Everytime I find myself in need of a little inspiration or focus in life, I spin my chair around and look at this:

I am sucked into its beauty and mesmerised by its enormity.
I glance at the different areas and read all of those place names I’ve never heard before:   Inongo, Saltillo, Hengyang and more.  So many more.
I contemplate the mass variation of things going on at this exact moment in time, and it taints me with disappointment that I cannot be everywhere at once to see it all unfold right before my very eyes – to feel each feeling, to hear each noise, to smell each dish…

…to have my eyes opened wider.

I think about all the places I have been,
And all of the things which I have seen,
but – perhaps more pertinently –
All that I haven’t.
Yet.

And then I spin back around on my seat to continue with my work and think about what to have for lunch, but maybe now it won’t be the usual crumpet covered in marmite.

|| Pause:  A moment to remember that there is always something more. ||

Song of the Day:  Hospitality – Betty Wang 

I found this band on Spotify the other day whilst trying to find bands similar to American indie-pop outfit Tennis.  Hospitality hail from Brooklyn, and this is my favourite song from their debut album which was released in January this year.  Fun, catchy barbeque music.  Trying not to smile when listening to this song is like trying to consume a whole jam doughnut without licking your lips.  Enjoy.

If there’s one single word in the dictionary that is over-used, sometimes abused and often misunderstood it is this one:  success.

Success seems to be the one thing that everybody in the world wants.  Everybody wants to walk away from the great exam of life with a decent grade, and this ambitious attitude in itself is no bad thing, but it becomes a problem when we begin to lose sight of what success really means, and what it’s truly about.

We live in a society which has poisoned itself with superficiality, a society which has become so obsessed with beauty, status and the acquisition of material goods that it has left many feeling inferior and self-critical that their achievements do not compare to those of others.  All too often, life seems akin to a big race or competition  in which everybody wants to be a ‘winner’ and, most certainly, nobody wants to come last.

But despite what we are so often made to think:  success is not about money.  It’s not about status.  It’s not about power.  It’s not about having model-looks and it’s not about mass popularity – in other words, success is not about the factors from which others often tend to judge us.

Success is simply about being you and being happy with you.  It’s about spending your life doing the things you love both in your career and in your free-time.  It’s about being a good friend, and making true friendships.  It’s about having fun.  It’s about believing in yourself and the way in which you conduct things, it’s about being at peace in your own company,  it’s about having a loving mindset, a respect for everybody and above all, it’s about having enough respect for yourself that you can resist any pressure to change into what you think other people think you should be. 

Real success comes from pursuing true passions, not from trying to impress anybody with your power or status.  It is most certainly not a race, and it is most certainly not a competition.  If it is viewed that way, we will constantly be left wanting more rather than enjoying what we already have.  Success is deep within all of us, and it’s just waiting to be discovered.  It is not something which is found only by being the best at something, it’s found by being our best, and that is something we can all achieve, without exception.

Song of the Day:  British Sea Power – Carrion

Classic British indie-rock.  These guys go from strength to strength, but it is their earlier releases that seem to be the best.