Traversing the Worlds

Category: enlightenment

It does not matter where you are… what matters is how you got there

I had an inkling that I was in trouble.

It wasn’t panic – but I was starting to get worried.

One kilometre into a team time trial session and I already felt really bad.

Surely, my legs (and lungs) would come good soon…..

The truth hit me at the as we came out of ‘Blood Hill’ (this was after the descent!). The second rise on the road at to Peats Ridge flipped me past the red line.

Not only did I not make it to the 20km turn (this was all now by myself), a short turn to join my returning team mates did not help. I got spat out again as soon as the road went up.

It was a lonely suffer fest back to the finish line.

This was just over a week ago. In my 30 odd years of racing, I have only raced time trials two or three times. The results were worse than bad.

… And this is why I hate time trials. I much prefer ‘sucking wheels’ in a bunch – taking advantage of the draft from my larger racing colleagues.

This year, Paul convinced me to join him, Denis and George In the club time trial championships in the over 250 years combined category.

I went out and bought my very first TT bar.

The Sydney Metro championships – Penrith Lakes.

The race track at Penrith Lakes circles the man made lake that was built for the 2000 rowing Olympics. There are no hills – but the finish line comes after some tricky chicanes.

Mostly, you can look up or across the lake to see what is happening on the track – and also to judge how far the break is ahead.

So, most people would describe it as a ‘sprinter’s course’.

I can’t sprint. (I have many flaws, in case you haven’t noticed. Can’t sprint, Can’t time trial, Can’t ride hills…)

And that is probably the reason that I have never won a Metro championship.

But I have always lived in hope. If Steven Bradbury can get a gold medal against overwhelming odds… then there is always hope.

“…Some people grow old and wise – the rest just gets old”

Trevor put in a lone attack halfway in the first lap. He is the Australian champ in my age category.

I went after him.

We thought we had a gap. But soon, I heard heavy breathing behind me and shadows. They weren’t going to let us get away so easily.

Adam rode up to me at the end of that lap and asked “ who is the strong guy in the Aussie kit?”

“The strongest one in the race…” I shouted back at him. I hoped that it was loud enough for the others in the bunch to hear.

As we went into our second lap, everyone seemed to be on Trevor’s wheel.

When you have raced enough, you develop an instinct that sizes up the situation. And if you let your instincts take over, the state of ‘FLOW’ shuts down mind chatter.

I jumped the bunch from 5^th wheel. Trevor was at the front and I was counting on a hesitation from him.

A rider pulling along a bunch of ‘wheel suckers’ would instinctively think “Let some other bastard chase him…”

I settled in.

When you make an attack, you don’t look back. You just keep the watts going and try to get into a rhythm.

When I did take a peek… I had a good gap.

My hope was to have Trevor attack the bunch and bridge across. Then the two of us would have a chance to stay away.

Another lap in and still no one coming across.

Another 5 laps to go and I was not looking forward to riding all those by myself.

“Time trialling is an art”

This was the advice George and Paul gave me after I bombed out at Calga.

You get low. Your forearms are horizontal. And you just see a bit of road in front of you.

And you just suffer and pedal.

But you do get into a rhythm.

I had no TT bars. But I have discovered a position on the hoods that puts me into that streamlined position.

…And I just went for it.

Get low and flat

With 3 laps to go, I had a minute gap.

“What’s the gap again?” I asked when I start the second last lap.

“45 seconds”

The sound of the bell is like an air hose to a drowning man. Only to be bettered by “still 44 seconds”.

Cruising through the chicanes for one last time… this time with no sprinters around me, I soft pedalled to the finish.

27 seconds later, the sprinters raced for silver.

I won the gold medal

…So what?

Without the story, a gold medal is just a coloured piece of fake metal.

Put the medal away and cherish the story.

July 10, 2018
When you get to 60… how many more birthdays do you have?

Saturday 8^th July 2017.

It was a beautiful Sydney morning and freezing. Temperatures hung around 3 degrees as the sun’s waking rays hit the tops of the tallest buildings and slowly inched its way earthwards…

We had planned to do a Coluzzi ride with the slow bunch. For hundreds of Saturdays, we have gone for early morning rides.

This time, It was so cold and Dave decided that we should not wait for the bunch to come pass before we joined them. We would start riding and wait for them to catch us…

So we started off the highway – just the two of us. At times, we would take up the whole left lane and all we had were front lights that we needed to see where we were going, and flashing tail lights so that the speeding car drivers behind us did not mow us down.

We went through the airport tunnel and a patient motorist behind us allowed the negotiation of the tricky and dangerous exit merge.

We spoke about racing on Sunday – my birthday.

On how accidents can happen during racing…

We spoke about lots of things.

I was hanging on the tail end of the speeding bunch on the return leg. We were coming through Engadine on the Princes Highway and on the slight rise along the Dover place segment, Dave started dropping back on the left side after doing a turn on the front.

I shouted at him to get back on as I went past him.

A few seconds later, I heard the sickening sounds of metal, carbon fibre and soft tissue hitting the tarmac behind me. I had bad feelings as I stopped and rode back to the tangle of bikes and bodies on the road.

I had a feeling that it was going to be Dave in massive trouble.

And it was.

Memories are precious

Sunday 9^th July 2017.

It is another beautiful frosty Sydney morning.

Shirley had asked me a while back what I wanted for my grand 60^th birthday.

I said that all I wanted was to take the ‘little people’ to the snow. My grand kids have never seen snow before.

So, we spent most of last week at Perisher and Blue Cow.

In a last minute turn of events, Only Josh and Ashton could come. Ollie stayed home with her parents.

We made snowmen. Threw snow balls. And they boys learnt to ski.

This will be my most memorable birthday.

We live dangerous lives. When we end up on a hospital bed, all we will have will be memories.

Experiences create memories that last.

The latest expensive gifts, things and toys are easily forgotten.

At 60, life for me is a distilled collection of memories.

How much more birthdays after 60 does not matter.

What matters is how many more memories there are left to create.

July 9, 2017
Value – not to be confused with money.

“Money doesn’t motivate me in the least. It’s an integral part of our life sure, but the day it defines you – you lose your other values.” (Day 13 – August 14)

http://www.maxacrossamerica.com/blog/day-8-14/day-13-august-14/

Maxim Hatton is a Queensland doctor.

Right now, he is just a lonely human being on a Giant doing a solo ride across USA. Whilst most of us ride for fun, Maxim is doing this to try to discover what the word ’value’ in life is all about…

I joked to Ian Jackson last week that while other cycling clubs have their club houses, the Waratahs just have an old van. But we organise the best masters racing in Sydney.

Currently, to get our van to our races, we have a dentist having to get up early every Sunday morning so that the race circuit and race management can be put in place. Then he has to wait until all the packing up has been done after the racing… so that he can get home late.

I am sure that if James Tan billed us his dental rate for the hours spend providing this service, we will have to charge a lot more for race entries. When we work out that we only pay $4.80 to participate in quality racing every Sunday (and with a chance of a prize at the end for some) – that is value.

The deputy Mayor of Auburn made news today. His lavish wedding shut down the entire street. People with money should be entitled to spend it whichever way they wish. The question is whether the money spend will bring any more value to the marriage. I guess only time will tell.

When Tom Cruise screamed Jerry Maguire’s ‘…show me the money!’, he voiced our fixation with money rather than value. Somehow the alternative ‘…show me the value!’ does not carry the same emotional energy.

Value and money are two totally different things (although they follow each other around all the time). The reason that value gets mixed up with money is because some smart economist started to use money to measure value. The reality is that there is no measure for value. Just like there is no measurement for ‘the stink of a fart’.

…or how do you value the Waratah Masters Cycling Club?

Our lonely cyclist Maxim Hatton has escaped the clutches of the money magnet and his blog as he pushes himself through the American landscape makes for some interesting reading. It is a look of the world from a set of eyes with a clarity reserved for those who have been through life and back.

A tiny start up company called Google set about to make it easy to search the vast resources of the internet. For a long time, it made no money. It just kept piling on its value for successful relevant searches for anyone who wanted to use its services for free.

Now it is worth a third of the whole of Australia!

The secret is not looking for the money. Value is where it starts. Money just seems to follow it.

August 16, 2015
It does not matter what you do – you will piss someone off

I had just dropped Shirley off at the waiting bay outside Strathfield train station. With indicators blinking, I had a quick look at my rear vision mirror… and there was just one car on the traffic lane just driving past – so I let it go and slowly pulled out after it.

Two angry blasts of the horn jolted my eyes back to my wing mirror. A huge Mercedes had just popped up on my rear right. I had no idea how it got there so quickly… but I got the message that he was a bit pissed off by my bad driving.

Cyclists braving the roads get similar treatment by many car drivers. A person on a bike (innocently minding their own business) is seen as a hindrance rather than a legitimate road user.

We went down to Canberra over the weekend for a bit of family time. My two grandsons had a great time catching up with their uncles and we spent Sunday at the Questacon.

Josh (almost turning three), produced a serious look in the middle of playing and said “…I don’t like your At-ti-tude!”. It can be a bit alarming when you hear this from an adult – let alone from a toddler in nappies…You can really piss someone off by these words.

Le Tour is quite central to my daily routine and during the weekend, the most newsworthy was Frenchmen throwing piss on Chris Froome. Then there was the physical and verbal abuse at the Sky riders all thrown into the mix. .What should be admiration seems easily twisted into anger.

Imagine straining yourself mentally and physically to the limit. It is the best that you can produce. Yet, it pisses some people off. When nothing that you do is good enough, it can be mentally destroying. Let’s hope the Sky team can still continue to produce their best – despite the knockers.

Perhaps, it is because the Sky team has made cycle racing so much of a science that it has left their competitors scratching their heads. Science has a habit of showing us how fallible our sense of righteousness can be.

Questacon is quite a showcase of exhibits using science and technology to show us that much of what we think is right… is in fact somehow misguided. There is an exhibit that shows how you can take perfectly straight lines and make them seem curved – by just adding in some distractions.

Back to the honking car…

I had done a perfect exit from the waiting bay – yet it was nowhere good enough for the rampaging Mercedes.

Little Josh has little inkling about what an attitude is. You may think that he has an advanced vocabulary or that he was deliberately being cheeky.

It turns out that the phrase is contained in a nursery rhyme called “Little Bunny Foo Foo” that he sings at child care. A very simple reason – yet, can be misunderstood in many ways.

If science can prove that humans can see a straight line as curved, what hope is there that your best is indeed any good when viewed by another human being?

I swear that those lines in Canberra were crooked.

…It all just goes to show that when perfection can be seen quite innocently as imperfect – that nothing can ever be perfect in this world.

Which brings us to the moral of this tale.
“Your best is good enough…. Don’t ever try to be perfect (or you will live a life full of disappointment)”

July 22, 2015
Getting older? Why bother?

Just to think that is was 50 not so long ago

I just turned 58.

At this stage in our lives, most people will look at life as “Been there…Done that”. After all, the reason the government made 60 the retirement age when we entered the industrialised age, was that we only had a 65 year life span. These days, we are expected to go beyond 80.

So, as we head for 60 and beyond, we should be looking at life as “Right here…Doing this”.

Why bother?

Getting old gives me perspective. It is not something that a teenager or a young adult has any inkling about. Only age can provide this insight.

This perspective can be seen from the two vantage points of Possibilities and Probabilities. Usually, when I see things for myself, I have a much better understanding. And when you have been looking at things for over 57 years…you see a lot of things. Now, I understand a hell of a lot more.

I am going to list below the things I have seen for myself and comment on what has been possible and what have been most probable for most people. It is not meant to a judgemental thing. Just some personal observations…

Money: Making more money is still in the fore front of most people’s minds.

It is possible to get to a stage in your life and realise that you have enough money. For now and for the future. This means no more having to do things just for the money. My mum and dad said this to me when they were in their late 80’s and 90’s –“…we have enough money. Don’t think that you have to keep making more money all your life…”

Now I know that they did not lie.

I still work hard and do things. But that is because I like doing things to the max (guess why I still race A grade – when I could be retiring to a lower grade…). Somehow, I just can’t stop my bank account from getting bigger.

Looking at the probabilities around me, I also realise that money is still a big issue for most people. The 80/20 rule means that most people will probably not realise that they have enough money. There is nothing that I (or perhaps you) can do about it. I only observe and make comment.

Family. The stable family unit is an exception.

The probabilities point to a 50% divorce rate. Add that to families that are as good as divorced and you can easily get up to 80%.

It is possible to have a tight family unit. This is one where independence is allowed to grow and dependence is nurtured. Differences and personalities add the spice – but does not ruin the meal.

If you fall into this category, feel blessed.(I feel blessed every day)…

Career: It is not what they make it out to be.

The probabilities are that the career path that you have chosen will shortly come to an end. What now?

It is possible to go through life without a career path. Instead, if the focus in our working life was just to do things that provide value to others…it is a mission that has no end. I do not anticipate that I will be thrown into the career scrap heap any time soon – simply because I do not have a career.

Personal Growth: I do not mean putting on more weight!

Sometimes, when I go into my ‘childish moments’ – my wife tells me to ‘grow up!’. We all receive life experiences as the years fly by. They are meant to make us grow up.

It is quite probable that the life experiences are treated as mosquitoes at a barbeque on a warm summer’s night. A nuisance that only deserves to be killed off. The quicker the better. You can lead a horse to water – but you can’t force it to drink. Most people just don’t drink.

It is possible to take the blessings and hard knocks that come your way in your stride – and let them infuse you with deep emotions that you have to work through. Eventually, you will come out the other side a bigger person (and I don’t mean size).

Physical: There is a log graph in there some where…

Half our population is out of shape. When a thing is out of shape, it does not look like it should be. When a human is out of shape, not only do they look a bit disproportionate, their ability to put in physical efforts is also compromised.

With 50% obesity and similar proportion being unfit, the 80% portion is easy to reach. So, it is quite probable that you are out of shape. But your physical shape has very little to do with age (and this is where the log graph comes in).

It is quite possible to be quite old and be in great physical shape.

My speed on my bike is faster now then it was when I was in my university days. And I can go just as hard for just as long (no jokes about sex – please). I just find that I do not recover from hard efforts as quickly. I am the same weight and everything still functions quite well-despite all the accidents and broken bones.

Spiritual: This is about the spirit – not religion.

I notice that all the spiritual gurus have no religion. Religion tends to cloud our understanding of spirit and with so many people being religious, it is quite probable that the majority of us draw a blank on spiritual issues.

It is possible to live this life and the next without a religion. It is possible to be the fish in the aquarium and marine biologist at the same time. You become a better fish when you know about the great oceans and yet still swim around in the controlled environment of the ‘fishpond’.

It is possible not to fear death because you know that there is no such thing.

Social: facebook is to blame.

It is the social aspect of life that I find hard to define.

It is quite probable that you are on facebook (where everyone wants to be friends) or you just have lots of ‘friends’.

I am quite happy being with myself. Some people have no friends. So, it is quite possible to spend your life talking to yourself.

But the very nature of life means that we can only play with other players. So, at every moment in life, there is an interaction with another. But that interaction can be without words.

It is probable that you think being a social animal is all about talking.

It is remotely possible that you have found that you can socialise on a more meaningful level without saying a word…

THE END

Is it worth getting older? I hope that my observations above can open up some of the possibilities that this life can bring…

July 10, 2015
There are only two types of problems.

There are only two types of problems worth solving. And they are MY and OUR problems.

It is nice to have a bit of fine weather now. It has been wet and stormy lately and as a roof repairer, I get told about lots of roofing problems. And when you get problems all day long, it gets you down. I feel sorry for doctors and dentists. They get a fresh problem every 15 to 30 minutes…. It is no wonder that doctors call for the pill.

We live in a world full of problems. If we feel that there is not enough, we create some more. In a consumer orientated world, the marketers love creating problems because they have just the right product to fix it. In fact, the whole world economy is based on people saying that they can solve someone else’s problems.

We have doctors (sorry to all the doctors out there…I picked you because you are an easy target) who are on the opposite end of the scale in optimal health dishing out medical advice. And Clergy of questionable morality preaching a sinless life. Every profession has examples of “do as I say. Not as I do”.

It is easy to have solutions for someone else’s problems. But they will not do you much good.

A life simplified is a life that is easy to live. And I have a simple approach to attacking life’s problems. Firstly, there is only one problem worth solving. And that is MY problem that I have on my plate at the moment. Everyone else’s problems are theirs. They can keep them.

This approach may scream “selfish”. But if everyone can keep their problems to themselves and solve them without outside help – then there will be no more problems in the world!

Fortunately, this is not how the world works. So, we are stuck with problems as long as we have people on this earth. Problems make the world go around.

Which brings us to the second type of problem worth solving.

Human beings are social beings. We just can’t stop doing things together.

So, once we finally figure out how to solve our own problems, we like to take on fresh challenges. When I go out to look at a roof leak, the house owner’s problem becomes my problem also. And I willingly turn the whole thing into OUR problem.

Great organisations are built on individuals putting in their collective efforts to solve ‘OUR’ problems. It is taking ownership. And the results show that it is worth doing. An example is our Waratah Masters Cycling Club. A collective effort to provide a solution for all us old folks who crave for a race every weekend.

May 25, 2015
It was only a Small Thing…

It wasn’t just the sharp pain that made him wince. It was also the damned inconvenience.

He had just poked his hands into the brown paper bag to fish out the first of the hot chips. The pain made him let go. His first instinctive move was to stick his finger into his mouth to wash the salt away.

He remembered the moment that he first felt the sharp pain. It had happened early in the morning and it would bother him all day. There was nothing dangerous about what he was doing that morning. He had been to the stationery cupboard many times previously and had always got what he wanted without any incident. But this time as he pulled on a ream of paper, he got cut.

It did not make sense that something as small as a paper cut could spoil his whole day….After all, he was the occupational health and safety officer for the company and he could imagine the laughter if he was to produce a safe work statement for handling paper!

Simon Gerrans went down twice at Liege-Bastogne-Leige. His year started with a crash. He is a professional cyclist and knows how to ride a bike. Yet, something as minor as a touch of wheels or a misplaced obstacle can spoil a whole season.

It is the small things that can make the big difference. If something as senseless as getting a cut from a piece of paper can spoil a whole day, then it is the opposite little things (like a smile at a stranger) that we can do which can set us up for a great life.

A lifetime is built one day at a time. And most things that we do on a daily basis are just fillers . It is like all the hay in a haystack that buries the needle. We can jump around on the haystack day after day with nothing much happening. Until the day we happen to step on that needle.

Just as the appearance of small things that can spoil our whole day, there are opportunities every day for finding those small things that we can do which will ultimately lead to happier results,

How do we find those things?

Usually, we have no idea what those things are. Just like the paper cut, those moments will appear when we least expect it to. It is up to us to recognise them when they appear and then do the right thing before the window of opportunity closes.

May 25, 2015
Anatomy of an Anxiety Attack

It was a feeling of mounting panic. The area just below the heart felt like hardening concrete and all my limbs felt heavy. My mind was racing off into many directions and refused all efforts of reining in. Nothing felt right…

This was the onset of my anxiety attack.

Life serves up moments. Like the racing bunch that suddenly slows down and we are forced to make fast corrections so that crashing into the riders in front of us can be avoided. For seasoned riders, there is no panic. Just a practised reaction. For others, it may bring on a moment of panic – which can slow reactions down and cause a crash.

Then there is the type of panic I felt when Shirley asked “which day is our wedding anniversary?”. When you forget the date of your wedding, you can get into deep trouble – and I had to use all my dodging and weaving techniques to survive that question.

Panic moments come and go in our lives. We usually handle them in our stride. It is when we try to take on too much – day in and day out, that panic moments multiply and turn into a full blown anxiety attack.

I lead an extremely busy life. Most of it is consumed by my roofing business. As a business owner, there are two main stress generators. The first is CLIENTS. Expectations, demands, fulfilment and service takes a lot of management. Then there are the employees. Not only do I have make enough money to feed my family, I am the sole source of my worker’s livelihood. They rely on me to feed their families…

On a daily basis, when I see all the work that has to be done and compare that with my resources, there is a gap. And the more I think about it, the greater that gap seems to grow. This is usually the onset of my anxiety attack. And sometimes, this can go on all day.

We are coming in to the business end of the European racing season, and when we tune into a race, there is the mandatory early morning breakaway enjoying a time gap. The novice viewer would watch most of the race and think that the breakaway has a chance of succeeding. It is an anxiety fest. Will they or wont they bridge the gap in time?

The peloton somehow times the catch in perfection – to allow the favourites to show off their talents on the finish line. On some rare occasions, the breakaways succeed and we get to cheer the opportunists. Either way, racing comes to an end on that day and resumes the next.

There is a strategy to combat an anxiety attack. It is to just pretend that you are in the peloton. It will take a bit of work, but the gap will be closed down by the end of the day. And you don’t have to do it all by yourself either. There is always help close by. And if by chance, you cannot bridge the gap, then there is always tomorrow to look forward to.

April 17, 2015
Nobody is keeping your score

Fairness and justice is pure fiction.

Every few weeks, I take up the role of ‘commissaire’ on a Sunday club race. My job is to ensure that the racing is fair and safe. And this tends to result in my hearing of complaints post-race about rider behaviour.

And I am supposed to keep scores and make a fair judgement…. Something that I am ill equipped to do.

As we go through life, we tend to collect ‘scores that we have to settle…’

Is this how we keep score?

Scoring tends to feature prominently in how we live our lives. There is a score to every type of game we play. Singles rate ‘SCORING’ fairly high on their weekend agenda. And even music has a score.

I have a slight leaning towards the belief of ‘Karma’ – although I know that the whole concept is flawed. Karma relies on the fact that someone is keeping score (specifically YOUR score)…

When in fact, the only one who keeps your score is yourself….and any other scores that involve you (as kept by others) – is only to make things interesting for them.

There is no grand register that keeps score of every human being – past present or future…Such a register would make Google’s huge search database seem like a drop of water in the oceans of the world. It is just not possible for someone even as powerful as GOD to administer such a register….especially if there is no reason for it.

Life happens by moments. As a racing cyclist in the heat of battle in a peloton, I have moments. And during those moments, I get to make decisions (and sometimes, the decision seems to be taken off my hands). Once those moments happen, it is never repeated. Keeping score only provide a memory of what happened. It has no weight to affect the scales of justice – which themselves are not real.

But in a world fixated by measuring things, keeping score is built into our DNA. Life in this world would lose one of its greatest dimensions if we did not keep score.

I do my business and personal financial accounts. It is the money scoring game. I remember all the times that Shirley forgot my birthday (and the times that I forgot hers). But no one else is keeping track of these the way I do. My scores are just part of the games I play and it does not need to be uploaded to a grand central register for settlement.

When you turn up for racing on a Sunday, just remember that the commissaire is not there to settle your scores. The commissaires will not help you get even with another rider. That should never be their job, because they do not keep that style of scoring sheet.

Things happen in racing and none of it is anyone’s fault. Throw a bunch of racing cyclists together and you will see a multitude of styles and abilities…We have ex-pros, state and national champions together with no-name amateurs all fighting for a chance of a $50 prize. It does not matter how many medals you have on your dressing table. It makes no difference to the outcome of the race for everyone else…

By all means keep your own scores – but rest assured that they will evaporate into thin air the moment you leave this world.

April 3, 2015
The Key to Happiness – a matter of definition.

Is this living happily ever after?

I grew up into a world of stories. Many of these were fairy tales – the type where the main characters finally got married and lived happily ever after….

As I pushed into adulthood and got married – I found that my story did not quite match those that I was told. It seemed like marriage and living happily were like oil and water. They just don’t go together.

Being happy and enjoying life is up there as the top goals for most human beings. The definition of a life goal is “something that you keep reaching for – but never ever get”. If you are thirsty, you just grab a drink…and quenching your thirst is no longer a goal.

The reason that being happy stays up there as a top life goal throughout the centuries…is that we just don’t know how to go about getting there.

So, what is happiness?

It is hard to be happy if we don’t know exactly what it is.

For most people, they think that happiness is when “all their ducks are in a row”. Everything is happening the way they want it to….

In life, nothing ever goes the way you want it to go ALL the time. So, by definition, you will never be “happy ever after”. That is the world’s problem with trying to be happy.

In the tradition of marriage, there is a set of vows that is echoed by the bride and groom. It is never really taken to heart by the participants – but buried in these vows is the true key to happiness. Perhaps that is why my fairy tales kept saying “get married and you will live happily ever after”…

Most of us have had the experience of “being in the zone”. When we are in this state, everything seems effortless. We are set to conquer everything that is sent to challenge us. If you can be in the zone all your life, would you be happy?

Perhaps that is why superheroes are so popular. They have the powers to overcome challenges that mere mortals struggle with.

“…for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health…”. All us married folks remember these words. And all of us have been through these exact things. And the test of a marriage is how the couple handle this part.

I recently heard a definition of true happiness which fits in well with my fairy tales about marriage and happiness. It is about the most accurate definition that I have come across so far in my life and if I can get my head around it, I will be “happy Jack” for the rest of my life….

“Happiness is NOT having everything going right in your life. True happiness is when you know deep within your heart that you have the power to handle ERVERYTHING that happens to come your way in your life…”

…Now, put that in your pipe and smoke it!

March 8, 2015