The unopened door

We are all blessed with a built-in tool which we can use to see us through life safely or at least sanely but few of us use this tool to its full potential.  And that tool is imagination.  Too often we hear ‘don’t let your imagination run away with you’.  Why not?  If it’s something bad we’re imagining, well okay, stop it!  But our imaginations can take us to wonderful places.

If we use them wisely, then they can see us through the toughest of times.  Or just keep us smiling through the mundane times.  So, maybe our thoughts aren’t real but do they bring a smile to our faces?  Do they make us feel warm inside?  Do they make us feel elated – if only for a short time?  If the answer is ‘yes’ then why not use this to our full advantage?  As a placebo in the medical world can make us feel better, our imaginations can have exactly the same psycological benefit.

Take the door in the picture for example.  We don’t know what’s behind it.  So we can imagine anything; Narnia, Utopia, heaven, vast worlds of wonderment, places where the sun always shines and we can climb up to the top of rainbows and watch the world go by.  Then one day it opens and we see a small rose garden.  Not an explosion of wild abandonment, but neat little bushes clipped to perfection, all in tidy rows, and the illusion is shattered forever.

So, the reality is mundane but our imaginations have given us great joy.  We could have walked past that door every day for months and each time would’ve disappeared briefly into a world of wonderment, smiling as we walked, and feeling on top of the world.  But what now?  Now that we know the reality?  Well, I’ll tell you.  There is ALWAYS something amazing just around the corner.  I believe this with all of my heart and it never lets me down.  The ‘something amazing’ needn’t be anything mind blowing, just something that makes us smile or something that activates our imaginations.  But if you truly believe, it will always come to you.  So when one illusion is shattered, move onto the next one.

Now there may be some cynics out there that think this is merely leaping from one fantasy world to another – but my point again is, if we feel happiness whilst doing this, if it gets us through life with smiles on our faces and joy in our hearts – then there’s no reason not to.

So, let your imaginations run wild my friends – enjoy life to the full, and be thankful for all your blessings.

Before I start – the purpose of this blog is not to have you all crying into your turkey sandwiches (don’t blame me for soggy bread) but to offer a pearl of wisdom to those who are going through a split right now (they say christmas is a common time for this so I’m guessing there are a few of you out there).

Christmas 2010 – one I won’t forget.  Another split with my partner – my fault I fear (and PMT – yes blame the tools!).  And now I join the ranks of all those suffering at this time of year.  The thing with misery being your own fault is there’s little you can do except LEARN from it.  That doesn’t heal the loss though and I am guilty of hurting someone who has already suffered a loss recently which makes me somewhat of an ogre and I don’t blame him for leaving.

Anyway, I recently read a short book called As A Man Thinketh by James Allen and one particular paragraph jumped out at me as something I should take particular heedance of.  So now I’m going to share it with you in the hope that if you can relate to it, it may help with your future progress.  By the way, for man, you can read man or woman – it was written well before pc became a pain in the backside.

A man only begins to be a man when he ceases to whine and revile, and commences to search for the hidden justice which regulates his life.  And he adapts his mind to that regulating factor, he ceases to accuse others as the cause of his condition, and builds himself up in strong and noble thoughts; ceases to kick against circumstances, but begins to use them as aids to his more rapid progress, and as a means of discovering the hidden powers and possibilities within himself.

Sorry – not your usual instant feel-good pearl of wisdom but more of a long-term therapy.  Personally, I shall start each day by reading this and hope to develop into a stronger person who I can actually like.

If anyone reading this is in need of writing therapy, let me know how your christmas has been and I’ll see if I can pull out an appropriate (and instant feel-good) pearl of wisdom to help.

Wishing you all the very best for a happy and prosperous 2011.

If you never read anything ever again (except of course all my future  blockbusting novels),  you must read this.  I came across this book quite by accident and it’s had a profound effect on me (which tends to manifest itself by me spending a lot of my time grinning like the village idiot, but never mind) but before I give anything else away, let me tell you a story, a true story, it happened to me and I actually found it quite scary but in an exhilirating sort of way.

One day last week I had a bit of an incident with the boss and the atmosphere was quite icy for the rest of the day.  The following morning I got up wishing she would be off work that day but knowing that she wasn’t.  I also ended up running very late and knew that if I was late, the atmosphere would be even worse.  So,  I told myself that I WOULD be on time for work, all the lights would be on GREEN and there would be a parking space right outside the office.

Imagine my sheer wonderment when all except one set of lights was on green (and that one changed to green the second I stopped with only one car in front of me so hardly counts).  You may not think this is amazing until I tell you that there are no less than 33 sets of lights between my home and the office!  Outside our office there are four parking spaces which I call ‘poll position’.  Once in a blue moon one of them is empty when I arrive at work – even less frequently than that, two spaces are available but NEVER in all the three and a half years I’ve worked there have all four spaces been available – until that day!  By this time I had goose bumps!  But there’s more – within a minute of me sitting down (on time)  one of my colleagues informed me that the boss had rang in to say she wouldn’t be in that day.  My boss is NEVER off unless for pre booked holiday and this wasn’t one of those occasions.  By this time I was feeling a bit freaked out – you see I had used what I’d learnt from my new book – The Secret by Rhonda Byrne.

I don’t know if you’ve heard of this book (I hadn’t).  Apparently it’s taking the world by storm according to a post by someone else which I’ve subsequently read.  I must admit I was a little put out by this as I thought it was my wonderful secret and now it seems not.  I’m not going to say too much about the book because I would urge anyone to go out and get it for themselves along with the DVD (visit www.thesecret.tv).  All I will say is that I’ve always considered myself as a positive person (despite all my tongue-in-cheek rants here).  And I’ve never subscribed much to all the self-help stuff around these days.  But OMG this book is the best aid to positive thinking I’ve ever stumbled upon.  Even if you don’t fully subscribe to what it’s saying about the law of attraction – it still has the power to change the way you think, even if you didn’t think you needed to.

I can actually look back over events in my life and pinpoint times when I’ve used what they advocate (inadvertently) and it’s worked and also times when I’ve been very negative and the results they predict have manifested themselves.  And also many occasions when I’ve blocked things that I want to happen from happening by not wanting to ‘jinx’ things.  The word ‘jinx’ is no longer part of my vocabulary!

And if the only thing that you take away from this book is a slightly more positive outlook on life then the time you spent reading it has been well spent hasn’t it?

I now feel a little amazement every day – even today’s horoscopes seemed to be written just for me lol – they stated that my ongoing interest in spiritual pursuits comes to the forefront today (writing this) and that today is a good day to reflect upon your overall life goals – time to focus on the big picture.  I’d just written my ‘to do’ list for the day which included formulating a forward plan for my career change!

I’ll leave you in peace now with these wise words from Buddha ‘All that we are, is a result of what we have thought.’

Hello readers – yes I know, a day early again, I’m getting good at this!  I’m going to start this post with today’s horoscope as I’m particularly chuffed (does anyone use that word any more apart from me?)  about the first sentence and have decided they must be true today.  Anyway, they started by saying ‘Someone may accuse you of being immature or irresponsible today, but neither of these labels actually fits.’

I don’t actually know if anyone’s accused me of being those things today but it’s a fairly normal daily occurrence so it could be true, however it’s the next part of that sentence that I’m interested in.  I now have it in writing – I am NOT immature or irresponsible!  And I didn’t write it myself  or get a close friend to write it so it counts!

They went on to say that I  may be quite serious about the decisions ahead;  and asked if I was living my dreams and what do I want people to say about me when I’m gone?  Well I don’t have too many requests there – just that I’d prefer to be remembered as a writer not an accountant.  I don’t wish to cause offence to any other accountants but I really can’t get excited about what people think of  my monthly management reports.  In fact lately, I can tell writing’s been getting under my skin because I’m more interested in my descriptions of what the profits are doing than the actual figures.

The path to being a writer isn’t an easy one though; a quick ganders at chapter one of Jurgen Wolff’s Your Writing Coach (www.yourwritingcoach.com) will tell you that.  He tells just how long it took for some of the now very famous authors to get published.  And I read a quote today which seemed to sum it all up ‘Only amateurs say that they write for their own amusement. Writing is not an amusing occupation. It is a combination of ditch-digging, mountain-climbing, treadmill and childbirth… But amusing? Never.’  Well, maybe amusing isn’t the right word but us amateurs have to convince ourselves that we’re doing it for our own fulfilment or we’d never keep going!

Anyway, enough about the writing – what about the drought?  There must be one because every time I order water with my online shopping, they say that brand wasn’t available and they don’t substitute it!  I’ve tried boxing clever and asking for a different brand each time but the result is always the same.  So I’m assuming there’s a drought over and above all previous proportions out there. Does anyone know about this?

In the meantime I shall leave you with this uplifting thought from Pablo Picasso (well, it certainly is if the years are advancing on you at the same rate they seem to be advancing on me!) ‘It takes a long time to become young.’  It certainly does, I’m off to be immature and irresponsible, have fun…

Back again – a day early but who’s counting?  I’ll start with the  horoscopes – they were pretty accurate today, at least they would’ve been if I’d read them on Friday!  They said that although it’s not a smart idea to just disregard my budget, I might be able to justify spending more than I planned in order to purchase something that I really need.  And that I could demonstrate my responsibility by asking for advice from a trustworthy friend but I’d actually need to  listen to what was said.

Well I need a new computer.  Mine has really given up the ghost.  I’m lucky enough to have a partner who came to the rescue though and gave me his old laptop which is definitely doing the trick for now but I will need to invest in a new one at some point.  So, he took me for a trip out to PC World on Friday evening – a rare treat!  I jest, I am truly grateful for his guidance.  Now I can use a computer but when it comes to all the technical stuff I haven’t got a clue.  After being persuaded to go for  a laptop, I proceeded to tramp the aisles of PC World looking at shinyness, smoothness and key size (I think the latter was quite sensible myself).  I eventually set my heart on one which was very smooth and shiny but maybe lacking in the keypad area – but who cares?  It looked and felt great!

Partner wasn’t keen on the make and got me to have a look at what he considered a better one.  He’d been looking at the specs – I thought he needed specs, my choice was much prettier! His choice was okay I suppose – it had flowers on it at least (or a sort of flowery, swirly pattern).  Anyway, we were just looking and came away empty handed.

After that, we headed back home for some parrot training.  No, not us training the parrot (as if – ask any parrot!).  The parrot was training partner.  First lesson was NOT to eat what parrot considers to be his peanuts (they’re NOT his!).  This involved parrot inflicting a painful wound when said feat was attempted.  Next lesson involved training partner to pick up toys from floor and give back to parrot.  Training went as so – parrot throws all toys on floor, shouts at partner, partner picks them all up and gives back to parrot.  Parrot throws all toys on floor, shouts at partner… you get the picture?!  And it worked.  He’s perfectly trained now!

Which puts me in mind of a lovely Mark Twain quote (I think I’ve mentioned before – I think I would’ve got on very well with our Mark).  Anyway, he said ‘When we remember we are mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.’  Yep – what a wise man.  Mark’s quotes are music to my ears – they make sense of my existence!

Well, real life awaits (aka a pile of ironing) so I’ll leave you with this little pearl of wisdom from Ray Bradbury ‘Life is, trying things to see if they work.’  So go forth and get trying – I know I am…

Sorry, sorry…Survived Another Day has become survived another fortnight!  Good news though eh?!  Still here afterall.  For a while though, it’s going to become Survived Another Week as I’ve now realised it isn’t physically possible to do everything I actually need to do in 24 hours in 24 hours!  Or, if you want to put it as poetically as Tillie Olsen ‘And when is there time to remember, to sift, to weigh, to estimate, to total?’

When indeed?  The calendar whizzes by leaving us somewhat breathless and dazed and wondering what it’s all about but do not despair because according to George Eliot ‘It is never too late to be what you might have been.’  So I’m taking note and concentrating on my escape routes (aka courses www.chapterhousepublishing.com and www.writersbureau.com) for the time being.

I don’t wish to unsettle any of you fellow office workers out there (well, maybe a mass walk out would go down in history), but increasingly these days I feel as though the reasonably decent salary I receive is more a case of selling my soul than selling my skills.

There are fundamental human, I won’t say ‘rights’ because I don’t wish this to sound political, so I’ll say ‘needs’ that I feel I’m missing out on.  Like the need to sleep without being woken by an alarm; the need to text people at any hour of the day; the need to surround myself with people I actually like; the need to not be held prisoner between the hours of 8.30 and 5.30; the need to do my own stuff when I want to do it; the need to fly…whoops, getting carried away now, but you get the picture. 

 Life is flying by and I’m spending it in an office just so I can pay the mortgage and I’m absolutely positive it doesn’t have to be this way.  Other ways will involve more creativity, lots of hard work becoming established, lots of hard work keeping established and lots more worry about paying the bills but I will know I’m alive!

To be fair, I have worked for myself briefly a couple of times before and fled back to the safety of a regular job when the uncertainty became too much to bear.  But I was younger then and not ready for the level of responsibility that comes with the freedom of working for oneself.  Also I didn’t really opt for things I wanted to do, just things I could do.

If anyone reading this has made ‘the break’ especially into a creative field, I’d love to hear of your experiences.

Anyway, I shall end with a quote from Anais Nin as I’m feeling exceptionally brave and hope to pass on the feeling, and I think this is very true,  ’Life shrinks and expands in proportion to one’s courage.’

See you next week, brave and inspired hopefully…

Okay – a little imagination is required here – just squint a bit and imagine that this is a really fierce black panther snarling menacingly at you.  Got it?  Then I’ll begin…

PMT – don’t blame me!  No really – don’t blame me, not while it’s PMT, not unless you’re prepared to face the consquences.  It might be my fault, it probably is my fault but just don’t blame me – please!

Men probably think they’re hard done by having to put up with this female phenomenon – well what do they know?  Have they ever experienced just what it’s like to know what you’re about to say or do is wrong, to tell yourself NOT to say or do it because it’s an irrational reaction caused by hormones and then saying or doing it anyway?  Do they think we’re actually in control of our actions? Well DO THEY?  Whoops.  And ladies – can you imagine anything more infuriating than a man telling you there’s no such thing as PMT?  Yep, that’s happened to me.  Less said about that the better.  But my stars did make me laugh (under the circumstances), they said ‘This will be a day when your own intuition and your own inner voice will be your best friends…’ and with friends like those, who needs enemies?  It’s that inner voice that’s causing all the problems.  Although Ingrid Bergman seems to have come up with a plan of action.  She says ‘You must train your intuition.  You must trust the small voice inside you which tells you exactly what to say, what to decide.’  Simples – thanks for that Ingrid – I shall never again be plagued by the wicked PMT voices – I’ll just train them to zip it!  For a more grounded view you may want to heed the words of Minna Antrim who says ‘Intuition is truly a feminine quality, but women should not mistake rash conclusions for this gift.’  There we go – that makes sense.  Now, just the small problem of differentiating between rash conclusions and intuition.  And what if we distrust all our rash conclusions and they later turn out to have been exacting intuition?  Then we learn to trust the rash conclusions.  Being a woman sure is tough!  We should all be multi millionaires, nay billionaires though because according to Bill Gates ‘Often you have to rely on your intuition.’

Anyway, all this talk of PMT and irrational voices is winding me up – just found myself yelling at my other half down the phone when he actually needed someone NOT to wind him up right now (yes those little voices were very intuitive – not).  So best to change the subject – away from reality me thinks.  Let’s close with a soothing quote from Marcel Proust ‘If a little dreaming is dangerous, the cure for it is not to dream less but to dream more, to dream all the time.’  Hmm, wonder if he had anything to do with ‘Inception’?  Think it’s time to put the lid on today and go to dream land – oh sweet dreams please.

P.S.  Any of you ladies out there got any good remedies for PMT?  Think I’ve tried almost everything but ALWAYS open to more suggestions…

Read an exellent article today which was particularly useful for a relatively new blogger/ writer like me, so I will share my new source with you – generous as I am (and it costs nothing – yes I’m a good Yorkshire lassie).  It was an article entitled ‘How to find your writing voice’ and can be found at www.menwithpens.ca I haven’t had time to look at the rest of their website yet but I’m hoping it’s all as useful as this article.  One bit that especially impressed me was the part where they said ‘…write for yourself…Don’t worry about what your blog readers will think or whether they’ll like it or whether your work will catch the attention of this big name or that hot shot…that’s just a fast train to writer’s block.  Enjoy yourself.  Write as if you’re the only person who’ll ever read your work.  Take pleasure in what you’re doing and just be you…’  And if that doesn’t inspire you enough to take a look at their website, I don’t know what will.  This came at just the right time for me too – my stars were pretty accurate today as they basically said that dreaming was an important part of my existence but to get real for a moment.  And I was just wondering what I was doing to myself this morning.  I spent the best part of yesterday sleeping – the early mornings and late nights and continually searching for inspiration for my writing seemed to be catching up with me.  I began to question why I was doing any of it at all.  In my head I’m a writer (yep – for writer read ‘dreamer’) but I have no affirmation that a single word I write will ever be of any interest to another living being.  So, when I read this article, it gave me the boost I needed.  Have you ever noticed how these things tend to happen at just the right time?  Or is it just that we learn to manipulate the words that we read to fit the purpose we need them to fulfil?  Before I forget, another exellent way to build confidence for new writers is to join www.blogit.com , you do pay a fee but the subscriptions are redistributed according to how many views you get on your blog.  However, for me, it’s nothing to do with the money and everything to do with the support received from other bloggers.  I’ve rarely posted a blog there which hasn’t received comments and all encouraging ones.  I’d recommend it for anyone starting out.

As I seem to be advertising websites here, why not continue with the theme and congratulate Pets Corner on their advertising slogan – a lorry passed me today with the slogan ‘Sex guaranteed’ written in huge letters down the side of it.  Of course that will grab anyone’s attention – even if you’re not interested in guaranteed sex (strange!), but at least you’d be curious enough to find out who’s offering it so boldly.  Bursting the bubble, the word ‘sex’ here very obviously means ‘gender’ but to work that one out you have to also acknowledge the fact that it’s Pets Corner so job done!    Clever eh?!

And on the theme of useful snippets of information, I shall leave you with the thought of the day by Jef Mallett which I pinched from my iGoogle home page but I don’t care because it was news to me!  ‘An opinion should be the result of thought, not a substitute for it.’  Hmm, me thinks I should take more notice of that one…

Frustration?  I can’t tell you how frustated I am (and don’t take that the wrong way!).  In fact I’m claiming the monopoly on frustration today.  It took me 15 minutes to get out of the office – why is it that everyone wants to talk to me at 5.30?  What’s wrong with 9.30 – help me fill the day, come on.  Then the traffic home was just horrendous.  Everything was in threes (as the saying goes), three sets of temporary lights, one of them three way and it took me three attempts to get through.  I won’t bore you with the rest of the obstacles between me and my computer but needless to say I became far more acquainted with my car than I ever want to be on the journey home.

Once home, I switched on the computer and crossed my fingers.  You may have noticed, no blog last night.  It’s not until we can’t get an internet connection that we realise just how much we rely on it and how desolate we become without it.  Tonight, it would’ve been quicker for me to go and see my internet providers in person than actually use it.  Funny, I once vowed never to have a PC, when I’d got one I vowed never to have the internet.  Now I think my life is over if I can’t get a connection right away.  By the way, the iPhone was the next thing I was never going to have – now it’s surgically attached – no, really!  Oh, and the iPod – I would never have a use for that, until my other half bought me one and now I’m addicted to iTunes.  I think there’s some weird kind of ‘inception’ experiment going on in my head.

Anyway, back to being frustrated (stop that!).  I’ve discovered that it’s actually okay and good for me because according to John Bingham ‘Frustration is the first step towards improvement.  I have no incentive to improve if I’m content with what I can do…’  Well it’s a little strange because in a fashion true to yours truly, I sort of did this backwards again (bear with me!).  I took the first step towards improvement and then became frustrated! Yep – this morning I got up half an hour earlier (that’s now 5am) to do some work on my book before my 4k run and mini workout (before my full time job).  My first frustration was when I only managed 396 words on my book when I was aiming for 500 and the rest is already documented. 

My stars were right though –  if I looked at them with just the right slant  – they said ‘Use the day to pause and reflect as you have not heard what you were hoping for.’  I had plenty of time for pausing and reflecting on the way home.  And I didn’t hear what I was hoping for as nobody called to offer me an advance on my novel so I can give up the office and become a glamorous novellist wandering around in floaty clothes with my head full of blockbusting ideas and witty conversation.  What?  Is that not how it works?  Then why am I doing this?!

Have to love you and leave you now.  I need to go and sort out my new weekly schedule and print it off so I can cross things off as I go.  That’s normal right?  If you don’t make a list/schedule, how on earth do you get to the end of the day without missing stuff? 

Won’t leave you without a pearl of wisdom though and this one seems particularly befitting today ‘Better to travel hopefully than to arrive…’

Starting this post on a slightly different note to the planned version – just as I was settling down to type, I heard the most horrendous screech of brakes outside and several chilling impact noises followed by the constant sound of a car horn.  Not too difficult to figure out there’d been an pretty nasty accident outside.  When I dashed to look out of the window I could see that a car had collided with the side of another car consequently leaving the road and breaking through a brick wall, ending nose down in a ditch.  The emergency services all arrived within minutes and soon it was apparent that nobody was hurt (I’m assuming that, as the ambulance left relatively early  and empty and there didn’t seem to be any urgency amongst the police and fire crews).  Hence, today’s title – someone’s lucky day!

And before I start today’s post proper, anyone relatively new to blogging like me or just looking for inspiration, check out the pointers from Jeff Bullas and Sarah Kay Hoffman  http://bit.ly/9kwJTa and http://bit.ly/51ideas .  Lots of great ideas there – now all I need is the time to digest, sift and action (and there’s my downfall – can somebody pleeease invent that 30 hour day?!)

Before I forget – I’ve identified the small sum of money coming my way!  I entered a GMTV competition the other day to win £25,000.  A couple of days later I received a text from GMTV while I was at work.  I couldn’t read it right away due to spies and beady eyes, so by the time I did get round to it, I’d already spent the dosh in my head.  Well – why else would they be texting me?  Imagine my disappointment then, when I was informed that due to some sort of error the competition was null and void and I could claim my £1.10 back.  That’s it then, £1.10 and it hardly counts as I’s already spent it!

Work was so boring today but my stars could be manipulated perfectly to fit.  They said that although there may be multiple paths to my future, none of them stand out as the absolute winner.  That’s correct – there were several pretend jobs I could’ve done today and none of them appealed.  I find it so frustrating when there’s so much ‘stuff’ to be done at home – my two courses, the novel, this blog and research by the bookful (is that an actual word – if I put it into my iPhone I’d find out as that irritatingly points out misspellings now!).  Instead I’m stuck in an office pretending to be occupied. And people irritating me by saying utterly stupid things like I made a phone call and left a message with someone who proceeded to ask me if I had a number at all – no, I’m doing this by psychic link!  And people who tell you an email address and then say ‘all one word’ – really?  Strange because most of the email addresses I have, have spaces in them – not!  And probably most of all I irritated myself (as I do all the time but expect others not to be iritated by me – another strange phenomenon).  Is it just me or does everybody talk louder when they’re speaking to someone overseas on the phone?  And does everyone always pretend to be holding a phone to their ear when they’re relating a phone conversation?

Well, I’m exhausted now – doing nothing is more exhausting than being busy and this post appears to be as unproductive as my day has been so I’ll release you from the misery and leave you with this thought from Susan Sontag  ’The life of the creative man is lead, directed and controlled by boredom.  Avoiding boredom is one of our most important purposes.’  Today had a real purpose then – yay…