India – Industrial Monster in a hurry

Note: This is not an exhaustive read, my views are independent and based on 5 days and 6 nights in the Motherland

“So when’s the last time you went to India?”

“What!”

“The country has much changed my friend; you are in for a shock”.

Why Hugging is so important

If I stood here and stated that today, we are not as affectionate as our parents and their generation were; would I be wrong?  Would I be talking out-of-place?

This post was sparked from a debating programme I watched last night with one of the debating points being hugging.  Apparently I was not aware that there is a National Hugging Day, check out the link.  It’s great that we have these kind of events, but in a sense it is also exceptionally sad.  Why?  Well look at it this way:

Why do we have National events such as National Letter Writing Day and No Smoking Day?  It is to encourage us to do something on that particular day.  So isn’t it sad that we need a day that encourages us to hug each other?

Interestingly enough, there is also some science around how long the common hug lasts, which this publication claims is 3 seconds.

For me, hugging is very important and I never shy away from a tight cuddle, an affectionate cuddle.  Each and every day I make sure I get my hugs in, before I leave for work and when I come home.  I can tell you it makes the world of good with family and friends.

I recently read a Freshly Pressed post on WordPress which I can’t recall, that spoke of the authors reluctance to hug family and friends, the affection there was rather cold.  But I guess it’s each to their own.

So tell me, when’s the last time you gave someone a true affectionate hug?

 

*image courtesy of  http://aboutmyrecovery.com

SoUL – Style of Ultimate Living

Last night I was watching a young lady present her thoughts around human nature and our actions in life to a large televised audience. 

What caught my attention was her reference to the SOUL and her connection to what she called “Style of Ultimate Living”.  It was an interesting concept on our actions and that how we conduct our life can actually have a bearing on our soul and inner self.  Okay, I am sure there’s a host of material out there debating this notion, but have we ever stopped to consider what we class as our ultimate style of living?

I took a moment out to think how close I am to the style of ultimate living I aspire to?   Answer…not that close.  However, am I better person for not reaching that ultimate living?  Am I more humble?  Answer, probably.

So consider this, what is your SoUL?  Where are you now?  Can you plug the gap in this lifetime and would that give you inner peace?

Do you realise the value of time?

I was having a bit of a clear out and came across a scrap piece of paper with the following on it, which I had typed up some years back.  I am not going to take any credit for this, as it’s something I found on the internet back in my University days, when only a handful of people had personal pages, or blogs as we call them today.

Running around like “headless chickens” and having no real notion of time in our lives, where is this all going?  Why don’t we all stop for 5 mins and take a pause….

I hope you like this as much as I did, for some reason this shred of paper has stuck around with me.  So, whoever you are, Thanks for writing this.

Crisps Rehab – Day 5

Don’t worry, you haven’t missed days 1 -4, I didn’t want to tempt fate by writing so early in case I turned back to the dark side.  Six days ago, after munching through a packet of hand cooked crisps, I looked down at my ever-expanding belly and thought, can I cut this snack out and start a road to recovery?  What is that road to recovery you ask?  To completely change my diet but eradicating snacks of all kind by the age of 40, I have five years left.  So my first victim, the crisp packet.