I was out an about on Saturday night and had a revelation… I’m getting OLD. Sometime, in the past year or so, I have made the transition between being a young, self-conscious, 20 something year old, to being one of those people I never thought I’d become.

I remember, some years ago, when in town, we’d look at the ‘tragic’ 30 something year olds who were dancing around like crazy people. “poor them”, we’d say. “they obviously only get out once in a blue moon, and look at that dancing…”

So when I found myself in a bar, discussing my growing desire to move to the suburbs and have babies and a lawn, before leaping up to the dance floor, where we proceeded to make absolute fools of ourselves, while the 20 somethings jiggled self-concisely and looked at us like we were tragic… It hit me.

Being older is AWESOME.

Every year, you shed more and more of those issues that plague your early twenties. You stop caring what pother people think, how you ‘should’ behave, you start talking to strangers in the street without fear they’ll think you’re weird, and when someone says you’re about to hit the age where single ladies sit at home crying into their chips, you smile and think ‘well the chips part sounds nice’.

It’s really nice to enter an age when you feel comfortable with yourself and all your quirks. These days, I know I can live life by my own rules. I don’t have to do things the way other people might expect, and i they don’t like it, I don’t feel any requirement to change for them.

People my whole life have told me that getting older is actually a good thing. I think I finally understand why :)

I’m a big fan of tax in theory, but do find myself grumpy on the days I actually pay it.

So, I devised a devious plan to trick myself out of that cloud of darkness on tax day. I opened a separate tax bank account, where I funnel money out of sight and out of mind. This way, I am not at all emotionally attached to it, in no way consider it mine, and in theory, happily send it through to the IRD without second thought.

Great theory. But because I am a girl/hopeless, my brain then over thinks it and tries to out trick my tax strategy by paying tax out of my normal account, so I freak out at how little is left behind, and get stuck in being productive… And maybe wind up with a surprise windfall at some stage.

Some times, psychological warfare against yourself is extremely hard.

Hello tax day :(

It seems I’m doing an entire series on the subject!

Last night, I was involved in a really interesting discussion with someone who is struggling a lot with some major life decisions… Some key points:

• If you hate your workmates, but in theory, love your job, does quitting make you a failure?
• What is ‘success’? At what point do you stop ‘knuckling down’ and walk away happy in the knowledge that you made the right call?
• What happens if you don’t currently have a ‘plan’ for your life? Do you need one?

It seems that while my generation and those to come obsessively worry about these questions, it’s a relatively new thing to do. Especially for us girls. I doubt many of our mothers sat down and wondered how their career impacted on their life plans, or how successful they wanted to be (I know some did, but this underlying feeling of immense pressure seems quite new).

While life sounds pretty awful for women when they had no choice, the impact of choice has led us to have an ongoing battle with ourselves about what on earth we should be focusing on and how much we should be focusing on it. Especially when what we really want to do seems to fly in the face of all expectations for us.

It may, on the surface, seem like a pretty shallow issue. We have it all, for goodness sake, why are some of us driving ourselves sick with worry, and almost paralyzed with indecision? Why don’t we just get on with it?

But, while I’ve managed to navigate through my decisions with little anxiety, I have come to understand that this is a very real problem, with very real and very bad consequences… And none of us seem to know what advice to give, because we don’t know yet, for sure, that we will end up happier by forgoing the ups and downs of success for a simpler life.

Whenever someone comments on some atrocity in the world and wonders how it could ever happen, I’m amazed they can’t see the ability within themselves.

The recent riots in London are a case in point. Yes, there appeared to be an initial and somewhat genuine reason for the initial protest, but by the end, it was a case of mob mentality. In a country where mobs of angry rioters are about as rare as snow is in Wellington central (funny they both happened within weeks of each other), all it took was ONE spark, and boom, people went crazy.

In the aftermath of the earthquake in Christchurch, the police came down hard on looters – even in some slightly pathetic cases. But I wonder if they are acutely aware that one case of looting in a time of uncertainty can so easily lead to chaos. It seems to happen time and time again – even in times of great joy. It seems that we struggle to differentiate between emotions, and in times of extremes they meld together.

We, as humans, seem to have this weird and totally unjustified belief that we are somehow better than our instincts and we are completely in control of ourselves. I wonder if that by acknowledging that we, in fact, appear to have very little control of ourselves when the mob strikes, we might, as individuals, be a little more self-aware in those situations.

It’s terrifying to see how we lose all sense of individual beliefs and strength in the face of a mob. Coming from a country like NZ, where there’s so few of us, we all feel unique, it’s interesting to see how quickly that notion disappears in favour of a herd mentality.

I’ve been waiting in eager anticipation to see how the world starts to react to major sporting organisations forbidding the unauthorsied use of the names of their events.

Seems to me all publicity is good publicity, in an age when everything vying for consumers attention, but what do I know? However, if I was part of the gang of organisations who could benefit fromt he influx of guests, I would have thought it would have been a good plan to come up with an ‘unauthorised’ name that was widely recognisable.

It just feels like a bit of a joke when no one can say the name of the event!

After going through some decidedly average times in my life, the concept of ‘happiness’ has been something I’ve thought about a lot.

This article from Stuff.co.nz is pretty interesting. I think we all believe to a certain extent that money DOESN’T buy happiness… although we all probably would like to test the theory for ourselves.

However, it appears that we are all wrong. Money CAN buy happiness, but maybe not in the way we were all expecting. It’s not the iPhones, big houses, luxury yachts etc that buy happiness, it’s using the money well.

Money buys you security, the ability to sleep at night without worrying about how you will pay for food and shelter tomorrow, the more you have, the more days in the future feel secure. But the thing is, that only takes a relatively small amount of money. Once you’ve hit that mark, the rest doesn’t really buy a lot more security at all.

Money buys you the ability to contribute time, ideas and money to causes you believe in (whether they be non-profit or otherwise). To see the world and actually make a difference. I think anyone who has ever given even a gold coin donation knows the buzz giving gives, its seem that buzz grows alongside the size of the contribution.

Money buys you time. Eight hours a day that you don’t HAVE to be working for anyone else.

But it also seems a lot of these benefits can be gained by being clever about how you live any way – basically the same old advice of living life to the full, focusing on friends and family, finding a job you love, and giving more than you take.

One thing I’ve noticed though, as someone who has tried to live by that philosophy for a few years now. Focusing on relationships has it’s own downsides. If you prioritise them highly, it’s far, far easier for them to make you miserable! A sole focus on making money to make yo happy is so much simpler than trying to live a happy life through a complex web of friends, family, work and social contribution.

But then again, I’ve also heard the advice that the one and only way to be happy, is just by deciding to be…

Wow it’s been a while.

I could blame my recent trip to Malaysia – pics of me in a Sari at a Hindu wedding to come, I could blame our office move (those of you who know and love the ‘cave’ will be pleased to hear that our new diggs are a major improvement), I could even blame a really busy work year, or that I now live my life on Facebook.

But I think, in all honesty, I’ve had nothing to say in the past few months.

I love times like this. Things are changing. I’ve been tinkering with the idea for the last year or so of going solo – as people have left Decisive Flow, I haven’t made much effort to replace them. I’ve been running the company since I was very young, and I think that now, in my late twenties, I have to think really honestly about how much commitment it is to be responsible for not only delivering excellent work to clients, but to be responsible for the livelihoods of others.

I remember in the early days I wanted to build a 5-10 person strong team, one that I could walk in and out of at will. I suppose that shows how much I’ve learned!

Now the two of us are turning into one, I thought this might be a great time to take a step back, work on my own for a bit and decide what I want to do. I’ve never worked on my own, I think I should try it on for size.

It’s also a good time to sit back and think about the big picture. Where I want to head, paying off mortgages, what to do next, how to get some eggs in different baskets… How to confront this growing, nagging feeling that Im making major life decisions (where I live, what I spend my time doing, traveling and working), based on the fact that I feel a little stuck here in Wellington.

So sorry for the silence, sorry even more for the stream-of-consciousness, and I’ll keep you posted on these new changes :)

I heard/read/watched an interesting study on politeness the other day. The basic idea was to show the conflicting opinions on politeness between the generic British way and the generic German way.

The difference (and all very stereotyped of course):
British people (and I suppose Americans and New Zealanders?) tend to say things like ‘nice to see you again’, ‘you should come round for dinner sometime’… Even if we don’t mean them

Germans think that’s outrageously rude because it’s blatant lies, while we can’t understand their bluntness.

If you expand this beyond nations to personality types, it gets sort of interesting.

I’ve sort of never really questioned all those little lies we say to smooth things over… But it actually doesn’t. It’s confusing and frustrating and leaves us all second guessing each other. I (since reading this) have also noticed an increased tendency on my behalf to find it amusing when I spot someone saying something they really don’t mean… It’s amazing how much it happens.

It’s funny when you realise how much of what we believe is ‘true’ is a total product of our environment. I, for one, am going to attempt to be a little less flippant with throwing out meaningless words!

Many of those who visit this blog may think we’ve been sitting on our hands all year (apparently updating our portfolio is last on my to-do list), however, one note-worthy recent release is the Missing Wingman Trust.

For those who don’t live in NZ, we’ve lost quite a few servicemen in the last couple of years. The numbers may seem small on a global level, but in a village like our country, there’s not that many unaffected by their loss.

The Missing Wingman Trust has been established for the families of those lost in the Airforce. It’s not all about money, or any fixed set of deliverables, but a group of people who want to show their support for the families left behind.

Something many of us don’t realise is that those lost in the line of duty aren’t covered as well as you would expect. There is no Government subsidy for the families who are left without a primary breadwinner, outside of the usual ACC payments. The Missing Wingman Trust hopes to provide a little more, from people offering to mow lawns, or contribute to hampers during the hard time, through to supporting children through school.

This weekend is one of their first major fundraisers. I know it’s late notice, but if you are in Palmerston North tonight, head along. There’s some good acts lined up, and it’s a nice way of showing that we haven’t forgotten. If you have any other ideas or anything you can offer to help out, let them know!

For the first time since records began (I think) New Zealand had a Queens Birthday Weekend without a single death on the roads.

I’m a big fan of keeping people alive and think that this result is astounding. It also conveniently coincides with the second holiday weekend where Police totally cracked down on speeders (the first also saw a decrease in deaths).

It coincides so conveniently in fact, that I’m shocked with how so many people are going out of their way to remove any credit from the Police. Apparently it was a weather issue. Which is somewhat surprising because I don’t think the weather was that much worse than ANY other Queens Birthday in the past few decades, in fact the only factors that seems to have changed at all are:

• An increased overall awareness of speeding and road deaths – which has to be at least partially attributed to the police
• A 4km tolerance over the speed limit. Which is a new police strategy, enforced by police and almost without question can be attributed TO the police

I’m not sure why we’re all anti the police, I’m even less sure of why people think they are fully in control of their driving – our dismal death toll proves otherwise. I am, however, very sure that if the road toll went up, it would have 100% been attributed to the police and their new no-tolerance strategy.

We should be realistic, no one is a perfect driver, and speed does kill. No one is immune from crashing and we’ve had more than enough time to prove that as individuals, we can sort this issue out… And we haven’t.

It’s only unfortunate that by using prevention as a strategy, the police lose all credit for the lives they saved over the weekend. As someone on the road who, just by being in a car has a chance (albeit a small one), of winding up a statistic, I appreciate their efforts.