“People can attach themselves to something – an idea, another person, a desire – with an impossibly strong grip, and in the case of restless ghosts, a grip stronger than death. Will is a powerful thing. Will – it’s supposed to be a good treat, a more determined and persistent version of determination and persistence….
“The road to success is paved with failure” (ANON) An idiom in any language is a literary style that typically represents a figurative, non-literal meaning attached to the phrase or expression, and often points out something of which someone should be aware. This is particularly true of the idiom above where the success road is…
I will prepare and someday my chance will come (Abraham Lincoln) I recently heard an interview where teenagers in their final year of high school expressed how they felt about the impact of the COVID pandemic on their respective lives. One young lady said: “I feel like the best years of my life have been…
“Your willingness to learn and adjust positively from mistakes and shortcomings will largely determine how far you will travel the road to success” (John Maxwell) Human beings really struggle to learn from mistakes. It is not because we don’t want to learn from our errors. It is infrequent that we don’t understand why we made…
I want to live this year – not just survive. The world’s population has just endured two really tough years – not just on account of the corona virus COVID-19 pandemic with all its variants, but also because of many other related ensuing trends. The virus has challenged major economies exposing their fragility. Some people…
The phrase ‘don’t be slothful’ is not a statement that one wants to receive nor is the phrase fair to the sloth. “Sloth”, commonly, is used to describe a person’s assumed laziness, inactivity, reluctance to work or make an effort, probably because the animal of the same name moves slowly. Although the sloth moves slowly,…
“I will prepare and someday my chance will come” (Abraham Lincoln) It is not uncommon to come across a great little invention and think, I wish I had thought of that. But bringing even simple ideas to full fruition involves a process – one that is not always as easy as it may appear. Achieving…
“The tragedy of life doesn’t lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goals to reach” (Benjamin Mays) Whomever I speak to of late, people seem to be tired and overwhelmed at best or have lost hope at worst. This listlessness, indifference or lethargy in part has its origins in the…
Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads (Back to the Future – 1985) The world is quite different now – the very concept of “team” has been challenged, revised and reconstructed. On the one hand, globalisation has accelerated the employ of diverse and remote teams, where team members operate from many different countries in…
Potential is only realised with laser-focus and gritty determination. The little girl knelt on the floor in her nursery bandaging a doll’s arm, comforting the doll and then putting it to bed. Taking another doll, she bandaged its head and likewise put it to bed. The nurse on duty watched the charade with interest and…
While most of us are quite pleased that 2020 is finally over – it was a rough year – and all of us are looking forward to the promise of new opportunities in 2021, we need to view this fresh year with both a degree of circumspection, as well as a heart filled with hope….
Steve Goodier, Methodist minister and author of “One Minute Can Change a Life” (and a number of other books), tells the story of one of the greatest of USA story-tellers, Abraham Lincoln, related by the president during the American Civil War. A delegation of well-meaning patriots tried to impress upon the president the gravity of…
