More Mental Debates

I was told the other day that I am a bit of a perfectionist. My first and immediate response was that the other person was clueless. I mean take a look at this blog, there is a line that goes down the middle of it that just should not be there – surely a perfectionist would never tolerate that?

Then I did something strange, I let that possibility exist within myself. I discovered that I have perfectionist expectations of myself. In other words I expect myself to be perfect. The resulting mental chaos is obvious as I finding myself falling short of my expectations daily.

Having allowed this rogue thought in, all sorts of things have started to happen to me. I can now see situations where I do expect perfection and others where I have learnt to let things ride. I also see times when I want to impose my will in order to get my outcome, my perfect outcome.

I cannot tell you how earth shattering this insight of myself has been, although it must rank up there with the discovery of scrambled eggs and mayonnaise. It is said that surrounding yourself with people who are able to hold up the mirror to you is invaluable. My brief glimpse of myself will hopefully relieve most of my inner turmoil as I try and focus on doing a couple of things well instead of many things poorly!

It seems Christmas has been full of gifts; family, love, and a priceless new understanding of myself.

Freedom

My year has been absolutely mind blowingly awesome. Everyone should have a year just like it. The highlight has been the complete freedom to choose my direction, absolutely any direction. And so I have followed my fancy and explored all sorts of possibilities.

The freedom to choose is an incredible gift. For me, an anti establishment, go my own way kind of guy, it has been a journey filled with joy. There is no doubt, it is an ideal worth fighting for!

Yesterday I dusted off my goals. Yes, those clever things that I set over a year ago. I was rather disappointed to see that even though they have been top of mind, I can tick off very few as being complete.

Have I failed?

After much thought, I believe that stamping my year as a failure would be a rather narrow view. Sure I did not meet most of my goals, but I had a rare opportunity to exercise my own freedom. Perhaps the fact that I did not meet my goals means that I really used my freedom. Hmmm, perhaps that should have been my only goal this past year!

I have spent the last couple of months in a state of mental confusion. A not too unfamiliar territory for me! Having too much time to think is possibly just as bad as not having enough. My mental oscillation has revolved around having had the best year of my life, not meeting my goals, and having no idea about my future. The latter part has been my biggest concern as I am pretty anal about having a plan. Clearly following one’s fancy is opposed to a focus on a predetermined path. I know that now, but that knowledge a little while ago would have saved plenty of mental frustration.

The complete freedom to go where I wanted at any time has been fantastic. Yet, in the back of my mind this ugly thought about sustainability kept trying to percolate through all of the salt water that seems to have seeped in there from the surfing. For all of the freedom that I have gained, I have lost my focus in life! I have absolutely no idea about what to do with myself and now find it incredibly difficult to commit to anything lest it get in the way of my being able to choose something else. Now there is an interesting problem – have the freedom to choose but don’t choose because the choice itself destroys the freedom to choose something else!!!

It is time for me to think clearly and commit myself to my future. Now that I understand the source of my frustration, I think I can move on!

As for all the freedom I will lose, perhaps too much of any good thing is problematic! If you find yourself trapped and dying for freedom, take it from me, absolute freedom is a trap in itself. You and I both need to find the freedom that exists within the choices we make.

Dumping Girlfriends

We took our boys to the water park at the beach yesterday. The cancer institute would have been a little disappointed in our decision. A balmy 35 degrees Celsius blanketed the beach front in bright sunlight and the wind disappointed by not even stirring the leaves on branches. We did however coat our offspring in litres of sunscreen and insist on sun vests. All that taken into account, they had an absolute blast.

I stuck with our youngest for much of the hour that we spent in this world of rushing water. Yes, all three slides were working! As you may well imagine, I was the oldest participant in the activities. For some reason, perhaps my youthful countenance, I seemed to fit in with the rest of the revellers even though I was twice their height. Conversations ranged unabated and seemingly undiluted even with this pesky adult in attendance.

I learnt some interesting stuff.

A number of eight year olds were discussing girlfriends. I thought that it may be an interesting conversation to listen to and I was not disappointed. One of the boys proudly told his mates that he had dumped his girlfriend. I am pretty sure that they have no real concept of what a relationship involves. Either way this chap was proud of his achievement. If I had to get all psychological, I would say that he was posturing excessively to compensate for his bad squint! I was almost impressed myself. Not bad to have already had your first girlfriend at eight and have all your friends look at you in amazement and wonder. Another youngster asked him how he did it. He replied that it was so simple, as all he did was tell her that she was dumped. This statement was answered by a group of eight year old heads nodding in unison. The message was clear, this pesky girl situation can be simply resolved by uttering a couple of words.

I felt a little old at that point and could not stop myself asking the question, ‘but is that nice?’ Hardly a well phrased question, but I was reliably informed that this is how it is done, so obviously there is no problem. I resolved to keep the rest of my old fashioned thoughts to myself.

It was interesting to learn that my son at seven is exposed to some very interesting discussions. Knowing that I am not having these discussions with him means that I have not yet cracked that elusive father son relationship that I have been looking for.

This morning I collected all of the parent handbooks on sex that we seem to have collected. It is way past time for me to learn some stuff. I am also going to spend more one on one time with my sons to ensure that we start talking about all of the stuff that is going on in their lives as well as the stuff that they are just talking about.

I think I am going to learn a lot more now!!

Project Updates

A while ago I posted about a new project, “the halfpipe”. Many people have asked me about its progress. Well at long last, I have some progress to report. Yesterday I sat down and calculated the cost of this wooden monster. Hmmmm about R6500. That seems a bit excessive for a stack of wood all screwed together looking out of place in my garden.

On the other hand Play Station 3 and a couple of games would not cost too much less. There is very little chance of serious injury on Play Station, except a case of mild thumb strain. The wooden beast on the other hand has the very real potential to maim and break a person. Psychologically it can humiliate and destroy, especially if the right people are watching at the wrong time. Such big risks all while learning to skate and surfing better right in my own back yard! And to think that it will build real reactions and muscles, with personal style thrown in as an added bonus.

Now I just have to get started!

That being said, my “Tweety” project is about to kick off as well. It has not ended up as I anticipated with me doing all of the upgrade work. Instead I have decided to call in the professionals to upgrade the engine, gearbox and interior. The rest of the bits and pieces, I will try and do myself. OK, so I will have two very eager helpers as well, the kids!

I saw a chap on Thursday night with regard to him helping me. He is in! The car goes to his shop on Wednesday next week. The first order of business will be to remove the engine, strip it, and rebuild it. At the same time, the car will go to a place that will get busy on the inside. I am too excited.

Although not too excited to get our Christmas act together. I have strung up all of our exterior lights and Father Christmas’s bum is firmly attached to the chimney. This, where he allegedly got stuck trying to deliver a load of presents to my kids!!!!

I know what you are thinking, Christmas lights strung up on the house and a honking big yellow Ford on the lawn. This sounds like redneck stuff......I hope not, although I will let you know when my wife starts to wear dresses that are strapless with bra’s that aren’t!!!!

Lazy in Cape Town

I have been back in beautiful sunny South Africa for more than a week now. It has been spent in a guilty frame of mind as I have spent my time doing the bare minimum. I think it is called relaxing but I am not sure as it is something I have always found immensely difficult.

For me relaxing is when I get to chose what I want to do. Quite frankly that ain’t relaxing, it’s just doing different stuff at the same pace! This week I seem to have lacked the energy to do much more than surf a couple of times in the howling gales and read. Today though, I feel I am in a far better place for all of the laziness and ready to take on the world again.

One of the things that I did manage to do, in amongst all of the tough reading, is visit a hot rod garage in Parrow in Cape Town. I saw some awesome work in this chaps garage and I am hoping that he is going to assist me with my project. He is coming over this evening to check out my yellow Tweety Bird (as my wife has nicknamed it) and see what needs to be done. The amazing thing about this hot rod business is that just about everyone I have approached is jam packed full of project cars. Most cannot help me till February. Now there is something that I would never have imagined. Then again cars from the 50’s and 60’s are rarer now than ever before and nobody seems to be making them anymore!!!

I on the other hand cannot wait till February!! So much hangs off my negotiations this evening.....

I just gots to get a new chirp for Tweety Bird, cheep cheep!

Fire

There were some pretty big fires in Cape Town last night. From our house we could see the one burning above Gordon’s Bay. The mountain was on fire from top to bottom. Nestled just above the sea and just below the flames was the town of Gordon’s Bay.

I got ready for bed wondering if there was something more important for me to be doing than going to bed. Eventually I gave the local police station a call and was referred to the fire station. The fire station said that if I was interested in volunteering, I had to report to the Spur in Gordon’s Bay, their temporary headquarters.

So somewhere around 22h30 last night, I got dressed again, and charged off to go and do my bit. I felt pretty pleased with myself. As I got closer to Gordon’s this fire was bigger and more ominous than I had first suspected. The police had gotten there before me and had closed off most access into Gordon’s Bay. I talked my way through and found myself at the Spur.

There must have been at least 20 fire trucks packed into the beach parking lot. Ambulances, police cars, and disaster recovery vehicles took up any of the remaining space. People milled all over the place. Some had been evacuated and other were mentally preparing to do battle with an orange tongued monster. There was an air of excitement. Nobody was quite sure of what was going to happen but they all knew that it was going to be intense and difficult. I was impressed to see a lady dressed in her pyjamas handing out coffee to anyone who looked like they were ready for action. She glanced at me, made the wrong assumption, and offered me nothing! My black rugby shorts, “Buy this man a beer” T shirt, and hiking boots obviously did not add up to the action hero attire I had aimed for.

A nice disaster management lady gave me a big smile and told me I was a hero for coming down. She got my look! But there was nothing that I could do to help. OK, maybe not.....

So there I was in Gordon’s Bay in a gale force plus wind watching an out of control fire rage on the mountain and there was nothing I could do. I felt pretty small and useless. Was there really no value that I could add here? I saw a car pass the police blockade and park just next to my car. A heap of chaps spilled out and headed off with purpose toward the action. I felt a glimmer of hope, perhaps I could hook up with this gang and still be useful. While waiting for a reasonable stalking gap to open up between us, I watched as they entered a pub and settled down for some serious business, a round of beers!

I hung my head, and drove home. Wind blown leaves overtook my car whilst I was driving at 80km/hr. Even the leaves were getting more action than I!!!!

Off to West Africa

Today was a rough day. It all started out well. On my way out to the sea for my Monday morning board meeting, I met up with the chap who put one and one together and got one. Perhaps you remember the piece that I wrote on me breaking my good mate’s board. I showed him that I was still riding and that it was doing fine. We both had a look at the repair and saw that it was far from well and that it needed some serious love and attention. Perhaps after my surf session, I thought.

I had a fine session! I got some moves right and had heaps of waves. Eventually I dragged myself out of the sea in order to have a quick shower, get dressed, pack, hop into the car and get dropped off at the airport. A quick trip to Ghana was in order.

My wife dropped me off well early as she had to get back to sort out the children. Just as well. On checking in, I discovered that my flight had been cancelled. After a whole heap of conferencing and typing, I was upgraded to business class on an earlier flight. Had I been on time to check in, I would not have made my connection to Accra.

Eight and a bit hours of flying and I found myself in Accra, Ghana. I have a self catering apartment which is OK. Ghana is two hours behind the good old SA. I must have plonked myself into bed well after 1am and then proceeded not to sleep until I did not wake up for my alarm. Today has been filled with Coke, hopefully it will get me through...

Mums & Bums

My weekend (1 or 2 ago) was full of laughs. Mostly the stuff of great friends and family just having a plain good old time! It was camping weekend, something that could drive fear into any hardened suburban housewife. But not my wife! It has taken years but I think she is as close as she can be to enjoying camping. Years of effort and wise investment into giant Tabard candles, canvas, and inflatable beds have been the driving forces.

Normally there are four families that band together, pitch tents, feast on gourmet creations over an open fire, and play silly games with our children. This time there were only three. One mother pulled out as she did not think her four week old baby would be able to handle the gourmet creations. Or at least thats what I think the reason was.

We have rated this particular place that we go as the best camping spot we have ever been too. Picture rolling grass lawns down to the banks of a river, giant trees shading your site, almost your own mini forest, your own ablution block, and best of all, no other campers within 500m of your site! This place is a gem, and this weekend was our second visit.

The river is fast flowing and a transparent tea colour. It is filled with smoothed river rocks, which have created their own white water rapids. These particular festivities all started with one of the boys wading upstream a bit and then floating back down to where we all lounged in the cold mountain water. Then all of the boys were at it. It did not take long before all the children had found a place further upstream to enter the river and get a fun filled river ride. Yours truly was soon forced to try out this new entertainment with my little guy on my stomach. I very quickly realised that some skill was required to navigate between rocks otherwise I found myself royally thumped. All much to the enjoyment of my youngest who thought the wild up and down gyration of my middle was my addition to the game. How could I spoil that wonderful illusion by explaining that every up was the result of a collision with a rock!

During the day, there were suddenly load raucous screams, laughter and much giggling. Some of that noise sounded suspiciously like it originated with my wife. Having a deep understanding that nothing in camping could ever bring forth multitudes of mirth, I was understandably concerned for her safety. Rushing to the river’s edge, the screams and shouts were undiminished but their source was evident. Three mums bumping and bouncing their way down the rapids on their bums! The kids could not believe their eyes! Neither could I, but I was busy feeling on the grass to find my eyeballs that had popped out of my head on witnessing this sight. With much gaiety, laughter, and yes back slapping, they ran on back through the camp site to do it all again!

This was a good weekend!!! Bring on some more.....

New Business

Today is another exciting day. It has taken forever to get here, but here we are!

My new partner and I sit today to discuss our new business. The thing about our business is that we have a very different mindset. We intend to do what we can to create a business that has real values. Some of them go without saying like ethics (driven from deep Christian values), honesty, integrity, and fairness.

Others will be things that many companies out there talk about but never nail down. One of my previous employers used to talk about people all the time and yet this was just talk. Our challenge is to make sure that staff feel really valued and that their work adds a significant dimension to their lives. Integrating family life and time is something that we both feel strongly about. Another challenge is to incorporate our social aims and desires into the workplace, i.e. giving back to our communities and putting charity into action.

Real business has scant regard for this stuff. They are all optional extras! I believe there must be a way to build a sustainable business that really cares for its people and those less fortunate whilst turning a profit. That my dear friends is of course the key. If you want massive profits, there is no way that one can afford to focus on real values.


There is an old adage, ‘if you are not in business for profit or pleasure, get out!’ Our choice is to make our profit through adding incredible value to the lives of all of those that will be associated with this organisation. Perhaps it is time that profit was more than just cold hard cash.

Time will tell if we can make it work...

Wind and Cricket

This morning I looked out the window and saw something rather surprising. The plants and trees were standing still. What, no wind? My mind raced, my body tingled. Perhaps there was a chance that I may be able to surf today after all.

For those of you not in the know, wind makes or breaks a surf break. For weeks the South Easter has blown here. This is an onshore wind for all of my very close surfing spots. An onshore wind causes the wave to collapse as it blows it over from behind.

Seeing my garden serene got my heart racing. I procrastinated a bit as I know how fickle the wind can be. But seconds later, my slops were on my feet and my car keys in my hand.

Seven minutes later I arrived at the beach. The sea was a horrible off green colour splattered with white sea horses that had been whipped into a frenzy. My car rocked on its suspension as the wind slid its foul tentacles under it trying to whisk me away. Probably a fraction under gale force!

I was home a couple of minutes later. There I reacquainted myself with the beautiful calm day that I had left only minutes before. There I found my sons ready for school, early, which was a miracle in itself! An impromptu cricket match was soon underway. A match filled with great shots from the youngsters and some truly terrible bowling from dad!

Funny how my passion was not to be this morning and yet I had just as much fun back home with my children, and we all got to have fun!

Me and my new old car

I seem to have gotten a long way through my list of things that need fixing around the house. I suppose that is to be expected, I have been working on stuff for more than two weeks. Perhaps that is what I foresaw and hence bought an old new car to ensure that I would have plenty to fix in the future! I am well excited about this new vehicle but it will only be delivered to Cape Town sometime next week. I am not sure I can wait that long....

I have wanted an old pickup for many years, but that was more a romantic notion that seemed right and at the back of my mind there is this harebrained scheme to use it to do good. Added to that, new cars cost stacks! And then they just lose their value. Most of the old cars that are left have serious style and class and can be bought for a fraction of the cost of a new car. Sure they do not have all of the optional extras and modern life simplificators. They also require constant tinkering. Then again you can start out with a cheap classic and end up with an appreciating asset that is fun to drive in a very different way!

I have a problem in that I have now picked up a car that is 80% complete. It does not go, yet! That’s right, the engine is there but nothing is connected. The prop shaft is in the load box, together with a number of other essential components, although I cannot yet identify any of them. There are no dials or gauges and no accelerator, which I know is going to be a problem. Now, I have many skills but my experience of servicing my Ford XR3 as a student is probably not going to do the trick here.

I could always send the car away and let the professionals just fix it, but then I would always be in the dark as to what goes on under the hood. That tinkering I wrote about would also always be a mystery to me. Instead I have negotiated with the local extreme car shop that I come in and do the work on the car myself under their supervision. I must admit that I never noticed we had such a shop in the area until I needed it! Hopefully I will get to learn all about muscle cars and end up with my own superbly crafted machine at a reasonable price.

I am a little excited – a little kid with a big toy. More like a kid that knows what he is getting for Christmas but has to wait till the big day, agony....

Mental Debates

My garden is in the midst of change. I am in the process of moving our vegetable patch from one side to the other. A not so small undertaking! I have been ably assisted by our regular gardener and his brother, and still the work goes on. Yesterday I spent almost three hours just turning the soil. That may seem like a little bit of overkill but then again I suspect that my house is perched on an old riverbed. That would certainly explain the great quantities of river rocks that lie hidden in the ground. My three hours of garden fork time realised great quantities of rocks, yet only about 30% of the area is now done! I cannot wait to get started on it again today.....

I went to church last night and did some thinking.

My mind has been in turmoil for months, well truth be told, years! I have this feeling that I am not doing what I should be doing and yet my life is busy beyond belief. I wondered last night if the three hours that I spent in the garden was purely wasted time as it should have been spent on something more value adding like my children or some or other charity venture. The crux of the debate that rages within me is am I wasting my time on silly pursuits, ergo the new old car I have just bought?

My quiet time brought some light!

I always thought of life as a pure set of priorities, first family then the other stuff. Every decision should then put family first before anything else. This is perhaps very idealistic and impractical. I have long looked at much of the stuff that I do as non value adding, like gardening, home maintenance, and yes, even surfing! This because it does not put family first, or spirituality, or even any of the other priorities that I have. My narrow definition of value adding also added fuel to my internal debate, i.e. value adding is when what I do helps others. But perhaps this is not a good way to look at things all the time. Surely there are times when I need to do things that are just about me, or things that just have to get done so that life can go on?

I also stumbled onto the thought that perhaps all of these priorities in life are not the same at any one time. Now there is a thought! Well not an original thought but really my deeper understanding about balance and how it affects my life.

Instead of my fixed priorities being family, spirituality, charity, income, fitness, relaxation and fun at all times, perhaps how I choose to spend my time on them can change regularly. This does not diminish their importance, as that order is right, it just changes my internal view of when it is OK to do them. Today it could be fun, then family, and tomorrow spirituality, then income. I would imagine that I then have to balance it all to ensure that at the end of the month, year, my life, I have spent my time according to my fixed priorities. Perhaps this would give me the right focus and hopefully the right results due to that focus.

Perhaps you think I am mad, but this has bothered me for years. I just could not manage to meet my fixed list every day and hence spent most of time at the end of the day beating myself up about how I am wasting my life. Now I have this understanding that I have some time in which to balance things out. Hopefully now, I can cut out the useless mental debate and actually do something.....

Too busy and an old car

Ah, this feels good. It has been a while again since I put fingers to keyboard. Life has been busy, far too busy for my liking! I have spent my last two weeks at home. I should have been able to do all of the things that I have wanted to do and above all just relax. Yet that has not happened at all. These last two weeks have been a blur of activity from sorting out home maintenance issues, of which there have been many, to buying an old car.

I am a little surprised how in four months our house has deteriorated in such a big way. Add to that a brainwave where my wife and I moved some rooms around. Brilliant, but filled with wiring and furniture challenges! Our bid to replace our aging and semi functional stove resulted in a new gas stove and oven. It looks mighty fine in the kitchen but also clear proof that my wife and I need to stop shopping together! And so I have bolted, sanded, glued and screwed my way around the house and there is plenty more to come in the next week....

I have talked for years about my next car being an old car. Last week, I stopped talking and put out some feelers with all of the advertisers in the SA Hot Rods magazine. I knew that I wanted an early 1950’s Ford F100 but they are scarce and I have not been able to find one anywhere. Think of ‘Mater’ in the movie Cars – that is the truck that I wanted. On Monday this week, I got a call from a chap who told me about his 1956 Ford F100. To make things difficult, this chap was in Johannesburg and I of course live in Cape Town. Then again, I just happened to be flying to Johannesburg that afternoon and so it seemed that this vehicle was something that I just had to see. I had a fleeting notion that the cosmic forces were aligned and then dismissed that as cosmic rubbish!

I saw it and was most surprised. The previous owner had poured his heart and soul into this vehicle for nine years and then sold it before he was finished. The current owner had stacks of old cars in all sorts of stages of restoration, but really had his eye on restoring a very rare Packard. Enter myself and my half baked ideas and suddenly there was a match made in heaven (sorry more cosmic nonsense).

Yes, I know nothing about old cars, or engines, or bodywork, or hot rods, or really about cars at all. Most of my week has been spent lost in the net trying to understand the relative values of engines and old cars. The jargon has left my head spinning and me pretty grumpy as I have not known enough to make a proper decision. I like to know everything before I decide to spend my money or more likely I am just a stingy miser! On a whim, I decided to take a leap of faith and buy it. I now own an 80% complete, non starter, requiring much work and attention! With the decision made, I felt far calmer about dealing with the many issues that are going to come my way as a result of this decision. I think I deal with acceptance far better than procrastination.

One of the key issues that has clouded my week has been my business factor. I am so busy and now I have introduced a whole new level of time sink. How will I be able to fit in this time and the things that I have tried so hard to mould into my life? Time will tell but I have a plan and believe it or not, this 1956 Ford F100 truck is central to it!!!!

You will have to wait and see what that could possibly be.....lets call it Project TWEETY BIRD!

My Year Off

My plans have not gone according to plan this year at all. It has been a wonderful exercise in detailed planning and then completely abandonment. I would hate to go and check out my goals that I set so long ago. Then they all seemed to be achievable and even laudable. Now they are still laudable but achievable only in my dreams. In the end I have achieved more than I could have dreamed of but not in the direction that I wanted to go at all.

Funny that the thing I really excelled at was bringing in an income and yet this is the one thing I did not want to do this year! And the rest of the world is in financial despair...

Don’t get me wrong, I am not complaining, so let me lay it all out here:

· I left the corporate rat race to collect my thoughts and try and build a life that was outside the pursuit for money, power and prestige. I gave myself a year to save the world, connect with my family again, do good and find my path in life. Instead I ended up with half a year off and then four months of consulting night and day away from my family in a foreign country. I reneged on most of my newly acquired social commitments to do good. A clear aim was for a year of money free bliss and ended up with a lucrative income and a fledgling consultancy.
· I started to write a book on money, power and prestige as the forces that could dominate one’s life and the resulting tensions with other aspects of life, mainly family and values. I wrote 14 chapters which after many revisions still needed further work. I only have seven chapters to go but now they all lie on the shelf gathering dust. It should have been a slam dunk to have this book finished, instead I just have a collection of rantings of the mad man.
· My family and I have connected on a different level. This even though I have spent much of four months away. I did learn that I have a hard time being away from my family and that my family needs me. It is fantastic to be needed! This aspect of my year has far exceeded expectations.
· My lifestyle has been out of this world. It has included some surfing although not nearly as much as I would have liked. The main thing about my lifestyle is that I have been able to choose how I wanted to spend my time. There is heaps of freedom in that choice and I have thoroughly enjoyed that.
· I have learnt so much. I thought that I had a good handle on life and business but I have been humbled by how much I did not know I did not know. Starting to fill those gaps has been a voyage of new discoveries. I cannot believe that learning could be such a thrill!
· From a personal point of view, I have grown in huge leaps and bounds. I have become far calmer, more introspective and have a very different point of view to the old me. I feel that I am a far better person for the experience.
It is interesting that I started to write my book with the perspective of this just wounded corporate animal that managed to crawl away from a terrible killing ground. As a result, my writing was filled with some grandiose ideas. The upside of the consulting work is that it has helped me understand how to tie those ideas into reality. I cannot wait to get stuck into my writing again, and yet there seems to be some more work out there for my consultancy. It looks like I will need to leave the dust on the book and the right time will present itself in time to come. This book will be written! I still have a story to tell.....

All in all, my year has not been what I wanted a year ago. On so many levels it has been way better, on other levels I have failed dismally. I have learnt so much though and hopefully armed with this knowledge, I will be able to make the difference that I crave to make.

I will change the world!

Later

Hmmmmm - I have been a bad blogging boy lately! Sorry bout dat! Will be back shortly.....

Like a kid again

I have learnt another lesson. And yes this is another airport story, but with some added heart!

I am not sure how it all happened. Perhaps it was terribly stressful week that I spent in Zanzibar soaking up the sun with my family. Although that week must rate as one of our best family holidays ever!

Anyhow, there I was buying chips for my oldest son who was starving. This is a problem that runs in the family; perpetual hunger leading to a grocery bill larger than most house bonds! I know that chips are not nourishing but in the Zanzibar Airport, they can be considered cordon bleu! While waiting for the cashier to complete a very important conversation with a non customer about nothing in particular, my flight was called. A terrible dilemma, board my flight or solve the hunger crisis. I opted for hunger resolution, probably because old habits die hard. Just to clarify, my family were going to board another flight back home, while I was headed back to Dar to carry on with my project.

I was the last passenger to board another monster plane (10 seater) and immediately looked for my hand luggage. A funny thing to do considering that it should by definition have been in my hand. During my hunger busting chip purchase, my colleague had taken it with him and given it to one of the chaps dealing with the luggage. Not seeing my bag, I asked one of the ground staff to let me check.

Instead of the help I expected, I got a full force verbal attack from the chap that I had asked. My intelligence was attacked, I was called stupid and then told the plane would leave with or without me. I was lost for words! I turned meekly, and climbed back on the plane with my tail firmly between my legs.

Then I seethed. How could I have been so stupid as to not have better answers for anyone shouting at me? Why could I not have gotten the upper hand? How could I be so embarrassed as a grown man? There were no good answers and so I started to day dream how I would get the upper hand and cause some serious trouble when I landed on the other side. I would win this battle! How could a customer be treated in this manner, I had been wronged!

I suddenly had this thought that I felt like a little kid getting moaned at by my dad. That led to another thought that perhaps this is what my kids feel like when I shout and yell at them. And if that is true, then there can be little benefit to dealing with them in that manner. Surely I need to find a better way to deal with issues that don’t include the angry parent yelling at the rebellious child?

Now I can’t wait to get home and see if I can do things differently and get a far better behaviour result. I have no doubt my kids might not be as excited if they knew why I was so excited!!!

Driving, driving, driving

Took a trip on Sunday that turned out to be rather interesting. A road trip in Tanzania is not the same as one back home in the good old South of Africa. The drive to a place called Morogorro was a short 200km that took close to four hours. The main highway going East is a simple 2 lane road, jam packed with trucks and busses. To make matters more interesting, road speed is controlled through speed humps on the road at every village. There are many, many villages on this highway and so most time is spent on the lookout for unmarked humps and riding the rollercoaster when you don’t see them.

Many of the well maintained vehicles sharing the road, stop in order to effect basic repairs like changing a piston or replace a gearbox. There is no verge and so their stop is on the road. In order to prevent repairs to the rear of their vehicles, a high tech solution has been devised to warn other road users. Branches are broken off trees and placed in the road. It is then very simple, when you find yourself ploughing through a forest on the road, either swerve and take your chances with oncoming traffic or prepare to inspect the bugs on your windscreen a little more closely!

We made it through the mayhem of the highway and arrived in Morogorro. From there we headed further east for a further 60km towards the Mikhani National Park. In true African style, the highway goes right through the middle of this national park. There are no fancy gates or fences, you just drive on through and if lucky get to spot a whole heap of game. We were not lucky and instead discovered that a fire had ravaged a great portion of the place. We turned right to do a bit of our own exploring and were pleasantly surprised by a herd of elephant, hippo and a suckling baby giraffe. At a peaceful waterhole we fished out our special lunch of tuna and crackers. None of the wild beasts seemed remotely interested.

On leaving the park, our car developed amnesia and forgot how to work any of its gauges. We thought that pretty strange and pushed on home regardless. We made good progress until we were about 100km away from home. The car lost all of its power and so like good men we debated the merits of turbo engines. We then debated the merits of stopping at a garage and like good men decided to take our chances on making it home. The car decided otherwise, spluttered, wheezed and died at the garage exit. I got to push it back onto the garage forecourt and there it stood for the next couple of hours soaking up the Chillensi darkness.

Our eventful day trip, which some would consider a prolonged streak of madness, took an interesting turn as we cooled our heels in a Nyama Choma (translated as bits of meat – which is the local delicacy), drinking Bitter Lemon. We tried our hand at applying our advanced mechanical skills to resolve the cars health issues. Unfortunately our revival efforts failed dismally car and we resorted to reading by overhead light pollution. Surprisingly the mechanic showed up and ruined our chances of a free night’s accommodation curled up in the front seat! A simple battery switch and we were back on the road again, all the way back to out hotel. The next morning the car was as dead as my USA presidential campaign, again!

A sore butt, the memory of ten hours of driving, and a few cracker photographs were all we had to show for our day out. Just another day in Africa!

Baobabs and Action

I travelled recently to a small town in the rural North of Tanzania, called Kahama. The drive was two things for me; Baobabs and Action!

I am not sure if you have seen a Baobab in person, but it is truly a majestic sight. Most of them while being absolutely massive and easily able to substitute as the space within the ring a roses circle of any pre school, are also seemingly deformed. I found my eyes drawn to them almost like the rubberneckers at any accident scene. Either way they seemed to exude an ethereal beauty, standing tall in a country side of very short stuff. Perhaps it was their sheer bulk, or their timelessness as they seem to have been standing there long before time but, I want one in my garden! Maybe two....

We passed a lot of baobabs and then we found ourselves there. The town was busy and packed with people. People were not just ambling along, instead they moved with a sense of purpose. The streets were a blur of colour as people darted and wove to get ahead.


A restless activity pervaded everything. Some were digging out sand to make bricks to build their own houses. Others were cutting thatch to roof those houses. Some pedalled their bicycles furiously with the load of a passenger. Sometimes two passengers and sometimes those passengers were goats. Still others strained in front of carts loaded high and heavy with stuff. Their well defined muscles, glistened with sweat, and spoke of a life of consistent toil.

Here one cannot sit on the corner and expect that food will miraculously appear, or a shelter just raise itself above your head. Here there are no rich benefactors or tourists with bulging wallets. Instead, life comes down to you alone. If you are not prepared to make your own difference, nobody else is going to do it for you.

In Africa there is no time for idleness. If there is no food on the table, you starve and then you die!

I always thought that I could carve out a life of ease for myself. My stint at home this year has certainly opened my eyes to the joys of surfing at my leisure. Surf bum may not sound like a great occupation, but it certainly felt like a good life!

Africa has taught me many lessons, but the one that really struck home has been the value of hard work. Me, bobbing on my surfboard in the beautiful Indian Ocean does not seem right when billions around the world slave to put morsels on the table to feed their families. Surely I can do better than that?

Flying to Shinyanga

The other day I flew from Dar es Salaam to a place in Northern Tanzania, just south of Lake Victoria. This was my first trip out of the relative luxury of the big city and into the country. I had some ideas on what it would be like and I was a tad apprehensive.

The trip began with an intense search at Julius Narere Airport, an airport with a rather intense level of security. I made it through the front door in my socks and a hand on my pants to keep them up. My belt and shoes, the dangerous weapons that they are, got intensely scanned. On the other hand, no pun intended, my wrist guard with its thick, long metal bottom support was completely ignored! The reason for the wrist guard is a completely different story, suffice to say that my skateboard taught me a new lesson, again.......

Our plane was an old two propeller fifty seater job. Perhaps it should have bothered me but it didn’t. It was old inside and had seen many hard years at work. The carpet scrunched up under my feet as I tried to sit down and instead I managed to fall into my chair. My seat tipped forward and I hung in the balance somewhere between the floor and the seat of the chap behind me. Some clever law of physics intervened and I found my butt squeezing out of the back of the chair due to the base of the seat having shifted forward. It was all rather comfy!

The plane was remarkably efficient and we were airborne within seconds. In other words never judge a book by its cover! And in no time at all, we were approaching the landing strip in Shinyanga. Certainly not an ordinary airport....

For starters the runway was dirt. Now this cannot be something too extraordinary yet this would be my first dirt runway landing. With extraordinary skill the pilot gently touched down and taxied in no time at all to the airport buildings. So much for my fleeting concern about dirt runway landings! Now to describe the airport buildings as ‘buildings’ is perhaps an over statement. There was one solitary building that housed an impressive arrivals hall, about the size of a public toilet. I later found a departures hall that even had its own toilet. Oh yes, and there was a check in desk (just the one) and a security cubicle with just enough room to ensure that you could search the security guard as he searched you. I later heard that this was an impressive building by African standards, a little town called Kahama, to which I was headed, also had an airport and a container for its ‘buildings’!

I took a walk outside, which wasn’t too far seeing as I had only walked five steps since I was inside. I was struck by a beautiful baobab tree. Well not really but it really was beautiful to see this tree in life. With its grotesquely leafless fat limbs at odd angles and a trunk so large that it looked like it had been growing forever.

At long last I had arrived in Africa!

I turned and looked at the outhouse toilets. One for his and one for hers, shaded by a lovely tree. I looked at the solitary plane on the runway, with its one propeller lazily turning as it waiting for its next load of passengers. It would be only fifteen minutes from wheels down to wheels up, not bad for a small airport in the middle of nowhere. I then cast my eyes over the fire control station. The big fire engine looked good. The support vehicle behind it did not look so well with just three of its wheels missing. Perhaps I had missed something as I had just learnt that you should not judge something from the way it looks.

And this is Africa after all!

Seven and that is all!

I heard the most beautiful, descriptive and inspired thought the other night.

‘You only have seven summers with children

Giving it some thought, the first three to four years of your children’s lives are spent as babies and toddlers. They grow in leaps and bounds! Then your seven summers kick in. Seven short years before teenage hormones start to play havoc and parents become far less important than friends and girlfriends. If you are lucky you will get eight or nine, but you can only be guaranteed seven.

Summer is filled with thoughts of still late evenings, water sports, hiking, camping, time in the pool, picnics, and juicy ripe watermelons. All of the things that I need to be enjoying with my boys while we have those summers together. Those summers have been given to me to shape and guide my children, to provide them with skills and an unwavering example. Ultimately building father son relationships that will last for the rest of our lives!

How sad that most of us spend these precious few summers locked in our offices, tethered to our email, chained to our cell phones, just building those precious careers......

And then that time, that will never be again, is gone....

Breakfast

If I look up, just over the top of my fresh mulberries and pineapple, I can see the world and it is alive.

There are two ladies hanging up washing on the top floors of their apartment blocks. On one line, there are some brightly coloured shirts and much stuff that once was white but has long been grey. The line sagged before the washing was hung and now it sways precariously in the wind, threatening to set its hangers on, free. The other lady has filled her line with linen. Perhaps today is washing day. If I look closely there are lots of lines and lots of washing. All of it lapping up the heat and the warm sea breeze that seems to caress this land every day.

Down on my right, just past the mulberry that fell off my bowl and onto the counter are two Muslim boys. They are both wearing their white fes’ and full white body robes. Just like any kids, they are running around in their courtyard playing a game. I try and imagine what it may be, but just end up thinking about my own boys, far away.

While I dribble honey onto my croissant, I notice the yard way below. It is now half filled with building materials. Obviously its time as a dusty parking lot is coming to an end and bright plans are in its future. A child squeezes through a gap in the corrugated iron fencing and darts between the mounds of sand and stone, intent on a shortcut to the adjacent street. An old truck loaded with material and coughing with effort, tries to find a way to park its rear in the right place without its rear parking on one of the cars still parking there. It looks to be a complicated manoeuvre and highly unlikely to be complete by the time my honey is a memory.

I try counting all of the bustling construction sites and give up at six. This is a very big number for me, but not the reason I only take two boiled eggs. Buildings are built differently here and nothing seems to ever get finished. Somehow, even though this is not remotely possible, it seems that they build every floor at the same time. Or at least that is how it looks, every floor unfinished to the same degree. New floors are held up by stalactites or are they stalagmites, so it seems as hundreds of skew, warped poles are wedged under the shuttering to keep the next floor up. Men stand around and chat. They tap their feet on the edges of the floor on which they are standing, oblivious to all the other floors of air that separate them from a very bloody nose.

Well who eats mulberries for breakfast, you may be asking. Well in Dar, they seem to be here every morning. And eating them, certainly makes me feel like a kid all over again!

Time with the Family

In trying to simplify my life I am going to use a visual cue (thanks Bro A):

>

You have all seen the sign and for some it makes a whole heap of mathematical sense when applied to numbers. But how about when we apply this to the fabric of our lives. Part of the question that I want to answer for myself, is what is more important in my life and how I am living my life to reflect that?

While I was still at work, I yearned for more time with my family. Only 8 months ago, I gave up my career in order to go and chase that time. For me, this is one of the key parts of the greater than equation and far more important that a guaranteed pay cheque, power, prestige and the promise of future glory.

Reality has proven to be rather interesting. I have been able to play sports with both my sons and watch them in action. I have been able to fit into their lives and play with them at their best times and on their terms. I have become a real meaningful part of their lives and have managed to get down to their level and relate in a way that I never thought possible. I have also been a force of discipline in their lives, something that they have both enjoyed and hated (probably more hated). It took only three days for my youngest to ask when I would be going back to work!

On the other hand being there 24 / 7 was negative in that I became a very uninteresting piece of the furniture.

Strangely enough my being home was incredibly difficult for my wife. All of a sudden, there was no escape from me! After working at home for seven years, she suddenly had to share her office and company with me. Paradoxically while I had found my freedom, she had lost most of hers. This was not something that was expected and something that we have had to work through. Now, I would hate to have it any other way!

Part of the reason for grasping my latest consulting life was to ensure that I became exciting again and that my time at home became more valuable for all. Just last week, my wife and I had lunch together outside in the garden. Yes, the sun popped its head out from behind the walls of clouds for just a moment. The rain held off and the garden looked magnificent in its just washed splendour. Birds flitted here and there and our stream rushed seaward in its endless quest to get there. And my wife and I shared this incredibly beautiful moment in time together.

For me, just that moment made all my recent decisions and my life worthwhile!

I still feel that I am bunking reality, but it is a feeling that is rather marvellous!! I am slowly finding the balance between my family and my working life. By no means have I got it right but I have tasted the sweetness of many incredible family moments filled with pure joy and now there is no turning back....

Time to Think

It was a pretty long question and went something like this:

“OK, so you gave up your career, your job, your income in order to find a life that you are passionate about. Effectively you have made massive changes in your life in order to add what you feel is real value to the world. When you sacrificed all that stuff, you thought you were going to gain a heap of other stuff. Was the sacrifice that you made really a sacrifice and did you gain what you thought you were going to gain from this change in life direction?”

I suppose the shorter version of the question is; did it work out the way you expected and what now?

To add additional fuel to the fire, my wife and I went out to a dinner party last night. The dinner party was heaps of fun but one of the guys I knew introduced me to a guy I did not know in a way that bothered me immensely. He said, this is Mark, who left corporate life to find a better way and is now back at it working harder than ever.

Oops – perhaps the time has come to do more thinking. Have I really made this incredibly difficult decision to give up everything that is regarded as normal, so as to live the life I always wanted to live, only to end up back where I started?

I now have my very own thinking project. Strangely it excites me that eight months down the line I am in a position to re-evaluate my life and my decisions. Do I continue going with the flow or do I make some more changes to ensure that I am able to add the value to the world that I want to add? Am I on a short term diversion with great long term prospects for my value plan or is it just a diversion? Do I still want what I wanted? What has been good and what not? Did I sacrifice anything or did I just ditch the bad stuff in my life? Where to from here?

Time for me to think and grow and plan and change!

Man, life is exciting! Stick with me as I try and answer some of these questions.

Madness

Wow, have I lost a serious amount of time? The last two weeks have seen me climb under my rock and focus on nothing but work. And as they say, all work and no play makes me a very dull boy. Suffice to say that I will not bore you with the details of deadlines met and missed. Of presentations that were brilliant and others that were far from it. Or even the hassle of completely missed agendas within one organisation. All of that stuff is going to stay under my rock!

Instead I have a whole new thought paradigm on the go. Perhaps it has been all of the work behind my PC that has given me the urge to go out and build something with my hands. Something that I can look at, touch and even smell. My wife thinks the idea is a little too far out there. My kids think I am a hero just for thinking it up. The neighbours will wish I hadn’t!

I want to build a skateboard half pipe!

Perhaps it has been the solid days of rain in Cape Town and the total lack of surfable waves that has driven me to this point. Either way I am rather excited. A quick check on Google yielded a 14 page document on exactly how to make this happen. Now to find the time to strap on my tool belt, power up my machines and make some dust fly.

And you thought I really had become boring! Be prepared for the photographs, and the copies of the doctors bills and heaps of pain medication......

Lusaka in Pictures

HOME Bru in Lusaka

I am an African!

I wrongly believed that South Africa was really the place to be in Africa. But it now seems to me that my home country is really just Africa light! To my amazement, I have discovered that the lands further north are full of interest and allure.

I was privileged to spend most of last week in Lusaka in Zambia. Just as Accra in Ghana surprised me, so too did Lusaka! It was not the deepest darkest Africa that I have imagined for all of my life. Instead I could have been in Nelspruit.

As usual, I got to go and see places that no tourist would ever get to see. My immersion into the local culture was completed this time with a stop in a bar. To be honest, we did not stop in only one bar, after all we were there to understand the retail liquor trade. This particular bar was in a very poor area but what made it special for me was that we stopped in an tested their local brew.

Africa is not the cleanest place and this bar was no different. Their Chibuku was brewing in a big blue drum. When we asked for a tester, we were given the bottom end of an old plastic milk carton. The communal cup! There was no way I was going to touch the thing for fear of a thousand different and equally vial disease possibilities. Then, I was handed this magnificent receptacle. And like any good boy, I lifted it to my lips and drank to the cheers of all the locals.

Oh, it was vile! Yet this is considered something worthy of a breakfast drink! The equal to orange juice, I think not!

I am still alive today, none the worse for wear. I am also a little less sceptical about dirt and disease, and am ready to meet my next home brew with far more anticipation!

Exercise in Dar es Salaam

I thought exercising in Accra was rough. Running in Dar should be called adventure racing. It is hot and very interesting. I was staying at a hotel in the city centre and this meant that I had to run for 2 kilometres through city traffic before getting into the quieter sea side roads. When I use the word quieter, I mean that there were only about 1000 cars stuck in the daily coast road traffic jam.

The adventure racing means that I get to dodge cars, people, bicycles, push carts, trucks, busses and potholes. It is a whole heap of run and adds a tactical element to running. Besides the tacticle aspect, the locals are all shocked to see this mad Mzungu running in the streets. 98% of the population are forced to walk everywhere and to see somebody willingly wasting energy seems a little senseless! I run a little faster to show off - it is kind of fun!



Nothing like push ups with a view! This particular view over Dar (from one of the tallest buildings there - 12 floors) is rather special!

The sun sets behind one of the mosques and the local immam wakes us every morning just after 5 for our daily prayers (see tower in middle of picture)!

Ah Africa!

The Men in my Life

I was struck this morning by the number of deep male friendships that I have within my life. Now as you read this, you may already be thinking ‘weirdo’. This even though our society is very tolerant of homosexual relationships, the very thought of deep heterosexual relationships would send most chaps running a mile.

Yet in my life I have been blessed with a large number of these friends and each of them fills gaps in my life that I honesty never knew I had. Having one deep mate is a blessing but to have a whole heap is just wonderful. These are people who stand by your side no matter what and you know that they will always be there for you. I like that. It gives me a serious bit of confidence that I can do this life thing and I can do it well on my terms!

And best of all I write this and still feel like a man! Now I am going to write something to make all you real men out there cringe....

To you dudes – love you all!

The Evil Ego Inside

You have heard said and repeated many times. The root of all evil is money! Perhaps you have been on the defensive because you have a little money. You have had to say things like no, life requires balance, and one needs money to live, or perhaps something far more creative than those two examples.

I was reading a most inspirational book about a Catholic priest called Padre Pio. An incredibly holy man blessed with many gifts including stigmata, being in two places at once, being able to read minds and look into the future. He once asked the following question, “Do you know what evil is called?” Those in the vicinity gave all of the usual answers and names but he responded quite surprisingly by saying, “It is called I, and we need to stab it each time it appears, because it never dies!”

Hello, there is a revelation, evil is the ‘I’ within me?

That may sound a little harsh but he was not the only religious person to advance this idea. St Thomas Aquinas writing on the origin of moral evil stated that “egoism, that is the disorderly love of oneself is the cause of all sin”. St Catherine of Siena said “Love of oneself, which removes charity and delight, is the beginning and foundation of all evil”.


One does not have to think too hard or too far to understand that egos are cause for much of the world’s misery. History includes countless stories that talk to the obsessions of mad men and the countless hordes that have followed them.

My question to myself is how much misery do I cause in this life as a result of my ego and my fixation with myself and what I want?

Ah what a stupid question, I am never wrong!

Hockey in Franschoek

Aaah, Saturday morning, a time of glorious hedonism. The sleep in! In my house, that means staying in bed till 06h40 instead of 06h30. You see, at precisely 06h29 every morning, bucket loads of adrenaline are released directly into my children’s bloodstreams.

But on a Saturday, there are a beautiful ten extra minutes that are all ours! Mainly due to the understanding that failure to comply is punishable with much pain and possibly even death!

This particular Saturday morning my wife and I were up long before the children mainly because we have a very rude alarm clock. My oldest son also had four matches to play in a hockey festival. It was our pleasure to awaken both sleeping boys before their morning adrenal dose. And so we found ourselves on the road as dawn cracked and then shivering on the side of a hockey field in Franschoek in no time at all!

There were kids everywhere. Small kids, smart kids with two jerseys, big kids, skinny kids, and each one with a stick in their hands. Some were playing, some kicking, some rolling in pain, some just screaming in triumph and others crying in defeat. Then there were the kids playing hockey. The words wild and dangerous don’t really sum up the occasion very well!

Sticks flew in gusty swings, turf gave way in clumps and violence boiled just below the surface. Heads bobbed and wove, completely oblivious to the wild whooshes whipping by their cute little ears. By some divine grace the games ended, tears were wiped away and the chaos resumed.



The hockey thoroughly exhausted the parents but for the children it was only the beginning. There was nothing to do but to beat a hasty retreat to a wine cellar in order to pep up those flagging parental spirits. Our cars had hardly stopped before an impromptu soccer match had begun upon the magnificently manicured lawns. With wine in hand we waited patiently under the splendour of the Franschoek mountains for the latest dose of energy to ebb before thinking of making a move.

Poor us!

Accra in Photographs

I often do not see the nicest part of cities as my job requires me to visit some of the poorest out there, and make sure that they are drinking the right product - hmm (an ethical and moral dilema in there that I still need to sort out)!!

Here is a quick collage of a couple of interesting aspects of a shanty town built around a working railway line. These people were real friendly BUT I still took all of these pics as shots from the waist, so as not to offend!!



While drinking a Peroni at Rhapsodies in Accra and looking out of their big picture windows, I had this thought that the view was exactly the same as if I was in Rhapsodies in Centurion (Pretoria, capital city of South Africa) except for the fact that the cars were on the wrong side of the road!!! I was seiously impressed by this town!!

HOT IN ACCRA

This morning began bright and early. The only thing is nobody told the sun and even though it was not yet doing its thing, it was hot and humid. My host here in Accra, an old school mate of mine, decided I needed to experience the joy of exercise in an outdoor sauna. And so at 05h45 in the morning I was preparing for a run.

Warming up in this place is an activity to be severely frowned upon. More than anything else, I needed to cool down! And I was yet to take my first step.

I have recently spent a good deal of time pounding the streets of Dar es Salaam. It is hot there too and I had hoped that my time in the sun there would have acclimatised me for anything. I was wrong!

After three steps, perhaps it was four, my body started to respond. There could be no doubt that the lovely houses and well maintained roads had nothing to do with it. Actually Accra was a revelation to me. It is for the most part a well kept and orderly town. Everything works from traffic lights to the rules of the road. That is apart from the police officer who climbed into our car the other day. He told the driver that he was under arrest for a serious traffic violation. Yes, I remember now, we turned left! After extracting the princely sum of four dollars from the driver, he proceeded to ask me for his present from South Africa. While fiddling with my camera, I replied that I would happily take his photo, and mail it to him. He did not seem keen to take me up on the offer. This I deduced from the fact that he suddenly vanished and reappeared down the block moving at a hectic pace. Strangely this incident did little to dampen my surprise and wonder at this West African country. Most of it was the people here that are so friendly and helpful that they put me to shame!

But I digress.

It was definitely after step number three and just before step number four that my face grew intensely hot. It felt like my brain was sending signals through my body like an old ship siren warning of imminent disaster. By step six, I was glowing. A meltdown was inevitable! Step ten saw great big shiny drops of sweat extrude through my pores, en masse. Then slowly at first they started to move, gathering speed and momentum as they joined other streams, forming great rivers, torrents really, that gushed to the floor.

About five kilograms lighter and much faster on my feet, we arrived back at the hotel. Thankfully I had had the foresight to set my air conditioner to its lowest setting. Changing from my wet kit into my swimming costume was an irony in itself.

And so there I was totally inspired for the day and raring to go. Who would have thought that an outdoor sauna could have had such a positive effect on me?

Just as well it is the middle of winter here!

So here I am on another plane ordering the same thing I always order. A Grapetiser and a still water. I sit back and wait patiently for my fantastic aeroplane lunch to arrive. I am apprehensive as an aeroplane breakfast was not too long ago on another almost forgotten plane. As I sit here and contemplate the mysteries of my life I realise that I have much to be thankful for. The majority of people on this continent have never flown on a plane before. Yet here I am grumpy about this company bus! Even more people subsist on just one meal a day. I am sitting here anticipating my second and know without a shadow of a doubt, there will be a third.

With the exciting lunch dishes out of my way, I am free to return my attention to the important aspects of my travel. What on earth to do with myself! My brain is not on the right wavelength to even pretend that I can do some work. I have no inclination to strike up a conversation with anyone. So back to musing, one of my favourite past times!

At least this plane is taking me home. Home is a wonderful place that I love to inhabit. And in my home is my wonderful wife and children. Hopefully, they are all eagerly waiting for my homecoming with open arms and hugs on the ready. I must be extremely blessed as I actually want to spend time with these people. I ache with all of my being to be near them and to enjoy life with them. Sadly, I don’t think that this is the same for most people in the world.

Actually, I have it all. A heap of someones love me dearly and that is a gift of priceless proportions. No matter where I am in the world, I will have this surety that they are out there missing me too. It brings a whole new meaning to making the most of the time that I have with those around me.

Hmmm, I think I will order a second plane lunch and then scare the passenger next to me with some unsolicited chat!

I have not been able to upload any photographs for some time due to a conflict on my PC. BUT that is now history and so I thought I would share one or two things.

Here are 2 star trails that I attempted - Sutherland is a special place in that the sky is incredibly clear (hence why there are so many observatories here), which makes for dramatic star trails. If you have never seen a star trail, this is a long exposure of a point in the sky and the lines of light are really single stars but look like lines due to the earth turning. Here you can actually see the point about which the earth is turning, i.e. the south pole.





This is the SALT observatory - the biggest in the world (right here in SA).



This one, you may guess, but is a picture of a farm dam at sunset! I like!

Working in another country makes one take a long hard look at the customs that you take for granted. Take for instance driving in Dar es Salaam. It is nothing like driving back home in South Africa. The best way to describe it is that it is like driving a dodgem car and best you dodge! The chief rule here is ‘he who pushes his or her way in first, goes’. If you don’t push, you don’t go. Certainly not a place to hire a car if you suffer from road rage!

OK, so driving is not really a cultural issue. It is of course rather difficult to ask a local about the things that would offend them most, without of course offending them! The thing is that even if someone did give me a list, I probably would get a different list from someone else. It seems rather obvious that not everyone would have the same list but you then again you would expect to find some similarities.

I heard someone telling a story about a boyfriend coming over to visit. Her mother was horribly offended by the fact that this ‘boy’ did not bother to remove his cap when inside. She was heard to ask how he could be so arrogant as to think that her roof would leak on his head! I heard another story of a girl at a new boyfriend’s house. She was offered a cup of tea. Not liking milk in her tea, she asked her boyfriend to ask his mother to make hers black. The mother did so and as she handed it over, she said, ‘Here is your black tea, as a guest in my house, you should take it as it comes’.

Aish! These are people who lived in the same neighbourhood! Surely one would think that they would have had the same sensibilities and yet they did not. Funny that humans are so sensitive about such silly things.

Perhaps we need to be looking well beyond the obvious in people’s behaviour to the deeper substance that is really the frightened, lonely person inside.

Or perhaps we should just be nice and learn to say sorry in 46 different languages, just in case!

I was just thinking about life. Not in a deep way but rather with a sense of wonder. I am alive. That is pretty sweet!! I can think and move and do all sorts of things. I can make decisions and see them play out, I can fly by the seat of my pants and hope for the best and I can choose to coast along.

Either way, I think I am in charge and of course I am not.

For the most part, I am the hero in my life. What I think, say and feel are the most important things to me. Like a great Hollywood actor, the star in this show is all me. The rest of you should all just fit in and make me look good!

I am trying to change but it is a mindset that has been built up and reinforced my whole life long. Look after numero uno! Don’t accept second best! You deserve better!

Through my job, I have been exposed to just how poor the poor are. Much has been written about how gap between the rich and the poor continues to widen and how nothing is being done to change this. Luckily in my show I have a house and sleep in a bed in my own room. I am certainly one of the rich ones. I also have a fridge and cupboards full of food. In comparison to the majority, I am super rich.

Are the poor really my problem? My bed is soft and my food tasty, why should I even care? Do we continue on down this road until a new age Robin Hood comes along and destroys society as we know it in order to find some sort of better equilibrium? Perhaps that is far-fetched but history has taught that all of the mighty empires of the past have crumbled and died. What makes ours immune?

The world trade talks have just broken down. The wealthy countries cannot agree to drop farmer’s subsidies. I mean why should the USA allow their poor poor farmers to suffer the injustice of cheaper imports from some poverty stricken peasants. Why should they suffer to relieve somebody else’s suffering?

I have no right to judge as I too continue to do what it takes to protect my families best interests. Unfortunately If you and I cannot change and put the interests of those around us first, we will get to watch as our earthly riches fade, crack, rust and crumble!

But if we can change, surely there is hope for all of us?

I was on my way home the other day, a truly wonderful thing! We had left a chaotic and fairly typical Dar at 08h00 in the morning and got back to Cape Town around 18h00. Not bad for a normal working day. I still find travelling very difficult. For all of the travel I have done, it does not seem to get any easier. Instead I seem to get more pedantic about my needs and requirements in order to have the most pleasant trip possible. Life is still all about me!

Those 10 hours of travel were filled with chaotic rush. There was nothing that I could put my finger on to say was well done or an asset to my life or somebody else’s. How sad that a whole day can go by without me adding value somewhere? Wasteful is an understatement!

I got to thinking if it was at all possible that I could take this seemingly wasteful time and turn it into something value adding? Could I change my mindset and view my useless days of travel as an opportunity to see other’s struggles and lift my fingers to assist? I have no idea how that could work or what I could possibly do but at least I could open my eyes and start to really see the people around me.

It sounds like something worth a try. Next time you see some punk helping a lady put her luggage in the overhead luggage storage or buying a frightened flyer a cup of coffee or just having a chat to some lonely airport person, perhaps you will just have spotted me.

Or perhaps it will be you!

A lot of people have been rather disappointed with my lack of blogging of late. I have been bad! Truth be told, I am a little disappointed in myself and have not wanted to admit that perhaps I have been failing on many levels of late. Blogging being one of them! I have tried to convince myself that I am in the process of adjusting to a life very different to the one that I was living only a month ago. Sure that is true, but I really could have made more effort.

The trouble is, I spent 6 months writing about life and how everyone could make some changes that would really benefit them and those around them. Now that I have been thrust back into the world at work, I have struggled to implement my own advice. The good news is that this is something that I have realised now rather than when trying to get an unrealistic book published. I quoted a friend of mine in one of my last blogs. He suggested that I take on the consulting role as it may temper some of my writing and thinking. And so it has!

So here I am sitting outside in the freezing cold in Sutherland feeling all bad about my blog. But there is a braai on the go and an amazing sunset that one can only feel inspired. And at long last I have lifted my fingers to the keyboard in a salute to making an effort. A first effort that will try and bring together my new life at work and my old life of reflection and working for the common good!

I must tell you that Sutherland is a cold place, reputably one of the coldest in South Africa. So what better time to visit than in the dead of winter? We were here last here at this time and got snowed in, a most unusual event in our country. This year though, we have seen one of Sutherland’s main attractions. The stars! The biggest optical telescope in the world resides here due to the minimal number of clouded skies and minimal pollution. This also makes it the perfect place to take photographs of star trails.

The point of this all is that I have some work to do to temper my views or to put in some extra effort to ensure that the things that I write about can actually be achieved in reality.

So keep hounding me when you fail to see my updates, I need all of your help and support to get it together!

Today has been a different day in a strange country. This past week of project #1 has been intense. Today was our first off day and pure bliss. Or at least it should have been.

An associate and I decided to do some exploring.

With windows wide open, we watched as palm trees waved lazily in the gentle breeze and an azure sea lapped gently on the shore. White sandy shores stretched along the coastline and thick dark green seaweed clung densely on the coral like rocks. Dhows floated serenely on this most tranquil sea. And all we had was time to take it all in.

One road side boasted piles of stones of different sizes, each tended by a squatting figure. There was an ancient emaciated woman who sat cross legged and beat big rocks into smaller rocks with a heavy lead pipe. I wondered if she was racing her own destiny as life beat her down until one day soon she too will just be that dust that splintered off those rocks. We were not in the market for rocks and drove on by.

With the tide well out, an impromptu soccer game started on a large sandbank completely surrounded by sea. A case of taking the opportunities that come ones way.

For once traffic was not a melange of chaos filled with cars, bicycles, pedestrians (thousands of them), push carts, motorbikes, trucks and more pedestrians. Today the city was quiet as most spent their time at home with their families. Our irony was that although the tarmac was free flowing, our families were far from us.

Feasting on all the beauty in the world, alone, is worth less than an embrace of a loved one. I am coming home soon!

My life journey has become even more interesting of late. Suddenly it has become a time of serious challenge to some of my tightly held thoughts and ideals. My last 6 months have been spent trying to better understand myself. In that time I have written about a better life on the other side of wealth, power, and prestige. I now know with certainty that the life I aspire to is one filled with family and charity and lived in harmony with my values.

And then I was offered this contract to do some consulting work in Africa.....

For most people, this would be a time of great celebration. I mean a consulting contract for two projects handed to you on a silver platter has to be the rarest of windfalls? Or is it?

I have enjoyed my time with my family. I have thoroughly enjoyed the philanthropic side of my life. And I most certainly have enjoyed my photography and surfing time. Now I need to give it all up in order to earn that distasteful thing called money. I suppose that it does not have to be distasteful. Perhaps I am still smarting from my own corporate experiences which have left this permanent bad taste in my mouth. Sure I need to give up a lot of wonderful things but there are things to be gained, like the start of a new business venture, and a major challenge to my abilities (something that I thrive on). Oh and of course they will pay me too, which could possibly support my interesting lifestyle for a while.

Of course the timing is all wrong! My book is now two thirds complete and I would really like to have finished it before moving onto this business of making enough money to support my family. My initial thinking was that I would do whatever it took to just bring in enough for our family to survive without compromising our time together and the value I can add as a father and as a husband. I suppose that thinking was pretty romantic, instead I have been presented with a different opportunity to embrace. I will need to make some sacrifices but there are many benefits too. More than that, this contract has been structured in such a way that I will be spending plenty of my time working from home. Could I get it any better?

I should be ecstatic. This is possibly the start of my own management consultancy. Yet, sitting in a corporate jet last week, winging my way into Africa and eating one of the best fillet steaks I have ever eaten for breakfast, I had a realisation. Managing my desire for wealth, power and prestige was going to be incredibly hard when once again submerged into this working world. This is something that makes me very uncomfortable as it is everything I left behind for the better and simpler life I am now living.

A friend in whom I confided my misgivings gave me some interesting advice. He said that I had been blessed with six months in which to understand the depths of my need for the things that I know are destructive. He went on to suggest that perhaps I was now being given another chance to jump back into the lions den and do it better this time. Not only that, to also influence those still in the den whose pursuit for money, power, and prestige has corrupted their lives.

And so my wife and I opened the doors to our new consultancy last week Tuesday. A whole new life has begun, one filled with new and old doors. Some to be opened and some to be bolted shut! I hope and pray that I can avoid the mistakes I made in the past and find that elusive life that will allow me to be a force for good in this world! I look forward to keeping you up to date on how it all turns out.

So here I am on Saturday morning watching a movie with my children. Not just any movie, a big wave surfing documentary. And they are enthralled! The fantastic thing is that this is a movie that they want to watch. What scares my wife is that they both think that tow in surfing on mind bogglingly massive waves is cool and something that they would like to do. I just sit back and smile as I wait happily for the day that my boys and I can enjoy our favourite sport together!

I have been most remiss with regards to my blog. Not only have some of you commented on that but I too have felt the loss. Daily writing is very much a catharsis of my soul. It is a beautiful process of clearing out of thoughts and reorganisation of ideas. Sans my writing, my life has become a little disorderly and far too busy. I know that it is time to come back to my writing to make some sense of it all. My lesson is when it gets so busy that I am drowning, that is exactly the time I need to be taking some time out to write!

Stay with me now!