Yesterday I got talking with a colleague at work about photography and in the cause of that conversation we ended up Googling "best photo of 2011" to see what the best one was. The site we ended up on was a set of images taken by a cameraman that showed scenes from conflicts and war zones.
One of the images was of an old man in Pakistan who was sat blood covered on the ground surrounded by rubble and just behind him was a pile of clothes after a suicide bomb blast. On closer inspection and when I read the caption with the photo the pile of clothes was a 2 year old baby that had been killed by the blast. I felt so sad. The image had an hypnotic effect on me as I found it difficult to understand how anybody could justify this scene.
As much as we are reported news quickly these days we at times are saved from the true horrors of what happens in our world for the fear we will find the images upsetting. Well I think now it's about time we started to get upset because in a modern world things happening in the images I saw must become a thing of the past.
I wake up this morning in a warm house, free to wonder about today without the fear of attack for my religious or political beliefs and in a country where the atrocities that happen almost daily in parts of the world less then a 4 hour plane journey away are unheard of.
We must never take the peace we live in for granted as it was earned at a price and that price is still been paid today by our armed forces all over the world and its a peace so many millions of people have never had. So the next time you think about complaining that things are tough in the Uk or that your home town or city is a mess, give a thought for those sharing this planet with us who would view our lifestyle as paradise.
GB
Saturday, 18 February 2012
Sunday, 5 February 2012
What could you do in a day?
Think about the question for a moment! "what could you do in a day?" and I am not taking about the stuff you may normally do just to get through it, I am talking about what could you do today if you really wanted to make it count.
What if today was your last day on earth what would you do with it? and if the answer was go to the pub and get pissed, you didn't deserve the life in the first place!
Would you lounge about in bed until lunchtime and then watch telly for 8 hours until it was bedtime? probably not. I am sure you would have things that you would do and in fact we all have that choice ever single day, to use it well and make it count or just waste it. But let me tell you something you already know, once the day has gone you don't get it back and its one less you have on this planet. You see people live like they will never die, and then people die like they have never lived!
SO what could you do today? start a new project, get involved with a local community group, start to clean the garage like you have been saying for the last 3 years! or maybe stop something, stop the junk food and bad eating habits, stop eating time watching TV, stop putting off making the call to someone. You could take the family out or go and visit someone you have not seen for years. You could do so many things, but will you?
I made a decision a long time ago that I would always look on life with a positive attitude and look at where I could add value and make a difference and guess what I get lots of opportunities to do both.
So today whatever your doing look for ways to make it count so when you do go to bed at the end of the day you can be happy in yourself that you made it count!
What if today was your last day on earth what would you do with it? and if the answer was go to the pub and get pissed, you didn't deserve the life in the first place!
Would you lounge about in bed until lunchtime and then watch telly for 8 hours until it was bedtime? probably not. I am sure you would have things that you would do and in fact we all have that choice ever single day, to use it well and make it count or just waste it. But let me tell you something you already know, once the day has gone you don't get it back and its one less you have on this planet. You see people live like they will never die, and then people die like they have never lived!
SO what could you do today? start a new project, get involved with a local community group, start to clean the garage like you have been saying for the last 3 years! or maybe stop something, stop the junk food and bad eating habits, stop eating time watching TV, stop putting off making the call to someone. You could take the family out or go and visit someone you have not seen for years. You could do so many things, but will you?
I made a decision a long time ago that I would always look on life with a positive attitude and look at where I could add value and make a difference and guess what I get lots of opportunities to do both.
So today whatever your doing look for ways to make it count so when you do go to bed at the end of the day you can be happy in yourself that you made it count!
Saturday, 21 January 2012
Keeping up the resolutions
Well it's now 3 weeks into 2012 and I wonder how everyone is doing with their resolutions? I have noticed an big increase of new members at the gym on a morning and a lot more runners out and about in very clean and new looking trainers.
Any changes or resolutions need to be sustainable for them to be realistic and that's what I have focused on myself. 2012 for me personally is about more simplistic living and removing things from my life that are not necessary. In the last couple of weeks for last year I started to have a right good de-clutter, a practise I am continuing with in all areas of my life in my quest to live as lean as possible. I now approach any purchase or activity with a question "do i need to buy/do this? is it necessary? and the answer in many cases in this first 3 weeks is no! We don't need more stuff.
Having a desire to better yourself is a great thing but I believe the key to realising that desire is to keep everything very simple. A gym membership is a good, but if you are unsure you will use it after January, start off by going for a walk 3 times a week or doing some exercises and stretches at home every other evening and see how long you can keep this up for. If you find your walking and exercising at home at the end of February then there is a good chance you have the will to want to do it so go ahead and take on the commitment of a gym.
You see most people, and I have been one of them buy things so that the things will make all the difference when in reality in a lot of cases its just an excuse for us to start something a bit later if at all. "when I get my new laptop I will start doing the work!", "When I get the new Nike trainers with the bouncy soles I will be able to go running every day" and the classic, "I will start the diet when all the sweets and treats I got bought at Christmas are eaten" If you want to get going, do the work on a pad with a pen if needs be, go walking in strong shoes before the new Nikes arrive and get a big box and throw the sweet stuff away...if you won't do it today with what you have got you will never do it tomorrow with a load of new stuff!
Any changes or resolutions need to be sustainable for them to be realistic and that's what I have focused on myself. 2012 for me personally is about more simplistic living and removing things from my life that are not necessary. In the last couple of weeks for last year I started to have a right good de-clutter, a practise I am continuing with in all areas of my life in my quest to live as lean as possible. I now approach any purchase or activity with a question "do i need to buy/do this? is it necessary? and the answer in many cases in this first 3 weeks is no! We don't need more stuff.
Having a desire to better yourself is a great thing but I believe the key to realising that desire is to keep everything very simple. A gym membership is a good, but if you are unsure you will use it after January, start off by going for a walk 3 times a week or doing some exercises and stretches at home every other evening and see how long you can keep this up for. If you find your walking and exercising at home at the end of February then there is a good chance you have the will to want to do it so go ahead and take on the commitment of a gym.
You see most people, and I have been one of them buy things so that the things will make all the difference when in reality in a lot of cases its just an excuse for us to start something a bit later if at all. "when I get my new laptop I will start doing the work!", "When I get the new Nike trainers with the bouncy soles I will be able to go running every day" and the classic, "I will start the diet when all the sweets and treats I got bought at Christmas are eaten" If you want to get going, do the work on a pad with a pen if needs be, go walking in strong shoes before the new Nikes arrive and get a big box and throw the sweet stuff away...if you won't do it today with what you have got you will never do it tomorrow with a load of new stuff!
Saturday, 7 January 2012
Happy New Year 2012
Well after all the hype that every year precedes Christmas it's now over and done with and apart from a few bits of cheese still taking up space in my fridge, all but a fading memory.
I had a really good festive period and this year really tried to embrace a simpler approach to our celebrations that I am pleased to say worked very well. I would normally buy every sweet treat and cold cut of meat the local supermarket had to offer in an attempt to make sure we had enough food to get us through the 24 hours the shops were shut without the family starving, but not this year. I ensured we had a simple selection of food based around the traditional turkey dinner but made sure that each item was the best quality it could be and it turned out to be delicious with plenty to keep us going without any waste.
Even my choice of gifts this year was based on quality not quantity and everyone was genuinely happy with what Santa had brought them. And some of my normal traditions took a rest this year as I looked to poetry (the night before Christmas) to help the family get all Christmassy.
Really what the Christmas week was for me was really a forerunner to what to expect from me through 2012. My focus for the next 12 months is simpler living and concentrating on spending better quality time with the people that matter to me and on the projects that inspire me the most.
New Year has always been a special time for me because its always filled with a great sense of possibility and brings an actual fresh start that I find is so important. So now we are into 2012 what do we do with that feeling and how do we keep the enthusiasm for it going all the way through the next 12 months?
Well I believe it is to live each day well and focus on enjoying each experience we are faced with and to look for the lessons we can learn each day and be asking that important question so central to all I believe "how can I be better today than I was yesterday?"
I have committed to doing a diary again in 2012 as I want to record my journey in 2012 in a more traditional way and allow myself that few minutes each day with a pen and a book recalling what I have done in the last 24 hours, I find that exercise very calming and incredibly important.
So Happy New Year to you all and hope that you make 2012 a great year because when it really comes down to it how the next 12 month turn out will be in no small way down to you, your actions and your attitude.
Gareth
I had a really good festive period and this year really tried to embrace a simpler approach to our celebrations that I am pleased to say worked very well. I would normally buy every sweet treat and cold cut of meat the local supermarket had to offer in an attempt to make sure we had enough food to get us through the 24 hours the shops were shut without the family starving, but not this year. I ensured we had a simple selection of food based around the traditional turkey dinner but made sure that each item was the best quality it could be and it turned out to be delicious with plenty to keep us going without any waste.
Even my choice of gifts this year was based on quality not quantity and everyone was genuinely happy with what Santa had brought them. And some of my normal traditions took a rest this year as I looked to poetry (the night before Christmas) to help the family get all Christmassy.
Really what the Christmas week was for me was really a forerunner to what to expect from me through 2012. My focus for the next 12 months is simpler living and concentrating on spending better quality time with the people that matter to me and on the projects that inspire me the most.
New Year has always been a special time for me because its always filled with a great sense of possibility and brings an actual fresh start that I find is so important. So now we are into 2012 what do we do with that feeling and how do we keep the enthusiasm for it going all the way through the next 12 months?
Well I believe it is to live each day well and focus on enjoying each experience we are faced with and to look for the lessons we can learn each day and be asking that important question so central to all I believe "how can I be better today than I was yesterday?"
I have committed to doing a diary again in 2012 as I want to record my journey in 2012 in a more traditional way and allow myself that few minutes each day with a pen and a book recalling what I have done in the last 24 hours, I find that exercise very calming and incredibly important.
So Happy New Year to you all and hope that you make 2012 a great year because when it really comes down to it how the next 12 month turn out will be in no small way down to you, your actions and your attitude.
Gareth
Sunday, 18 December 2011
Eat, drink and be merry?
Friday this week saw me and my staff at The PICgroup celebrate our Christmas party. As we have a lot of Asian staff we tend to arrange a curry evening so we can all eat together and this year we had booked into a small restaurant in Dewsbury.
It as ever was great to see everyone together, the food was very good and this year the music was provided from selections all the staff gave me of favourite songs that using iTunes I turned into a double CD "Now Thats What I call PICgroup Music 1"
Following the meal some of our team headed on into the nightlife of Batley and Dewsbury to a stretch of bars and pubs those of us from these parts refer to as Bradford Rd. I chose to call it a night after the meal and driving home past the crowds on Bradford Rd, it was actually embarrassing to see the state of a lot of the folks having what I am sure they will call a good night!
I quit drinking back in 1998 when I decided it was becoming a too big a part of my life and that I was much better sober then with a drink inside me and I have never had an issue with other drinking but when is enough enough? there where countless people of all ages staggering and falling about, I noticed two fights and young women so drunk they were almost oblivious to the traffic as they wondered across the road in clothes and shoes that to be honest made them look like clowns.
We have such a drinking culture in this country and I am no mr grumpy believe me and feel its important for people to relax and enjoy a night out, but the sights of Friday night convince me we have a problem we need to address. We simply have to get people to avoid the excesses and start to behave in a better way on nights out. We have to raise peoples aspirations so that they have more in life then just living for the weekend and have better ways to enjoy themselves then consuming as much cheap, strong alcohol as is possible in a few hours.
Big Question is how? answers please to garethboot@gmail.com
It as ever was great to see everyone together, the food was very good and this year the music was provided from selections all the staff gave me of favourite songs that using iTunes I turned into a double CD "Now Thats What I call PICgroup Music 1"
Following the meal some of our team headed on into the nightlife of Batley and Dewsbury to a stretch of bars and pubs those of us from these parts refer to as Bradford Rd. I chose to call it a night after the meal and driving home past the crowds on Bradford Rd, it was actually embarrassing to see the state of a lot of the folks having what I am sure they will call a good night!
I quit drinking back in 1998 when I decided it was becoming a too big a part of my life and that I was much better sober then with a drink inside me and I have never had an issue with other drinking but when is enough enough? there where countless people of all ages staggering and falling about, I noticed two fights and young women so drunk they were almost oblivious to the traffic as they wondered across the road in clothes and shoes that to be honest made them look like clowns.
We have such a drinking culture in this country and I am no mr grumpy believe me and feel its important for people to relax and enjoy a night out, but the sights of Friday night convince me we have a problem we need to address. We simply have to get people to avoid the excesses and start to behave in a better way on nights out. We have to raise peoples aspirations so that they have more in life then just living for the weekend and have better ways to enjoy themselves then consuming as much cheap, strong alcohol as is possible in a few hours.
Big Question is how? answers please to garethboot@gmail.com
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