In the words of Ronan Keating (with a little tweak)
Life is a rollercoaster. So don’t fight it. Just gotta ride it
How big a roller coaster life is often depends more on the choices you make rather than fate and all choices have good and bad consequences and some choices will be smarter than others. You can spend your life beating yourself up over your poor choices but I believe life is too short to do that.
I recently had the pleasure of sitting round the table with a number of like-minded people who have followed diverse career paths at Zoe Routh’s World Leaders Round Table. It was very heartening to see and hear the other people in the room like me struggled at times and continually questioned their capacity to pull off their vision for a better world.
Using Joseph Campbell’s Heroes’ Journey as an analogy. Once I had a cause
“I have a vision for a respected, profitable, innovative, cohesive, and collaborative agrifood sector. A philosophy I hold so strongly that I am totally unwilling to accept defeat,”
that meant more to me than anything else and the mentors arrived in my life I was very excited to cross the threshold
ht Zoe Routh – Source: http://alifetothemax.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/the-hero_s-journey.jpg
But I have always and still do struggle with the ‘threshold guardians’ who form part of the tests and challenges in the graphic above.
The well-meaning one’s (usually family and friends) I understand and appreciate but the henchman aka the Nancies amusingly explained in this Glove and Boots video really occupy my head space far too much
To the ‘Shadows’ I say bring it on. They are the ones who white ant you at every opportunity and in my case I want to thank them. They are the ones who (despite what they perceive they are doing) throw wood on and stoke the fire in my belly when I start to doubt myself
At the moment I am truly enjoying and been inspired by the highly frivolous but beautiful new Myer’s add and when the henchman fill my head space, my other voice comes along and says ‘Wonderful is waiting lets go out and find it’
The add is beautiful and I love clothes and shoes. As you can see from this story in the Weekly Times in Miranda’s column “The glamorous face of farming’
My fav shoes at the moment, including the red ones mentioned in the above article.
According to Sustainable Fashion academic Professor Kate Fletcher
Fashion feeds our emotional needs- its sets us apart or helps us along
The overlaying of emotional needs on physical goods fuels resource consumption, generates waste and promotes short term thinking as we turn our gaze from one silhouette, hemline and colour palate to the next in search of the next new experience
It also leaves us dissatisfied and disempowered, as physical goods no matter how many of them we consume can never truly satisfy our physiological needs’
I can imagine the Myer add is making Kate cringe and OMG in my endeavours to reduce my footprint on the planet walking away from my love of fashion shopping might be the hardest thing I have ever attempted
Wish me luck. I can’t guarantee it will be on my 2015 New Year’s Resolution list but Jane Milburn has definitely made my list of heroes for 2014
I do want to make a difference in this world like a lot of other people but in this case I am taking one step a time and Myer is doing their very best to be my clothes and shoes fetish henchman but they have given me a wonderful new voice in my head.
Loving this. Never be afraid to show up before you are ready
ht Fleur Porter
BTW What is my definition of a hero? A hero to me is anyone who makes a commitment (and walks the talk) to add value to the lives of others beyond themselves. As you can see by my definition the world has many many heroes
