Work – Page 18 – Achilles & Aristotle

Stage Left

Whew, what a week. I’m getting better at this ‘fronting up’ malarkey but there are limits. Four big staff talks and two big public events – chairing a debate and judging an international final. I’m pooped and rumbling back home from the last, hungry and tired on a Saturday afternoon.

Like all these things, it’s good to have done them. As the Harvard Business Review advised this week – think of it as learning and it’s less of a stresser, but still… I fancy a steadier week in my own company next week.

But in all the hurly burly of microphones, podiums, stages and cameras, the only news that really matters is that my boy is doing his best at school – and my girl is acting up because she wants some quality time and attention.

That’s today’s job – putting a smile on their faces. And that’s the one which most reliably puts a smile on mine.

Children, Life, Work

The Longer View

Camping up a hill in Devon you can’t help but take the longer view. Hills that have been there forever. The toil – even in the modern mechanised era – in taming and working the land.

Life is defined by sunrise and sunset and the fullest of moons. It made me think. I spend too much time staring at small text-laden screens and far too little looking at the bigger picture.

There is good evidence that short-sightedness is exacerbated by the eye not getting frequent enough opportunity to resolve to the infinite horizon. My eyes hurt when we first arrived. I couldn’t comfortably view the tree line – it felt like a strain.

Put the iPhone away (nowhere to charge it) and in a day or two my eyes were comfortably drawn to the hills and distant pastures – retuned to their natural state.

There are perhaps four more summers before my little family starts to fragment. Maybe only four more times we’ll pitch and strike our tent, in that farm field with friends and their kids.

For all the packing and unpacking, fetching and carrying, cooking and scrubbing, it is hard to imagine that it won’t go on forever. The trees, the meadow of buttercups, the hills and streams. All green, verdant and full of life…

And in one day back in the big city forgotten and distant. After a week at work, a world away.

The longer view, the far horizon and the here and now. I work too hard, for enough money but too little thanks. I should change my focus or soon I will need a different plan.

Art, Children, Life, Science, Work

Bear Necessities

This picture – drawn by my daughter – melted my heart and sums up my week. It captures the beguiling mix of sleepiness, size and sheer cuddliness of the Giant Panda. Like the °0° koala, there is nothing in nature cuter than the right type of bear.

I, for my part, have been much more the sore-headed variety of bear. Plenty of reasons to be grizzly at work and robbed of the hope of weekend hibernation – by the prospect of Spring camping in the cold and rain. But a sneek peek at this picture has cheered me up on at least half a dozen occasions.

The sleepy panda adorned her school campaign poster to save the benighted black and white bear. But the latest thinking says forget ‘enigmatic species’ and save ecosystems if you want conservation – bamboo forests are the thing to focus on, not the coy, inscrutable and often unsuccessful pairings of pandas in zoos.

So perhaps the tree in the picture is as important as the adorable bear hanging off it. Whatever the truth, this picture has made me – and by sharing it – a good few other people smile this week. Perhaps now a few more.

Life, Psychology, Work

Cheerfulness

Hard yards at the moment. Much ado at work and plenty on at home. But the top tip of this week comes from the Royal Navy – cheerfulness counts.

From the Battle of Trafalgar to the present day, Britain’s Royal Navy has run on cheerfulness.

Nobody follows a pessimist. And grumpiness ain’t attractive. However hard, keeping your chin up cheers everyone up.

So despite the temptation not to, I’m keeping smiling. Life’s too short. Cheerfulness counts : )

Children, Life, Work

Small Pleasures

Today the email system at work catastrophically collapsed. Ironic that, as we were at an Away-day discussing our digital strategy. Ho hum.

I bumped into one of my team on returning to the office. He commented on the crash in connectivity and then laughed:

“You’re trying to find something positive to say aren’t you.”

“Yes; and I can’t.” I admitted.

And so with a rueful chuckle I donned my jacket and pedalled home nice and early. And what a delight…

Tea time with the kids, leftover spuds hoovered, dishwasher packed, lamb and aubergine in the oven, a happy boy abed and read to with gusto, red wine in a glass, sparkling teeth and three kisses from a delighted daughter and now time to sit down – and all before the News!

Small pleasures indeed – but a break in the breakneck speed of ‘always on’ connectivity and an extra 45 minutes at home, brings myriad small benefits. I left this morning feeling blue, now I’m in the pink. Perhaps I should cut the connection more often…

But literally just as I finish these words, the server’s back. ‘You have unread mails’ – the joy and curse of 21st century life.