Orchids are beautiful but sensitive flowers.
They require protection and nurturing to blossom.
On the other hand, Dandelions can thrive virtually anywhere.
I came across this way of explaining how some of us develop differently from others when I was catching up on old episodes of Channel 4’s ‘The Secret Life of 4 Year Olds’.
It’s based on a Swedish metaphor: ‘amaskrosbarn’, a “dandelion child” and ‘orkidebarn’, an “orchid child.” Continue reading “Are You an Orchid or a Dandelion?”
How great was it to see Matthew Rees help David Wyeth finish the London Marathon yesterday?
If you didn’t see it you can watch it here.
Some have called it the moment that defined the race. Continue reading “Meaningful Moments from This Year’s London Marathon”
I was really touched by this story in the Mail Online yesterday.
It’s about a bus driver, Damone Hudson from Dayton, Ohio, who was driving over a bridge and saw a woman on the wrong side of the railings. He stopped his bus and got out to talk to her.
He stayed with her until the police arrived to take her to safety and, hopefully, to get some appropriate help. Continue reading ““Ma’am, you look like you’re having a bad day. Can I give you a hug?””
January 17th is popularly thought to be the day when lots of people abandon their New Year’s resolutions and has, it seems, been nominated “Ditch New Year’s Resolutions Day”.
If you are struggling with your New Year resolutions or working towards any other changes in your life, and you don’t want to ditch them, you might find some of the ideas in my Blue Monday post helpful.
Alternatively, I find these two quotes inspire me and they might do the same for you:
“And now we welcome the new year. Full of things that have never been.”
Rainer Maria Rilke
“A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.”
Chinese Proverb
How is 2017 going for you?
I’m writing this on ‘Blue Monday’, the third Monday in January.
According to Caroline Webb’s article in The Telegraph, those of us who are in the UK today are “experiencing the bleakest day of the year … so named for its potent combination of cold nights and post-Christmas melancholy.” Continue reading “Blue Monday … ?”
If you’ve been writing Christmas cards or sending e-cards, emails, texts or other Christmas and New Year messages recently you may well have been thinking about friends – who you’ve been in touch with this year, and who you haven’t.
What does ‘friendship’ mean to you? Does it mean the same to your friends? Continue reading “Friends for a Reason, a Season or a Lifetime?”
Struggling to make decisions about what to buy friends and family for Christmas this year?
With less than three weeks to go, the pressure may be mounting – and funds running short.
On BBC Breakfast this morning there was a discussion about ‘The Four Gift Rule’ and I found a BBC article online about it, too. Continue reading “Something they want … or an IOU?”
You might expect that the title of this campaign would appeal to me – and it does. So does the purpose.
Launched for World Mental Health Day, #IAMWHOLE is fronted by Jordan Stephens, the hip hop star from Brighton – one of the Rizzle Kicks duo – who lost someone to suicide and who’s had his own mental health issues, too. Continue reading “#IAMWHOLE”
I’m a fan of Malcolm Gladwell’s books – having previously really enjoyed ‘The Tipping Point’ and ‘Blink’.
In our pursuit of excellence and our ‘self-help’ culture we place a lot of emphasis on personal effort and perseverance as the keys to success and often attribute lack of success to lack of effort and someone giving up too easily. Continue reading “Outliers”
Whole People 