Judgement With Your Coffee? One Lump or Two?

Are you fanatical about your flat white, crazy about your cappuccino or desperate for decaf?

Coffee seems to be the drink on everyone’s lips these days. Whether you can’t function until you have had your first cup in the morning or spread your coffee load throughout the day, coffee seems to be the brew that illicits emotion and conversation. Ever wondered what your coffee choice says about you?

The answers from the National Coffee Choice Report, commissioned by DéLonghi may surprise you. The findings, which pertain to Australia, are reported in this article from the Adelaide Advertiser and indeed many other Australian online news outlets. No need to spend your hard-earned dollars to talk to a therapist to reveal your personality type or anyone elses and no need to waste pesky time actually engaging with others, just focus on the drink.

The report reveals that if you are a flat white drinker, you are likely to be considered down to earth, laid back and boring. Order a latte and you’re high maintenance but make sure you hang around with cappuccino drinkers who are considered fun. Alternatively, you can bask in the success of an espresso-lover, but be sure to stay clear of those arrogant macchiato mavens.

All very interesting and somewhat disturbing. Have we really progressed to judging ourselves and others not by their depth, but by the depth of their coffee cups? Has coffee become the new Rolex?

Apparently so, according to the findings in this report, at least in this country, because the Report apparently also found that bankers and accountants admit to showing off by ordering stronger coffee and that people change their coffee order depending on who they are with. So perception really is more important than reality.

Just like in the great Steve Martin coffee ordering scene from LA Story, below.

What would Steve Martin’s coffee order say about the character he played in the movie? Creative, trend setter or just disorganised and confused?

And what about these favorites?

Turkish/Italian espresso – spoon contortionist or fashionable leader?
Hot chocolate with marshmallow – a push over or a sweet-toothed nurturer?
Decaf – a passive aggressive faker or health conscious intellectual?
Coffee drunk really hot – a person without taste buds or boot camp lover?
Coffee drunk weak – coward or individualistic and head strong?
Irish coffee – sneaky or fun-loving?

No doubt there are many others.

Up to this point, I had no idea that I was being judged on my coffee choice.

What disturbs me is that this is not a fluffy phone poll undertaken by a lifestyle magazine, but a piece of research commissed by a coffee machine maker who will no doubt use this report to make marketing and manufacturing decisions. It indicates that we really do judge others based on the superficial and that we feel compelled to change our personal preferences to play to perceptions.

I think I’ll stick to my choice of cappuccino and lattes. In fact, what does it say that I mix up my coffee preference? There goes Judy, she’s just such a maverick [sigh].

Note to self: as an espresso hater avoid all future meetings with bankers and accountants.

Supplemental note to self: the last meeting I had with a banker he asked for a cup of hot water. As in no coffee. Was he really an alien?

Are you game enough to reveal to us your coffee preference?

Forget FoMO: In Business Its FoBIA

I’m pretty hip, cool, groovy and with it, most of the time. Having said that, I think I just proved otherwise by using those expressions. Maybe I’m mad, bad and trending. Whatevs the case I’m totes going to go ahead with this post.

Recently, I happened across an article about FoMO, telling me I was missing out. Naturally, it reeled me in, I mean if I was missing out, I couldn’t knowingly continue to miss out on what I was missing out on. Turns out I was missing out on knowing what FoMo meant. For the equally ~~uniniated~~ hip, cool and groovy FoMo is:

Defined as a fear of one’s social standing or how one is perceived among peers, and a need to constantly know what is happening and what others are doing, FoMO is most prevalent in people aged 16 to 35.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/life/dont-have-fomo-youre-missing-out-20130615-2oavb.html#ixzz2bVxBkD3a

FoMo is driven by our social media, constantly connected culture. All the information about what your friends, rivals and social set are up all just a click of a button away. This is apparently creating a narcissistic, anxious and sleep deprived Gen Y. However, as the article points out it’s not all bad, FoMO may actually make you strive to better yourself. All that comparison, might just light a fire in your belly and give you a way forward.

How 2013 is this though?

These human traits have existed ever since the Garden of Eden and when you know who was a boy. They have certainly existed in the workplace ever since I was a girl. Social media just aggregates the information and delivers it in a way where actual human to human contact is minimised. It hangs the hubris out there for all the world to see, but can be a wonderful outlet for compassion, connection and achievement. I’m keen on social media, but understand the personal responsibility that comes with its use.

The reality is we all buy into FoMO to some degree or another – whether it’s gossiping over the back fence, rubber necking our way past a car accident or following our favourite celebrity on Twitter. It is not just the purview of 16 to 35 year olds. They may just lay claim to social media FoMo.

Which brings me back to the business world. In the past couple of weeks, I have had cause to observe just how anxious people get when they are not tethered to their smartphones or other technology devices. At every business meeting I have had over the past fortnight people have laid their mobile devices on the table before them. Whilst they may have been on silent, at least a couple of them continued to check emails coming in. One even responded and made a call totally unrelated to the topic of the meeting at hand. What message does this send to the people in the meeting? At a seminar, half the participants sat phone in hand, scrolling away on their screens.

Is business on the phone really that pressing? Are we really that indispensible that we can’t focus on one thing solely for 1 hour? Or that we can’t switch off after hours?

Or are we a creating a business culture of FoBIA?

FoBIA is a term I have coined to mean Fear of Being Irrelevant, Already.

It seems that the need to create the perception that we are important or busy by remaining tethered to our communication devices abounds. It also looks good to an audience if you are constantly checking in, it means you must be important. Check your emails at 8pm, 9pm, 10pm, 11pm or you might miss out on a piece of information that you could have picked up in the morning *.

But how much of this is real business need, and how much of this is fear and patch protection? How much is posturing?

Worse still, is this becoming a habit?

I refuse to believe that the advent of Web 2.0 forces us to redfine the meaning of ‘need to know’ and respectful person to person communication. Respect is the bottom line for all interactions, online, offline or in outer space and committing your attention is a part of that.

True leadership and ability to influence begins with making other people feel valued. The size of one’s inbox or phone is no measure of business prowess.

So to all you legends in your own inboxes, I say no need for FoBIA and forget FoMO. Human interaction will enrich your life, information in and of itself will not.

For another post on technology and its impacts today read this great piece from Barney who blogs at Views from the Hill.

* Legitimate after hours use is not included in this statement, for example working on a time critical or global transaction where communication with other time zones are necessary.

Saturday Soapbox: Angry Men – There Should Be An App For That

Angry Birds (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We have all heard of the angry middle aged men stereotype. Hollywood has even recognised the concept with a movie, which spawned a sequel.

To be honest, I haven’t paid much attention to it up to this point. Sure, I have come across the odd old curmudgeon in the past, but that was usually in the professional space and usually they were really old, I mean, like seventy-five or something to my then twenty-five or thirty. I figured by that age you earned the right to be a little bit cranky having honed the ability to spot a fool and respond accordingly. I hadn’t thought until now what a younger version of an old curmudgeon might look like and how these curmudgeonly skills are actually acquired. Clearly, by the time you have earned the right to get away with being angry you have been through middle age anger training school and have obtained a Bachelor of Bullshit Spotting in the University of Life. And I’m OK with that.

Lately though, my life has been full of angry middle aged men, both on and off the professional field. Pure coincidence, some Godly test or this because of my own middle aged station in life?

Let me be clear about the type of anger I am talking about. It’s not an overt type of anger, there is no name calling, physical violence, smashing of china, just a seething resentment and mounting frustration. Guys, let me tell you it is apparent to most of the world. It’s in your tone, your general attitude and your demeanor no matter how well you think you have it hidden. And what’s more and this is the biggy, it is usually directed at those who have NOTHING to do with the source of your anger. Or maybe the connection is that these men are angry at the world and we fellow Homo sapiens, being part of the world, are entitled to see the consequences in all its glory.

Typically, men tend to think they can handle their mental and physical health issues on their own. And its great that you have the whole macho thing going on, but spare a thought for those of us who have to come within your orbit.

Which is why someone needs to invent an App for Angry Men, similar to the concept of Angry Birds. I am reliably informed by Geek In Training that Angry Birds is based on a bunch of birds going after the pigs that stole their eggs. Do these fine feathered creatures sit around seething in frustration and resentment, snapping at each other. No! They catapult themselves into the air and go after those piggy thieves, crash tackling their way through structures and generally dissipating a whole lot of negative energy, even if they don’t get their eggs back.

The App would feature an angry man character having lost his cheese. He would be catapulted into the air by a non-angry female to take the long journey to find his cheese, flying over a convertible, his grown children, younger men in their primes and a bevy of buxom beauties. When he finally finds his cheese, he will have to smash through a few structures to get to it, but the more arduous the journey, the healthier and riper his cheese will be.

In all seriousness, there is no shame in taking a little time out in middle age in working the issues through. It is a period where many men, and women for that matter, feel a loss of control. The fact is a lot of things at this stage of life, inevitably change and if you try and resist, then someone will definitely move your cheese whilst you are busy pouring all of your energy into that resistance. Rail against the world if you must, but channel that energy into something benign, like a punching bag. A true punching bag in no way resembles a human being. We are more curvy and generally more witty.

I hope all my friends in the blogosphere are doing well and enjoying the various seasons, summer for you Northerners and winter for us Southerners. I have been reading your posts and ruminating, but just had to get this one off my chest.

Angry men to the left of me, frustrated men to the right… stuck in the middle with you.

Today I Give Myself Permission to Be Zealous #atozchallenge

Do you ever sit and watch young children who have just learned to toddle? They are a study in energy and zeal. Determined to exercise their new found freedom, they approach their mobility with gusto and wonder (or probably more appropriately wander if you have ever tried to keep a toddler under control whilst carrying a baby).

So what happens to our zeal as we grow up?

One of the merits of growing up is the loss of some of our naivety. However the loss tends to come at a price and that is a tempering of our enthusiasm. You’re probably thinking that this is because as adults the number of first times we experience drops dramatically and too often we travel down the “been there, done that” road. I don’t buy this. Just as beauty is in the eye of the beholder so too is zeal in the eye of the enthusiast.

We humans can rationalise just about anything and any situation. Justification for just about any decision is usually only a stones throw away. If you really don’t want to go somewhere or do something it’s relatively easy to rationalize that decision – it’s too cold, too hot, to dry, too wet, too far, too noisy, too crowded, too fast, too slow, too long too short, too expensive, too difficult, too easy, too… We all have to do things we would rather not. But dragging our backsides and chins on the ground only adds undue weight and resistance to the exercise and is self-defeating. By doing so we are limitng our potential to be wowed and limiting the payback we can receive from the experience – whether that’s learning something new, meeting someone new or experiencing a new sensation.

Trying to teach this concept to a child is one of the hardest things to do. Teaching it to an adult is nigh impossible.

But the old adage of “you get out what you put in” is so true.

Life is like landing a plane. It’s all in the approach. Approach something with a sense of wonder, commitment and energy and chances are you will end up with something more than you started and not just a headache or a big bill. If something is worth my time, it’s worth my zeal.

I’m that adult toddler, approaching my new found freedom with wonder and gusto.

Thank you for sharing some or all of the journey by allowing me to chronicle it in my A to Z Challenge 2013 posts. For all of you who took the time to comment or like my posts, I truly appreciate your zeal. You have helped me reflect just how far I have come. And I needed to do that.

Today I give myself permission to be zealous and not blog tomorrow.

Today I Give Myself Permission to be Xenial #atozchallenge

Since well before the start of the Challenge, I knew this letter was always going to be …challenging, especial after the gauntlet was thrown down.

A couple of weeks ago I had the good fortune of having lunch with a friend who also blogs. She has chosen the dark side for her blogging platform, but I won’t hold that against her. We got to talking about the Challenge and she threw it down, right there in the middle of the bistro where we had decided to dine. The gauntlet. She bet me that I couldn’t come up with a real X word to write about noting that words like eXcited or eXternal were ruled out. My friend blogs at Annals from a Citrus Grove In the Suburbs, and has chosen Australian icons for her Challenge theme. Today she blogged about XXXX Beer (pronounced fourex beer) and I can’t help thinking that the gauntlet has found its way to the right place. Anyway, I tend to have a thing for picking up gauntlets and I just couldn’t let this one go.

That’s the back story to why I’m being xenial today. Like all good hosts and in keeping with the theme for today’s post I wish to make you comfortable and to feel welcome. So here’s a cup of coffee for you to enjoy and an ottomon or three for you to put your feet up.

Let me show you the fun welcome mats I found during my research for this post.

My house is certainly ecstatic judging by these standards and isn’t it always nice to peg expectations up front?

I think my favorite though is knock, knock because it’s such a classic and classically simple and I’m totally bummed that I didn’t think of it first.

But getting back to being xenial, I have spent the weekend getting the spare room ready to host a friend from interstate next week for a couple of nights. We will be going to a much awaited concert on Friday night and shooting the breeze and just spending time together.

And as a final tidbit, I will leave you with this little gem that you always wanted to know, but just wasn’t aware of until now – the Hotel Xenial can be found in Biratnagar, Nepal and has been rated as the best choice in Biratnager by Tripadvisor. If you’re in the area, drop by, if only to take a photo of the name.

Time to go and fluff up the welcome mat.

Today I give myself permission to be Xenial.

Today I Give Myself Permission to Appreciate Whimsy #atozchallenge

Today I received a sign! There I was researching my whimsy post with the TV on in the background, tuned to Big Bang Theory. Not two minutes later Sheldon uttered the line

What’s life without whimsy?

What indeed, Sheldon.

Those silly little things that make you chuckle, that lift your spirits, that you do for no reason other than to put a smile on your face, that’s whimsy.

Not so long ago a friend and I visited Wombeyan Caves. I blogged about it just before the Challenge started. After we came out of the caves, my friend spotted a slippery slide and went for it. Never mind that she was a middle-aged woman, the pure joy on her face as she went down was incredibly uplifting. That’s whimsy.

Autumn Leaf in Nagasaki (Photo credit: Marufish)

Walking through a pile of Autumn leaves, throwing them in the air, having a leaf fight. That’s whimsy.

Crawling into a bed of freshly laundered sheets. That’s whimsy.

Sitting in the garden with the warm sun on your back, reading. That’s whimsy.

Sneaking out of the office to briefly feel wind on your face. That’s whimsy.

Cracking up at silly jokes and sayings. That’s whimsy.

Listening to the whole top 100 countdown of karaoke songs. That’s whimsy.

Engaging in the following conversation with my teen son is whimsy

Me: the bed man is coming to deliver the mattress today. You’ll have to let him in and pay him the delivery fee

Him: Mffmfwffm

Me: It means you’ll need to hear the doorbell and open the door

Him: Mrrffmrmmm

Me: You will let him in won’t you and not miss it?

Him: Nerf (At last the sign of a neuron firing)

Me: Ok, I’ve spoken to the mattress man and he’s coming between 11.30am and 2.30pm. Please make sure you are in the room closest to the door from about 11am

Him: I get it, Mum

Text from him at midday: It’s arrived, it’s in, he’s paid, all good

Text from me: Thank you my child. I have taught you well. You can go back to your day now, normal transmission can resume.

Text from him (1): Mum, don’t be weird.

Text from him (2): That’s my job.

Which leads us to another great W permission, to be weird. I practice it daily. I’d worry greatly if my children didn’t think I was weird, it’s my job and frankly my privilege to be so. We laugh at all our ~~wierdness~~ uniqueness. Every family has their own brand. Which leads us to the final W word of the day. Wonderful.

God said let there be whimsy and there was and it was wonderful.

Image courtesy of Zazzle.com.au

Today I give myself permission to be whimsical and just a little weird.

Today I Give Myself Permission to Unplug #atozchallenge

Time for a permission that is a little less etherial and perfect for the letter U. Vowels are always the hardest letters of the Challenge for me and here we are at the last one!

The topic for today’s post was inspired by a conversation I had with a colleague this afternoon. Tomorrow is a public holiday here as Australians and New Zealanders celebrate ANZAC Day. On this day we commemorate all those who have served and are serving in our armed forces and support services. Falling on a Thursday, many people have taken Friday as a holiday making it a four day weekend. Conversing with my colleague she mentioned her plans for Friday to relax and indicated she would probably log on and check in to work that day.

I’m not sure how checking work emails is relaxing, but I suppose there are stranger ways to relax. Some people clean and cook for example. Who am I to judge?

The advent of Smartphones and other mobile devices have meant that we are constantly plugged in. We are getting to the stage where the priciest piece of real estate at any airport will soon be the five metre square radius around the charging pole.

Earlier on in the Challenge I gave myself permission to be curious and I wrote how I had returned to postgraduate studies at university. Talk about falling down the technological rabbit hole. Technology has made a huge difference to study practices. Free WIFI and charging outlets everywhere! Need to look up a website the lecturer is referring to in real time? No problem and to someone of my young years, that’s amazing!

So, I’m sitting in the lecture theatre looking around observing the sweet young Gen Y things and how they interact with technology. Sometimes the only way an old dog can learn a new trick is to scout. This is what I have learned so far:

it is possible to complete a university degree by never taking a hand written note. PEN: noun, definition: a prehistoric writing implement filled with ink, that can be converted to a pea shooter or juggling device when owner suffers a chronic case of boredom.
the lecturer actually announced at the start of the lecture series that students should take notes as the assessment will be based on writing and note taking builds skills in that area. Writing is THAT novel, is it?!?
there is a considerable proportion of the Gen Y student body in that lecture that NEVER look up from their screens. Not once, the whole lecture. I wonder if the lecturer ever notices. Must be some real entertaining stuff on Facebook or maybe the web cam is getting a great work out. Or they could be reading the assigned material after all, these guys REALLY know who to multi-task.

No doubt about it, technology has revolutionised education, social interactions, news distribution, communication and a whole lot of other things too. Everything at your fingertips only a few clicks away.

But does this mean we have to stay plugged in all the time?

Work emails on the weekends and after hours when I don’t have to be “on”. Not even tempted. Weekends and after hours are for family, regeneration and reorienting our perspectives so that we can perform again the following week. Weekends are for reading the weekend papers, breathing fresh air and getting stuff done.

Social media, blogging and surfing the net, yes daily first thing in the morning and last thing at night. But if I don’t check in, that’s OK too. Recently, I removed the Facebook App off my phone and it has been a really positive move. There’s only so many cat pictures and pictures of doctors who will operate when they hit 10,000 likes one can handle. I don’t feel I’m missing out by not checking Facebook ten times a day.

Being involved in a face to face conversation and hearing the mobile phone ring? I never pick up. Having made the effort to get together we each deserve the other’s full attention. The biggest compliment you can pay someone in this day and age is to give them your FULL attention.

Technology is a fantastic supplement to real life. The world is amazing and technology provides a window to it.

However, at the end of the day it is a tool. It is not a real life substitute.

The Gen Y and Gen Z gods and goddesses will no doubt heap a load of thunderbolts at my head for that sacrilege.

Do you struggle with technology usage? How to you see technology fitting in to your life?

Today I give myself permission to unplug.

Today I Give Myself Permission to Trust #atozchallenge

Trust is a five letter word. I suppose it could have been a four letter word, but then it would have been RUST and we probably all have enough of that.

We have all probably also had enough of deception and of pain when our trust in someone or something has been broken. I know I have.

And yet…

The idea of never trusting again holds little appeal. For trust is an essential ingredient to connecting on more than a superficial level. It begins in childhood with the whole ‘I”ll show you mine, if you show me yours” concept and evolves as we mature to “I’ll share with you mine, if you share with me yours”. And when there’s true sharing, the trust and the endorphins flow. Trust is a cornerstone of not only social relationships but also of business relationships as embodied in notions such as the trusted advisor and the trustee steed. Where would the Loan Ranger have been without Silver? Possibly Hi Hoed, but very much stationary.

Trusting means opening up your life so that others can enter. As the saying goes, a life without trust is the ultimate prison. And I truly believe this. Storming the Bastille can be hard and unforgiving work.

So, today I give myself permission to:

Trust the moment…

…for worry never solved anything and only gives you frown lines

Trust in God…

…all others must pay cash

Trust my instincts…

…because my tummy tells me so

Trust in Ellen…

…because she says funny stuff like “People always ask me “Were you funny as a child? Well, no, I was an accountant.” And child accountants are very trustworthy not to mention, funny

Trust the path I’m on…

…or that I have the ability to switch to another one if it turns out to be a deadend

Trust in my authenticity…

…because keeping it real is the cornerstone of connection

Trust the internet bloggers…

…to provide some creative quality distraction.

Today I Give Myself Permission to Release #atozchallenge

Remember the words of the Englebert Humperdinck classing Release Me?

Please release me, let me go

My mother used to sing these words aloud as I was growing up. I think they were the only words of that song she knew, because I don’t recall any others. And I don’t recall her singing them to my father. They eventually ended up being married for over 60 years, so I am putting her singing down to her liking the song or Englebert Humperdinck or simply the name “Humperdinck”. What’s not to love about that name, after all? Perhaps Englebert had a fondness for pumpernickel. They just don’t pseudonym like they used to. Can you imagine that today he would probably be called Hdink E. Just doesn’t have the same ring to it, does it?

Today, I want to explore the concept of releasing or letting go. Usually we think of this in the context of negative issues. Regret, anger, frustration, resentment, regret and pain are all obvious candidates. Left bottled inside any one of these can colour our perceptions, drive our behaviours and limit our potential. It really saddens me when people I know limit themselves in this way. Most of us struggle to acquire the “goods”. These are the qualities and characteristics needed to be succesful, whatever the concept of success may mean to us. However, when you see someone who objectively has the goods, but is stuck because they are limited by the negative emotions they harbour, it’s heart breaking. I suppose it means the answers are clear to us, but not to them. Funny how it’s so much easier to solve other people’s problems than our own and funny how so many people mask their inability and unwillingness to solve or deal with their own issues by trying to save others.

Then there’s bitterness. I recently discovered a fantastic quote from Clarissa Pinkola Estes” book Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype

There is a time in our lives, usually in mid-life when a woman has to make a decision – possibly the most important psychic decision of her future life – and that is, whether to be bitter or not. Women often come to this in their late thirties or early forties. They are at the point when they are full up to their ears with everything and they’ve “had it” and “the last straw has broken the camel’s back” and they’re “pissed off and pooped out”. Their dreams of their twenties may be lying in a crumple. There may be broken hearts, broken marriages, broken promises.”

This really resonates with me for I felt I had reached this point in my mid forties. Except when I reached it, I didn’t know that feeling this way was common. I spent a couple of years not letting that bitterness

picture courtesy of
freedigitalphotos.net

go, carrying resentment and trying to push through. And all this while I was quietly beating myself about feeling the way I felt – after all, I had all the same good people and creature comforts around me, so I must be the problem, right? Then I started to release, firstly by talking to some close friends about what I was feeling, then by reading and researching and then by letting go of the feeling that I was cornered and stuck. Sounds a bit dramatic, I know, but I just couldn’t see my way through to the fix. The way I finally got through the feelings was to release the complexity, by dealing with one thing at a time, rather than solving everything at once, By doing it this way, the road became clearer. Then I released my passion for things that had long laid dormant or had never been explored, for example writing, dancing, bushwalking and blogging. And then most importantly I released myself and hubby from any blame. The situation was no-one’s fault, it just was and it was normal for this stage of life.

And this is why release is also important. It’s important to share these stories so that people who are or will experience these emotions do not feel they are alone. It is one of the worst feelings in the world to think that you are the only one going through something or that you are walking alone.

Finally, release can also encompass the positive. Releasing passion, laughter, generosity, creativity and inclusion are just as important. For everyone around us is our mirror.

It is worth thinking about what feelings and vibes you release.

Now, that’s all behind me and the future is looking bright indeed. What was a curse is now very much a blessing and no marriages or promises were broken in the writing of this chapter of our lives. What’s more, far from being cornered or stuck, I now feel increadibly free. Any pain involved in release has been worth it.

Today I give myself permission to release. Aaaaaaagh!

Today I Give Myself Permission to Question #atozchallenge

This permission may sound somewhat similar to my C permission which was to be curious. But it’s not. Whilst there might be some overlap, given it always important to ask questions to understand extrinsic factors and events, I believe questioning as somewhat different to curiosity, Questioning has more of an element of the intrinsic and is more about testing personal assumptions and long held beliefs.

There are things in life we all just want to do by rote. Tieing shoe laces, using a telephone, brushing teeth and walking are a few examples. The amount of mental energy we wish to expend on these activities is minimal because that way we can save it for the good stuff. Washing hands used to also be one of these activities until the nasty union of tap manufacturers decided to get together and make most modern taps in public washrooms an IQ test! There’s nothing worse than standing in front of a basin with hands that need washing in a state of confusion trying to find something to turn or press to make the magical water appear only to be faced with plain porcelain. And that will be the very time that the bathroom is empty so that you can’t even follow another innocent handwasher’s lead. What do you mean the basin has a sensor?

Then there are those things in life you want to do by choice. That’s conscious, well informed choice and not by default or out of habit. This is where questioning comes in, a necessary link in the chain of progress and change.

And for most of us middle age is a time when questioning comes to the fore as we start challenging the assumptions which have determined the direction of our lives up to this point. To me, this is a good thing, although the process can be quite unsettling at least until we have replaced those of the old set of assumptions that no longer serve us with a new set and the way forward becomes clearer.

If you are a parent or have been exposed to young children of about 4 years of age, you probably will remember that (mostly) wonderful stage when said child or children start every sentence with “why” or similar.

You may have heard or received some of these classics:

If ghosts can walk around, and go through doors, why don’t they fall through the floor?

Why do cats have 9 lives?

Was everything in black and white in the olden days?

By asking these questions children start to expand their worlds and test the assumptions they hold as a result of mommy and daddy having taught them what to assume. It’s a sign that they are thinking, processing and growing.

As adults, we should continue to question and grow. Whilst the pace of growth is not as high as in children, continue to grow we must, especially if our lives have gotten to the point where we do most things out of habit. How many times have you heard or said “I wish I had done this sooner”? If you don’t question, you will never get to why you do something and you will never be able to change it.

Thoughts lead to feelings which lead to behaviours. We need to question not only the thoughts that lead us to habitual behaviour but also understand what is the payback we receive from these behaviours. If being comfortable is the payback, then that’s absolutely fine as long as it is a conscious choice.

Many of the assumptions that have worked for me to date, no longer hold true. I am in the midst of questioning a majority of them and I do so without guilt. The weight of others’ expectation no longer prevents me from questioning. I may not have all the answers, in fact I may never have any. But at least I have thought and questioned.

I am, therefore I question.

Today I give myself permission to question.

What’s the funniest question from a child you have aver heard? Do you ever have to think about using a tap? Have you ever questioned a critical assumption?

Raising the Curtain