
10. I really need to clarify our round the world budget.
11. I really need to make those changes to the Fresh Living article I submitted.
12. I wonder what’s for dinner?
13. I must pay my phone bill today.
14. I wonder if the I love the Labia stuff can wait till Monday?
15. Monday is a public holiday! Yay!
16. I have never needed public holidays as much as I have this month.
17. Pretty convenient that this is a month full of South African public holidays!
18. I’m going to the States in less than a month!
19. I have so much to do before then!!
20. When did I get so busy?
21. I can’t wait to chat to the Just the Planet people at 6pm tonight…
22. There’s some potentially amazing stuff in the pipeline for our trip.
23. Our flat smells like cheese on toast. Yum!
24. It’s my brother and sister-in-law’s 3rd wedding anniversary. Amazing.
25. I really need to write and reply to some emails.
26. Thunder in the middle of the day is so cool…

So there you have it! I’m 26 years old, and I have 26 thoughts buzzing around my head. Consider this a challenge, to write down the shopping list of your mind, and see if you can reach your age in numbers!

I’ve heard the phrase before, but always associated it with times of tragedy or sadness. When you’re feeling down in the dumps, remember that ‘this too shall pass’ and it makes the hard times easier to bear.

What I hadn’t ever considered, though, was that it’s also a helpful phrase when things are going well. Whenever you’re feeling happy or delighted about something, remember that ‘this too will pass’.

It might appear, at first, to take the air out of your balloons, but what he says is that if you don’t accept that everything is transient, there’s this sense of fear that surrounds anything that happens. Even as you’re enjoying whatever is going your way, you worry about when it will disappear. If you remember that everything that happens will pass, you take the fear out of it and open yourself up to the possibility of being firmly in this present moment.

What do you think? A wise way to approach life? I think so…

One of the challenges I’ve always battled with is to see the far-reaching perspective when something happens. To see that in the grand scheme of things it might make sense for this to happen now, or not happen now, as the case may be. That even though certain things seem like the right choice, if they don’t pan out it’s because in the zoomed-out view that makes sense. The same way that sometimes you have to zoom out a camera to see the full picture.

I usually tend to think I know exactly what should happen, and if it doesn’t turn out the way I planned then I am not. a. pleased. young. lady.

But I’m learning! Slowly slowly catch a monkey. I’ve been opening a lot of doors lately, testing out new opportunities and saying ‘yes!’ to all the things that come my way. It feels really exhilarating and kind of curious – who knows which ones are going to develop into something, and which ones are going to fall by the wayside? Some of the doors open into fascinating rooms, and some seem to slam shut on the wind. Yesterday one of them slammed shut, and instead of feeling disappointed and upset about it, I just felt, “Oh. Okay. Well, if that didn’t work out, something else will. Perhaps it wasn’t the right time for this, for whatever reason. Not a big deal.”

And it wasn’t just me telling myself to feel this! I actually did. How freaking exciting.
I have to attribute some of this new calm to old Eckhart Tolle, though, and his ‘This too will pass’ mantra. I had it engraved on a ring, so that any time something happens I recognise that it is transient, that from a far-reaching perspective it might look totally different. (Is it possible that I haven’t blogged about ‘this too will pass’? Don’t worry, I will!)

Exciting stuff, this!

“How do you ever get the truth to be more the way you want it to be? You’ve just got to start beating the drums of truth the way you want it to be—and when you do, you will immediately feel good. And there are those who might say, “Oh, you’re not facing the fact.” And we say, we would never face any fact that was taking us to a place we don’t want to be.

There are those who believe that the world is getting more and more desperate. We are here to tell you that the world is getting better and better, and better, and that every experience you have causes you to launch rockets of desires, and Source comes in response to those rockets. And the best thing about your birth and death is that the resistant ones die and the allowing ones are born. And with this combination of contrast that keeps you launching new and new desires, it’s no wonder that the Universe is expanding in this marvelous way and that life is getting better, in every day—and in this moment—for everyone who insists on focusing there.”