SUMMER LOTUS

At the beautiful town of Rye,Uk in late Nov 24

Take a gulp of moderation drink for a smooth, stable and serene day.

Moderation drink keeps you in a mindful state of calm and contentment and you will have a more successful day.

Being Happy, Sad, Angry, Fearful just to name a few common emotions will dictate the course of your events.

When excessively happy, one may lean towards complacency.

You may make the mistakes of speaking in excess of what you ought to say

Resulting in becoming superfluous, offensive and / or spouting nonsense.

When excessively sorrowful, one may lean towards pessimism.

You will be unknowingly stifled by this feeling.

Resulting in inaction, making the wrong decision and / or be in depression.

When excessively angry, one may lean towards irrationality of behavior. Resulting in injury to others, doing something regretful and / or self-harm.

When excessively fearful, one may lean towards negative thoughts.

Resulting in fight or flee response, emotional breakdown and/ or loss of opportunities from not taking challenges.

The key here is moderation. These emotions could serve us in some ways;

Happiness if not excessive when shared with people we love and care could motivate us and others to do better.

Sorrow if not excessive makes us appreciate our lives and moments to realize how temporal things are and challenges us to get back on our feet.

Anger if not excessive may be used for its energy to channel one’s focus on a task to accomplish it well.

Fear can be protective, making us aware of potential pitfalls and dangers of a situation so that we can take measures to be guarded.

In summary, too much of being overwhelmed by a feeling is bad. Temperance in our emotions is key..

In daily living, I experience greater clarity of mind when I keep excessive emotions in check no matter how provocative a situation is.

Solutions surface surprisingly.

You find your day goes smoothly, your feathers unruffled and people around you are also affected in a pleasant and positive manner.

I even think that you will appear stylish and sophisticated.

4 th December 2 min read

Coco, author’s pet chicken

It was many years ago. We attempted to keep a chicken as a pet. Though we would have loved a quiet, dignified looking chicken strutting her stuff in our ample garden, thinking she would feel lucky, she turned out to be a renegade.

Being happy was not her game.

Coco was her name. The days ahead were filled with chaos

She would not get along with the cats and the dog at home.

When thirsty and hungry or moody,

She struck by repeatedly turning over the water bowls

Once boundaries were opened

She became the fierce disperser of cat sand

The indiscriminate territorial marker

Flying over the neighbour’s fence even scaring their dog

A defiant Lone Ranger, never once stopped to sniff at the plants nor the flowers nor peck at the worms

A true blue free range chicken in a wrong location.

With such a domestic animal, it sounded like a whole lot of baloney when I had to tell my friend that we could not meet because I had chicken trouble.

21/11/24 2 min read

One sure sign of aging is when you run out of arm length during reading and you need to throw the book on the floor to read the words!

However, aging brings lots of benefits.

One perk of aging; you look at the amount of photos accumulated since childhood and feel qualified to say that great sounding phrase, “Ah, I have an archive!”

Aging either makes you crazy or a better philosopher.

The good thing about aging is that when the eyes, ears and teeth (first three systems of the body) go, we would finally see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil.

(* *) -( )- ( x. )

One advantage of aging for middle aged adults is that relatives and friends will stop asking if you are going to have more children because you have run out of ‘eggs’.

Another advantage of aging is that generally your wallet would become fatter like your hip would become wider and you get treated with respect as a customer with purchasing power.

A further advantage of aging is that you start to look at the time that is left hence you become more appreciative of life. Carpe diam!

Certainly, it’s an advantage that as you age, you forget what you were angry about.

You realises that there is so much to celebrate about being alive and that the obstacle to happiness is yourself.