“Don’t be pushed around by the fears in your mind. Be led by the dreams in your heart” (Roy T Bennett) If ever there was a time for contribution, meaningful acts of compassion, and kindness, it is now! The world is intoxicated with fear and despair – often caused by corrupt or inconsequential leadership that…
“Sticks and stones will break our bones, but words will break our hearts” (Robert Fulghum) The words and/or actions of others can negatively impact our mental health unless we develop mechanisms to protect ourselves. Even though it may be fairly challenging, especially when you are feeling at your weakest, we can manage how someone’s words…
“If dandelions were rare and fragile, people would knock themselves out to pay $14.95 a plant, raise them by hand in greenhouses, and form dandelion societies and all that. But they are everywhere and don’t need us and kind of do what they please. So, we call them weeds and murder them at every opportunity”…
“I write about broken people who need other people in order to go on. But those are the only kind of people I know to exist. We are all broken” (John Green) Kintsugi, or “golden joinery”, also known as kintsukuroi, or “golden repair”, is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with lacquer dusted or…
“It is unfortunate that for some, kindness is an unwarranted expenditure, compassion an avoidable weakness, and love an unnecessary gamble” (Wayne Gerard Trotman) An orthopaedic surgeon, Bill, finally finished his last surgery well into the evening on that Friday and just wanted to get back home to be with his family, possibly go out for…
“An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind” (Mahatma Gandhi) All over the world, individuals and groups seem to be “at war” with one another. Personal grievances don’t just play out as minor tiffs or arguments, but often develop at best, into litigation, or at worst, into bodily harm or murder. Anger, spite,…
“I heard approaching footsteps. I reached out my hand, as I supposed, to my mother. Someone took it, and I was caught up and held close in the arms of her who had come to reveal all things to me, and more than all things else, to love me” (Helen Keller, Guideposts) The highest form…
With all the technical, scientific, medical, and digital advances of the 21st Century, it is somewhat surprising that the human being remains desperately needy, broken, and fearful. The human condition, exacerbated by the selfishness, brutality, and immoral behaviour of many who are in power, drives people to search for meaning, hope, care, and love in…
“It is a curious thing, Harry, but perhaps those who are best suited to power are those who have never sought it. Those who, like you, have leadership thrust upon them, and take up the mantle because they must, and find to their own surprise that they wear it well.” (J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and…
“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds that you plant” (Robert Louis Stevenson) The world looks for immediacy when it comes to measuring results – in one sense, rightly so, as this is what people, and specifically leaders, are hired to do. There is an expectation of meeting and…
“A clear conscience is a sure sign of a bad memory” (Mark Twain) Conscience is a cognitive process that engenders emotional and rational associations and responses that relate to a person’s moral philosophy or value system. In general terms, conscience is often described as leading to feelings of remorse when a person behaves in contradiction…
“How we walk with the broken speaks louder than how we sit with the great” (Bill Bennot) In their opening paragraph on the topic of ‘leadership’, Wikipedia notes the following: “Leadership, both as a research area and as a practical skill, encompasses the ability of an individual, group or organisation to “lead”, influence, or guide…
