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Friday Thoughts 67 - Choices

Updated: Feb 6, 2022

Welcome to the first Friday Thoughts of 2022 and, indeed, the first Friday of 2022.

Whoever would have thought that something I started as a way of keeping a connection with staff spread around the world back in March (?) 2020 would still be connecting staff spread around the world?

I have to admit that I had a good break this Christmas, and possibly the first genuine break I have had since that fateful meeting almost exactly 2 years ago when the Strategic Planning Group met to discuss our response to this ‘new’ virus. I basically did very little other than sleep, and I really did sleep! As many of you know, I do like/need my sleep but the biggest difference this time was just how late in the morning I was sleeping in. I can honestly say that, in times of good-reasonable health, it is rare that I sleep beyond 8:00am on more than one occasion. This holiday, I rarely saw 9:30 and some days 10:00! My body, I decided, was taking over and telling me what it needed and, I think, needed badly. I stopped myself from lamenting what Christmas ‘should’ or ‘could’ be like and just went with it. It wasn’t a conscious decision; I’m not sure I had the mental or physical energy to do anything else!

Before you think me completely slothenly, I didn’t ONLY sleep, I also took the opportunity to re-connect with my book and podcast collections. I LOVE reading, and always have, although in the past few years, I have found myself reading more ‘easy’ books rather than some properly thought-provoking and well-written ones. I do have to mention an accidental purchase of ‘The Midnight Library’ by Matt Haigh (I thought I was buying a book by Mark Haddon). I think I read it in approximately 3 sittings and couldn’t put it down! I am not vouching for its literary prowess, but rather the intriguing and thought-provoking concept of choice. I shall say no more just in case I give anything away. This, along with some LinkedIn articles, including one from Arianna Huffington, brings me to today’s thought. 2021’s word of the year is ‘resilience’. However, I have always thought of resilience as ‘bouncebackability’ (apparently that is, in fact, a word), but no. It is more than that; it is also the ability to bounce forward, coming back stronger and more positive than before. The next key word or concept here is ‘choice’. There are times in our lives when we feel we are completely out of choices, however that is almost never true. In the words of Viktor Frankl, “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” I am not sharing these thoughts as empty words, rather because they resonated with me completely. I have led an exceptional, fortunate and sheltered life compared to so many people and have honestly never experienced genuine suffering so I feel inherent guilt when I feel like I am in a position of choicelessness (I think that’s a Beth word). I have so much to be thankful for and so much privilege, why do I have the right to feel sorry for myself? Apparently I do, and to do so is entirely natural and everyone has a different capacity to deal with the various situations in which they find themselves. I shall keep telling myself that!

So, choice. Such a simple yet so powerful word and one which has the capacity to instil or take power. I’m not into new year’s resolutions and never have been, so I am going with the coincidental timing of the new year and saying that I am embracing my ability to choose and the power that it restores in me. As someone who must plan and organise to the nth degree, and isn’t happy with uncertainty, I am choosing not to feel adrift and choosing to empower myself with that.

I know I have had conversations with people who are finding things tough for so many reasons. I am not being flippant, nor are these meant to be platitudes and I sincerely hope it isn’t unintentionally coming across that way.

So. Happy Friday everyone and I wish you all a very restful weekend.

Music today? I tried both the best songs 2022 and Happy Songs on YouTube and got about a minute into each before reverting to Sad 90s on Spotify. I’m bizarrely much happier with a little Celine Dion and Think Twice. A personal irony of a flashback memory of a time of teenage existential angst in the late 90s when she was (possibly) actually ‘cool’ to listen to. Music is so powerful and I can almost feel those tears and the feeling of utter despair and heart-break standing in the Arcadian Complex in Birmingham (on the edge of the Chinese Quarter 😊). The opportunity to go back to being 17 again? No thanks! I’ll stick with the other side of 40.

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