Where anything can happen and probably will
Nikon D60 30 sec’s f5.6
Many photos of Porthcawl Lighthouse have been taken. But I like this because of the mood that it conveys.
The haze in the foreground is the restlessness of the sea as the tide washes to and fro up to the pier, bathed in moonlight bouncing off the water droplets.
You cannot see it very well at this size, but the light in the middle of Ogmore Beach, in the distance, is a camp fire on the beach.
I just love the emotions involved in this photo. It’s so full of memories, happy and sad. It’s a reminder that children don’t stay young, forever.
Originally, I titled this photo, Neglect. But I now like to think of it as Loneliness because it tells a story of having been a best friend, now abandoned in favour of more important interests.
Well. Almost abandoned. The spiders found a good home there! And the contrast between the spiders’ webs and the man-made netting is a treat.
Enjoy your children while you can. Treasure the time that you have with them. There will be plenty of time for your career once they leave home. At least, there’ll be a little time until the grandchildren come along.
And then you can re-live those days all over again.
So many people think they are stressed, these days, it would be interesting to see if we can learn to stop worrying about everything and start enjoying life.
Why worry about what you cannot change? It’s far more important to deal with issues than to worry about them.
We lead such busy lives, today. We are surrounded by clutter. We buy too much and spend too much and eat too much and leave too much lying around.
Yes. I admit that I’m as guilty as anyone else. I have to make a conscious effort to clear my desk every night. I have to make a conscious effort to put things away. And I don’t always succeed.
But the biggest clutter comes from other people. How often have you planned some activity, only to answer the telephone and hear the pleading voice confirming that you are the only person in the whole wide world who can help and it’s really, really, desparate, and if you don’t help the caller doesn’t know what he or she will do?
And how many times have you given up your day out to go and help, only to find that it was something that could have been put off till another day?
That’s why we need to schedule personal time every week. We need time for our immediate family – which does not include the children who have left home. And we need time for ourselves, too. We need to protect that time. Don’t let anything trivial get in the way. We have our own needs to take care of. And if we don’t look after ourselves, we will not have the resources to look after anyone else.
This is where we need to learn the power of ‘No’. We need to learn that our time is precious and must be protected. Yes, there will be emergencies. But as one fridge magnet puts it, “Bad planning on your part does not constitute a crisis on my part.”
After all, there will always be other opportunities to look after the grandchildren; opportunities when you can plan fun activities, rather than being stressed about what you cannot do or should do or could be doing. But a date night with your mate, that’s prcious.
De-clutter your schedule – learn to say, “No.”
It’s so easy to get all worked up about trivialities when you’re tired. And yet that’s the very time we need to have peace in our lives. I know. I’ve been there.
But the majority of our stress often comes from things that we cannot change. So we need to learn about our own capabilities. Look at what we can change and get on and do it.
We also need to learn to identify those things that are important, especially if they impact on other people. Those are the things that we should concentrate on changing.
Yet even then, if we cannot change the circumstances, why get stressed over it? Leave it in the hands of those who have both the means and the authority to act. And that allows us to de-clutter our minds so that we can concentrate on the things that we can change.
I’m not suggesting that we adopt an uncaring attitude. I worry just as much as anyone else about those people who are affected by natural disasters. I have friends who have been affected by them. But I don’t have the circumstances to go and help them to rebuild. I have other friends who are far more capable at that than I am. Still, I can support them in other ways.
But being concerned does not mean being miserable. I know that my friends who have been affected by those disasters are equally concerned about me and my circumstances. And we all simply get on with life and deal with those things that we can change.
And that gives us a mind clear enough to get through each day.
Greenacre 9 