Saturday 30 March 2013

My whole life laid out in letters

Places I have visited - A to Z. My whole life laid out in letters.

I can attached memories, people, events, good, bad, happy, sad, to each one. If our paths crossed along the way, you know the stories.

Afuze
Benin City,
Cambridge,
Dar es Salaam
Eindhoven,
Fulham,
Guangzhou,
Hong Kong
Ibadan,
Jinja,
Kampala,
Leeds
Mumbai,
Nairobi,
Ostend,
Palo Alto
Queens,
Richmond-upon-Thames,
Santa Fe,
Tema
Utrecht,
Varadero ,
Watamu,
Xi'an,
Yangshuo,
Zurich

Saturday 9 March 2013

Life is beautiful


In researching for a talk that I gave recently on powerful presentations, I stumbled across the following gem. It is a delight.

The last six months have been emotionally draining. I came into 2013 with a renewed sense of purpose and a way of taking control. But the universe, in her infinite wisdom just smiled at my efforts to dictate its direction and handed me another unwanted gift. I forgot that you can't make the universe do anything. You can't dictate. You relaxed and let it take you on your journey. Wu Wei.

Over the past week we have held my father's funeral in his home town of Afuze, Owan East Local Government Area, Edo State, Nigeria and we have held a memorial service to him in our home town of Richmond-upon-Thames, Surrey, England. Throughout, behind my broad grin I have worn an invisible veil of tears.

But perhaps I can begin to see through my veil of tears that life is beautiful. I will look and see what I can see.

As the lady in the video says "I know about the bad things, but I look..."