I was thinking this morning about the things that I have learnt over the past couple of months. I have learnt so much and so I wanted to try and distil it all into a couple of mantras that I could live by. I remember my aunt asking me this question a couple of years ago. My answer was simply; ‘Go big or go home’. I still like it but it smacks of arrogance. It is possibly a bit simple to think that I could summarise this into a one liner and so I thought I would start a list. Here they are on paper, although they were so much better in my head:

I will put myself out there at every opportunity.
I will find the good in every single waking moment of my day.
I will plan less and be moved to love more.
I will take time every day to reflect and pray.
I will not be right all of the time.

Apart from my learning to write, blog and photograph, these are a couple more things that I need to master. I suppose that this is one of the joys and beauties of life, continuous learning.

I used to do a lot of hiking when I was a scout many years ago. There was a particular phenomenon that I called ‘the never ending hill’. If you have spent any time hiking, you will understand what I am talking about. Essentially you walk up a hill and you focus on getting to the top. The only thing is once you get to this top, you find that there is still more hill in front of you. Once you get to what you again thought was the top, another part of the hill looms in front of you. And so it goes on. My never ending hill is an analogy for what I seem to have learnt and what still lies ahead. Just as I think that I have mastered something, another vista of immense learning rears up in front of me and humbles me by it’s magnitude. The more I learn, the more I understand that I know less that I ever thought I knew. When hiking, the never ending hill is a painful process as it mentally and physically saps your strength. In life, I am finding that there is a trick to the never ending hill. Where in hiking, the goal is getting to the top, in life it is all about drinking in the opportunities along the way. I am starting to believe that it does not matter how much knowledge or wisdom I have but, how well I have used that which I have gained.

This is an immensely difficult concept for me as I have spent my entire life focussed on the top, i.e. getting things done as fast as possible. Now I need to slow down and forget about the list that needs ticking. I have to calm that beast within in me that drives me relentlessly forward and distract it with offerings that it does not want or understand. Of all my challenges, this one frightens me the most as I do not want to end up on the other extreme where I lie down and let life happen to me.

Somehow, I just have to find the balance.....