Do you like to write with a really well-sharpened pencil? Or would you rather use a really thick board marker? The result is clearly different. While the fine pencil stroke of the sharpened pencil is hardly legible or recognisable from a certain distance, the marker is rather difficult to use for a really beautiful, caligraphic typeface. And that's right, because both pencils have their own tasks. It makes little sense to use the pencil for a presentation on a flip chart, but one will hardly execute a geometric, fine construction with a board marker either. In everyday life, depending on the task at hand, we choose the tools that suit us best to achieve the desired result. But we don't always succeed because we don't always have the perfect tool at hand. So we have to live with compromises here and there. To accept imperfection and still enjoy it. Do you succeed?

I wish you an extraordinary day!

Headphones are used so that something that wants to be heard is not audible to everyone, but only to the person wearing the headphones. Headphones are designed to fit the ears as snugly as possible to provide optimal listening quality. There are also those with noise cancellation. These filter out external, unwanted environmental noise so that what is heard is all the more brilliant and clear. Good headphones also have an ideal fit so that the sound can be set off from the environment in the best possible way. A side effect of headphones, however, is that the listeners are so isolated that they no longer have any contact with the environment, they isolate themselves. One is physically present but not accessible. That is sometimes unpleasant. As good as the headphones may be for oneself, they can be so separating for others. That is why it is important to use them in moderation. Even what is supposedly good has a healthy measure.

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In a relay race, a team runs together and only the sum of the times of the individual team members defines the final time. A delicate moment is the handover of the baton. This has to be practised. Even experienced athletes often drop the baton and literally lose a lot of time. A baton handover is the visible sign of "no longer me, but now you". The focus moves away from me to the person following. In this handing over, one has to pass on what one has held and carried intensively for a certain time and has been on the way with. Then all at once let go, trust the receiver. Believe that he or she will carry the baton just as conscientiously and later hand it over to another team member or run with it to the finish line. Do you find it easy to hand over what is familiar to you to others and let go completely? This is the only way to have a real chance of success.

I wish you an extraordinary day!

I hardly know anyone who doesn't like strawberries. When it comes to strawberries, I hardly know any fruit that can be so deceptive. By that I mean: the individual fruit may be bright red and super ripe judging by the eyes - but when you eat it, it's bland and tasteless and just watery. Not all strawberries, of course, but certain ones that were harvested too early are. The same fruit in the same colour but straight from the field are usually, sweet, delicious, super fine. So the exterior - the supposedly ripe colour and maybe even the enticing fragrance - can pretend to be something completely different than what is really there. In the case of strawberries, this is partly because of our impatience: because consumers don't like to wait until the berries are actually ripe. Time is a quality killer. This is not only true for fruit. That's why good things take time.

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Loyalty means sharing and representing the values of another in the interest of a common higher goal. To represent them even if one does not fully share them, as long as this serves the preservation of the common goal. We can have loyalty towards a person or group or a cause. One can be loyal out of two different attitudes or motivations: either out of conviction and trust or out of pressure and fear. The latter also works to a certain extent, but will eventually fail. The former, on the other hand, is stable and grows and becomes increasingly stronger. What is your motivation when it comes to supporting others, for example superiors or your company, the school or any other institution you support? Your loyalty is a gift that only you can give away. Do it with the right attitude so that it is strong.

I wish you an extraordinary day!

There are tides at the sea. They mean that the sea doesn't always start or end at the same place, but floods the beach to a greater or lesser extent at a certain point. This is due to the position of the moon and its gravitational effect. The beach is therefore an area that knows flooding and dryness and this within a few hours. Therefore, I suspect that it is not suitable as building or cultivated land. It serves as land for this mobility of nature. I think it is the same with us humans: we have times when we are more ready and able for closeness and community und others when we need to withdraw. This inner pendulum movement, like the sea, also needs a certain flexible range. Do you know this beach of the soul and have you taken care of it so that it is available for this flexibility and not misused for other things?

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There is a flight mode on modern smartphones. You can activate it by pressing a button or tapping the screen to immediately interrupt mobile communication without switching off the device. You are - as it is called in new German - offline. This means that I can still use the mobile phone if I just want to do things on the device that do not require a mobile phone connection - take photos, for example, or read something. It is just as easy to switch on flight mode as it is to switch it off. I find this function very practical because it does what is needed to disconnect from global accessibility with one button. When flying, this is necessary so that you don't produce interference signals for the flight. I also find flight mode helpful in my everyday life - switching off, being on your own, not being reachable, not even for news, emails etc. Allow yourself some flight mode time every now and then!

I wish you an extraordinary day!

There are materials that react more violently to contact with oxygen than others. For example, they change their colour or surface structure. This process is called oxidation. So the oxygen - the oxide, so to speak - causes a reaction. Chemically, the oxidising substance gives off electrons at the atomic level because of the oxygen. In other words, the oxygen withdraws electrons from the material. We also know this in interpersonal relationships: there are people who give us energy and with whom we can really recharge our batteries because they do us good - energy donors. And others who make us feel as if they are draining us, drawing energy away. To protect a material from oxidation, one uses corrosion protection, which can take the form of a surface coating. Do you also have such a corrosion protection for your own protection in difficult relationships? Would that perhaps be for your own good?

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Have you ever experienced this: you wanted to charge a device such as your mobile phone - but you had the wrong cable at hand? Maybe there was a USB-C cable on a mini-USB connector or a Lightning. Annoying: it doesn't work and the device can't be charged. Or I've been on German trains travelling in Switzerland and couldn't plug in my 3-pin laptop connector to charge the device because only 2-pin connectors are used in Germany. So there are good reasons why standards are very useful: as in the case described, they make it possible to operate devices independently of manufacturers and countries. If such standards are missing, the effort is much greater. In society, I see this principle in certain values. If such values no longer apply, both communication and legal understanding become very difficult. Which values do you cultivate or which ones do you consider to be indispensable in our interactions?

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There are the classic crisps that are sold in bags. That's how I got to know them as a child. In recent years, I found out that such chips are also available in a cardboard packaging that reminds me of a tennis ball tube. In it, the chips are nicely arranged in a row - so totally space-optimised. In the bag they just fly around. Still, I find it strange that I get crisps in the shape of a certain centimetre, where all the slices are also the same size and curved in the same way, instead of in a bag with a random distribution, and also the individual chips look totally individual. The tube chips remind me of factory food and the others of natural preparation. I like the latter much more. I feel the same way about people: the individual, which is not always classifiable in this way, distinguishes the person and makes him or her unique. You too.

I wish you an extraordinary day!