Not that long ago, an entire generation of people were content to go to work, come home, raise their children, and go to the beach for their holidays once a year. They owned one car, one television, one radio and one telephone. If they were lucky. People counted themselves fortunate to own a modest house, put food on the table and have a pretty garden with a picket fence. They were over the moon if one of their children went to university. They were content. As a child I re

Many years ago, John Lennon wrote a song which became an anthem. In it, he asked the people of the world to imagine. He asked us to imagine a better world, a better future. One without war, patriotism, or division due to possessions and religion. The future is constantly being created for us. By the news, the media, movies, family and friends. Mostly, it's created out of fear. We are presented with pictures of the negative. A conglomerate of all the don't wants and the what

There is book written decades ago called 'don't sweat the small stuff'. That title has crept into our language, but I want to challenge it here. It's all about the small stuff. That's the difference between failure and success. Health and disease. Living a happy or unhappy life. It comes down to the detail. Now it's 6:30 am as I start this blog, which was prompted by my having to move the rug downstairs just a bit, so that it lines up with the edge of the kitchen counter, a

We definitely need bucket loads of it to live in this world. There is so much happening which is downright scary. Some of it preposterous. How do we keep the forces of chaos at bay? How do we maintain calm and equilibrium, let alone whistle a happy tune, or get cheerful enough about the future that we can plan and dream? It's a challenge. A challenge whose face is different the world over, morphing month to month and year on year. We could probably agree, that if there was a

As we start off the Chinese & Tibetan New Year, the old year has ended. Sounds Irish I know... And this makes me think of endings. How things end will herald new beginnings. Sloppy, sulky, unpolished endings leave unfinished business, incomplete cycles and create obstacles to moving forward – in any field. This may be in business – at the end of a partnership, job, project. In personal relationships – at a break up, separation, or end of friendship. In random encounters –

It's the secret to a good cappuccino, a great meal, an extraordinary salesman or a great fashion house. Take this flat white I'm having here today, in the same coffee shop as yesterday. Yesterday, I could barely drink it for fear I would turn into a yeti and stay up dancing through the week – that's how strong it was. Today, it resembles a latte. Now we aficionados of the daily coffee, expect one thing – consistency. We want this morning's coffee to taste as good as it did