Tag: Seneca

Not Afraid

Published on by Kieran Johnson - The Generosity GuyLeave a comment

When we are laughing we are not afraid – Stephen Colbert

I fear a lot of things. Family members getting sick, failure, rejection, bad coffee.

We know that fear can cripple us, and keep us from moving forward. The fight, flight, freeze response comes to mind.

Mark Twain said, “I’ve had a lot of troubles in my life, most of which never happened”.

Stoic Philosopher, Seneca said, “Perhaps the worst will happen, perhaps not, until then, look forward to better things“.

What are we afraid of?

What comes to mind, the worst thing that could happen, is death. One day I will die, and so will you. It is unavoidable, yet, I know I do all that I can to avoid it. Keep healthy, eat well, see the doctor, find ways to relax. But even after all that it is not going to work.

What I fear will come to pass. It will happen someday. Hopefully not someday soon, but it comes for us all.

My grandmother used to tell me, “Kieran, whatever you do, don’t get old” to which I would respond, “Okay grandma, I’ll give it a try but I’m not sure how successful I will be”. Then she would chuckle.

That’s what I remember about her, her sense of humour. And I think it made those times, as she was getting older, easier to handle. Because as you laugh at things, it takes the heaviness and perceived seriousness out of life.

It can be easy to create a serious persona, and get caught up thinking that everything in our life is so important, and so many decisions are life or death. But, if we allow laughter in, even decisions that are legitimately life or death, don’t feel as if they are life or death, more like life and death.

Enough is enough…except for when it isn’t

Published on by Kieran Johnson - The Generosity GuyLeave a comment

Too much of a good thing can still ruin your day. My wife made the most amazing pasta the other night. It is one of my favourite meals and I ate a significant amount of it. Even as I was still eating I said,

“I have eaten too much”

Then I continued to shovel pasta into my mouth.

It was amazing. Until it wasn’t. And later, it wasn’t amazing at all when I felt ill. I ruined a good thing by overdoing it.

We are lucky with food though, because most of the time we know when we have had enough, and we can stop eating and enjoy what we have consumed.

There are other things in life that don’t give you that signal that you have had enough. Money is the main one. How much is enough? Do you have an answer to that question? Or are you just working for more?

It’s something that most of us just drift into. The process of desiring more and more money so that we will have enough to buy that house, pay off the house, buy that car, go on that holiday, buy that other house. It becomes a never ending cycle. We would be wise to make a conscious decision of when enough will be enough. How much do we actually need, and then what do we do with the excess (giving some of it away is always a good idea). It’s such an important process because if we are unable to figure out what our enough is, then we are at the whim of the mighty dollar, which is a very scary place to be.

You will never be happy when enough isn’t.  – Seneca

Life Isn’t Short

Published on by Kieran Johnson - The Generosity GuyLeave a comment

“It is not that we have a short space of time, but that we waste much of it.” Seneca, Roman Stoic Philosopher

I feel like we have been in the Christmas season for two months. There is something about the Australian culture which seems to “wind things down” for the year from mid October.

I know small businesses that work with larger firms and any conversations in the last quarter about new contracts automatically get pushed to the new year – which really means February/March.

Now, there is nothing wrong with managing your workload and recognising that things do get busier in many areas of life towards the end of the year, but the risk is we wish away our most precious and unknown quantity. Our time.

My paraphrase of the quote from Seneca above is “life isn’t short, we just waste a lot of it.” We waste it on things that are not aligned with what we say our priorities are. We waste it because we don’t spend it intentionally.

I encourage you to think about who you want to be at the start 2022. On January 1st, what will you wish you spent time on today?

What is the most important thing? Choose to focus on actions that align with your priorities.  

What can you complete that you have been putting off? Pain delayed is pain magnified.

What can you put off that you have been pushing to complete, but it isn’t a priority? Saying yes to something means saying no to something else. What can you say no to?

In the next few weeks if you are looking forward to working when things are quiet and others are on leave, embrace that and get productive.

If you are taking leave, take the heck out of that leave.

Be intentional about how you finish off the year. Finish it well. Well rested and well prepared for 2022.