How is your neurasthenia coming along? Neurasthenia is the term the Victorians used to describe what we would now recognise as Burnout. And having lived with the Covid-19 pandemic for what feels like a lifetime now, there are signs all around of folk heading full pelt into Covid burnout. Last week I was musing here…
Covid Burnout – a new variant of an old malaise
Burnout. A word that has been around for a long time, but now has a new dimension: Covid Burnout. The impact of the pandemic on our mental and emotional well being has been much documented. What is interesting is the dynamic of being too busy in a virtually virtual world and how that changes how…
Are we still showing kindness to each other?
This is the last in a wee series of musings on some basic human values that we demonstrated in bucket loads during the height of the Covid pandemic, as outlined in a Guardian article. The article stressed the need to continue to show these values: respect, patience and honesty. Kindness is the last of them.…
Why honesty is the best policy
I heard a fantastic sketch by Bill Bailey recently. Made MB and me properly laugh out loud, but also made me think wryly about the nature of us Brits when it comes to speaking of our feelings. Bill Bailey’s sketch was about us Brits answering the question: How are you? With Not too bad…” …regardless…
Patience is a virtue we need to continue with
Patience is a virtue. How often did you hear that growing up? Even now, hearing that little proverb of uncertain origin can set my teeth on edge slightly. Not because I disagree. But more because when some well-meaning adult (usually parent) said that to me as a child, it was perceived by me as an…
Respect: a basic value we live by?
Otis Redding sang it first, in 1965 but it was Aretha Franklin who made it into a mega-watt hit two years later. What am I talking about? R-E-S-P-E-C-T [You are singing it now I bet.] All Aretha was asking for was a little respect. [You are most definitely singing it now : )] Turns out,…
Growing happier takes time
We live in a world of soundbites and an emphasis on quick fixes – Instagram pithy phrases, Twitter’s 280 characters, the internet full of instant this and 3-easy-steps-to that. But is this really the nature of how we live and grow happier? I have recently been musing here on some keys to happier living, based…
What is the meaning of your life?
Wow, that is a huge opener this week. You are quietly going about your business…working, checking emails, maybe on social media and up pops this blog and That Question. Do I really want to be thinking about the meaning of my life in the middle of all the craziness that is our current lived experience?”…
Learning to accept…ourselves, our lives.
As we continue our musing through the 10 keys for Happier living, as outlined by Action for Happiness, we come to the penultimate: Acceptance. Once again, I am struck by the timing of this. Here in Scotland, as I mentioned last week, Covid-19 restrictions are easing and there are glimmers of hope for more normal…
How resilient are you post Covid-19?
How resilient are you? This is another question – like last week’s about what direction you are going in – that has probably changed from life BC (before Corona). As we continue to muse through the 10 keys to happieness, as outlined by the Action for Happiness folk, how extraordinary that we now come to…