Category Archives: Life Lessons

I am doing a number of courses with an architect urban sketcher called Liz Steel. She has a mantra for her courses and I love what it says, I wanted to share here as an example of how we can all think about all learning, enjoy: We share but don’t compare We have confidence inContinue reading “Teaching mantra; a lesson to use in all learning”

Your time is your own. You know how to make the most of it. It might feel like life is a tumult of obligations but for most you that read this the pressure is a privilege. Life is a gift, full of mystery and beauty. Make your Saturday a masterpiece. I drew this sketch sittingContinue reading “Life: Yours to spend how you wish”

Quick post today as I am in the garden enjoying the sun. In England you must take your moments when you can. I found a passage in Sherlock Holmes, a scandal in Bohemia which captures my point perfectly between seeing and observing. Enjoy: Watson: “When I hear you give your reasons,” I remarked, “the thingContinue reading “Seeing and observing”

I have been up at 4:30am most mornings this week. I am not sure if its the warmer weather or the fact that I am drawing now and a creative part of brain is more awake. Whatever the reason I am awake again and pottering round the house, reading, writing, drawing. I read all theContinue reading “The world wants mediocre”

Coming out of the pandemic in the UK makes me think of distance and time. Distance in the most literal sense with social distancing which is becoming less and less observed. Also distance as it relates to time, and in particular time gone by, people now gone and those that are missed. Where did youContinue reading “Time and tide wait for no man”

I am going to start with an assumption, as a child you loved drawing and painting. Most children love to draw and paint, before we wrote a word we scribbled and sketched. We created things without fear of being judged and looked happy while we did it. . They are mindful and focussed on makingContinue reading “How to see the world, I mean really see it”

The right poem, read at the right time alone to yourself. That will stick to your insides like no other medium of art. Poetry is the most holiest of art forms and I treasure it so much I rarely write or talk about it. I am happy to discuss and debate prose all day. LetContinue reading “Kicked out of class for a falcon and confession of a crime”

When Tatsuo Horiuchi retired, he decided to try his hand at art. But instead of spending money on paints and brushes, Horiuchi used what he already had pre-installed on his computer—Microsoft Excel. The 77-year-old artist is creating remarkably intricate digital masterpieces of the Japanese landscape, all on the free graphing software. He designs beautiful artContinue reading “The Michelangelo of Microsoft Excel”

Author’s note: The photo above is my Mother’s memorial bench my brothers and I had put in her favourite sea view. She worked her whole life and had dreams of her retirement. She dreamed of walking these shores and finally relaxing. Today I write about assumptions of tomorrow. When we are young we will liveContinue reading “Life Lesson: Assumptions of tomorrow”

The grass is always greener my Mother used to tell me. She was always wary of my ambition. Not because she wanted to stymie me but she wanted to make sure my happiness was sustainable. She was concerned about what I later learned is called destination addiction: The idea that happiness is in the nextContinue reading “Life lesson: Don’t delay happiness”

I was running a mentoring session this evening. We happened to talk about my last post. I mentioned that when you read you can learn from lessons before you have to experience them. They challenged me with a question, “What lessons have you learned that I can avoid?” This is why I love mentoring, sometimesContinue reading “A Lifetime lesson shared; Sunk Cost Fallacy”

Happy Saturday all, I hope you are investing your weekend time well. That can be keeping grinding on your work, it can be spending time with your family, it can be relaxing doing nothing, You decide, no one can judge the returns on that investment except you. Whatever you do invest it wisely. Time isContinue reading “Reading the lessons of others is investing in yourself”

Yesterday I wrote about newspapers and old papers. Today I continue that train of thought on old and new things. The older I get the more I am certain I don’t now anything at all. All I do know that life need not add up or make sense. The world is an inconsistent collection ofContinue reading “Torn between new and old”

I was not sure if I really needed to read newspapers or consume daily news any more. It felt like I was not getting the value out of the time spent. So I did an experiment: I read the newspaper a week later, so today I would read last Wednesday’s news and or watch recordedContinue reading “Newspapers – Oldpapers”

I read a helpful blog post by a young writer last week, it was on decision making (here). It was just lovely to see a young person writing a helpful post that clearly described her thinking on a topic, it showed a deliberate intention to cover in two minutes a topic. As important however, IContinue reading “Decisions and forks”

It is in my inquisitive obsessive nature that from time to time causes me to fall down a rabbit hole. It usually starts with book or an essay I have read. With the Internet at arms length the rabbit holes are unavoidable. So it was that in the last two weeks I have fell downContinue reading “Vincent van Gogh Rabbit Hole”