By detours, I mean a departure from my intended path. Sometimes the detour has become the new path, a new journey. At other times it has been a temporary trip along a side road before re-joining the planned path, finding a new one or reaching a new destination.

I took some of those detours voluntarily. Others were the result of circumstances beyond my control, others still the consequences of choices I made, some good, some not so good, a few catastrophic.

Why this reflection on Detours, Destinations, Journeys and Goals?

Three reasons:

Firstly from my habit for many years of looking back over the past year in preparation for the annual “archiving” exercise I do in the quiet week between Christmas and New Year. I wrote about it here and  here  . Looking back, I notice how many detours my 67 year journey through life has taken.

Secondly, the more I read about or hear of, other people’s life stories, the more I realise that detours are not the exception we assume, often they are more travelled than the planned route.

Thirdly, the accelerating rush to introduce technology into all areas of life. This means that for young people just starting out on their journeys, there will be more detours than clearly signposted highways.

The impact of Artificial Intelligence, automation, robots. This is dramatically changing the way those entering the income earning stage of life sustain themselves. For many it means detouring from college back to the family home. In other cases, a succession of jobs in different categories, many unrelated to their field of study. For many a reliance on the “gig” economy, finding a balance between too few and too many part-time assignments.

For as long as I have studied personal development, goal setting has been the most frequently mentioned habit of successful people. Goals are important. However the more I look at what makes us happy, the more I believe that enjoying the journey is as important as arriving at the right destination. Or achieving the goal.  Probably more so.

If we decide to travel to a distant destination by train with the goal of arriving at an exact time on a certain day, any delay in the journey will stop us achieving our goal. However, if we choose to enjoy the scenery, share ideas with our fellow travellers, or use some quiet time to relax, we will find that we can more easily accept delays or unplanned deviations from our schedule. Perhaps a delayed arrival at our destination. Even having to end our train journey prematurely and continue by another mode of transport.

Life is much like that. And becoming increasingly so.

We can enjoy the journey with all its detours, frustrations, deviations and changing destinations and be happy.

Or we can live to regret not achieving our goals and be miserable.

I have had my share of detours and deviations, I choose to enjoy the journey.

I sincerely hope you do too.

Sand Photo by Katerina Radvanska on Unsplash

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Success Adversity and momondays, a strange title for a blog post – or is it?

I am an enthusiastic supporter of momondays. Since discovering momondays, I have spoken at 3 different venues, plan to speak at more. I regularly get to the Kitchener event at the Edelweiss on the third Monday each month.  The one in London less often.

momondays is a platform where anybody from experienced professional speaker to knee-shakingly nervous novice getting on stage for the first time can tell their story.

A momondays event follows the format of three 10 to 12 minute speeches, a short entertainment act, a plug for a charity, a break to meet other people, then three more speeches.

Most shows are held at a venue where a meal and beverages can be bought. It’s a great occasion for entertaining business contacts at tables of 8 which can be reserved in advance.

In the 100 plus speeches I have listened to, I have noticed a common thread of success and adversity running through almost all the stories.

The details are all different, some presented with humour, others with raw courage, all with honesty and none with excuses or expectations of sympathy. All relate a journey from periods of struggle to a better life. Many describe painful transitions along the journey, setbacks, new challenges, hurdles, failure and eventual arrival at a better place. A better life.

One recent story of a woman who refused to give up on her husband after a severe medical condition left him paralysed and unable to talk. She refused to follow advice to have him placed in a “home”. Despite two sons at school, an uncertain income and no house of their own, she nursed him back to health. That night at momondays, over 20 years later, he stood up in the audience to acknowledge her sacrifice and love.

There is hardly a dry eye in the house after many speakers finish their stories.

How different to what we see and read in the media today.

Most stories in the media and those heard from society at large, are full of inconveniences made out to be adversity. Entitlement and demands. Excuses not effort. Existence not success.

In recent conversations with a wide selection of people about why this should be so, I have been struck by the number of comments that “life is too easy”, “too bland”, “too safe”, “too controlled”.

I am not minimising the difficulties experienced by students with huge college loans or those working in sunset industries. For example, taxi drivers facing the same fate as that of elevator attendants in the late 20th century. Or fax machine manufacturers in the early 21st.

The world is changing, it always has changed and it always will. In the 1970s, newly married, I had no idea how I would ever be able to buy a home. A few years later, we bought our first house. Paying the mortgage was a struggle, just like it is now for first time home owners without wealthy parents. But we managed.

I have just finished reading James Holland’s well researched and detailed book Dam Busters about the extraordinary campaign to destroy three major dams in Germany during WWII. Despite difficult conditions, stronger than expected defences and losing 8 out of 19 aircraft, two of the dams were destroyed, the third damaged, the duration of the war almost certainly shortened. 56 air crew were shot down in those 8 planes, only 3 of them survived.

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This is not a post about WWII. It’s about success adversity and conflict, I wrote about it here too. The point is that few  of the 133 men who took off on that flight were over 30 some only 19 years old. Most had already flown 20 or more sorties, some had already crashed or parachuted out of damaged aircraft.That pattern of young men risking their lives and dying for their countries, was repeated throughout the air forces, navies and armies on both sides of the conflict.

In 70 years we have gone from 19 and 20 year olds taking huge risks, flying difficult to handle Lancaster bombers and living in constant fear, to a society that feels aggrieved by certain words, non-events called “micro aggressions”  and toilets identified by gender. The search for the latest “app” has become more important than making an effort.

Are the younger generations incapable of the same patriotic and altruistic attitudes and actions as in earlier times?

I don’t believe so, I believe each generation rises to the challenges it needs to. There are enough good examples of people with the right attitude – many of them appearing on momondays and similar stages.

The problem is that life has become too controlled, too safe, too politically correct. Any one expressing an original thought is attacked as racist, homophobic, insensitive or, horror of horrors, right-wing or conservative. Values that held families, communities and nations together in earlier times are being discarded. Christianity is under attack.

It’s time to nourish those values that have gone out of fashion, time to let children explore, fall out of trees, skin their knees and have their feelings hurt.

Time to recognise that success comes after adversity. It takes effort, determination and resilience,  not excuses and an attitude of entitlement.

Do you think modern life is too safe, too controlled? Leave a comment.

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It took a stretch of my imagination back in 2014 when I started writing my book to understand what it would feel like when I had boxes of the printed books in my office, the first sales recorded and the first payments in my bank account.

I was committed to getting the book finished, knew with all my heart that I would. I tried to imagine what it would feel like to hold the finished book in my hand. The imagination was good, but the reality is better. Much better.

The project took some unexpected turns. There were delays. The finished book is not the book I first wrote. It is an adaptation of parts of the first book presented in a different genre.

The first book is a new project, still to be edited, perhaps split into two books. It will take most of the rest of this year to finish. I will finish it. It is easier to imagine the second book completed now that the first is a reality.

In the last week, I have given two speeches to two different audiences. I have sold copies of the book at both. Sales have also come from my on-line store and locally.

Feedback from the speeches and book buyers has been interesting.

Most people who hear or read about my experiences in Africa have no perception of what my life there was like. Their imagination does not stretch to my reality.

It’s only those North Americans and Europeans who have lived in third world countries or served with the military in conflict zones who have some understanding.

Visiting exotic places for short periods as a tourist shielded from the uglier side of local life does not prepare you for the reality.

The most frequent question I get asked is: “How did you survive those terrible experiences?” Followed by “I would not have been able to survive that”.

My answers are explained at length in the book.

The short answer is ” We just did and most people would too if they had to.”

The bottom line for us and for everyone facing adversity is that we have two choices; surrender, remain a victim and wallow in misery, perhaps give up totally and die.

Or survive, accept the reality of the situation and do the absolute best we can to overcome the challenges and move on. It might be in a different direction, a different career or business, with a different partner or even in a different country.

We might lose everything we though important in the process. That teaches us that things are not important, life and hope are.

As long as we are breathing, we can choose to make the most of it, survive and thrive.

We can choose to use our imagination to see a better future not a frightening one.

I have been fortunate to have lived on farms or large properties in low density suburbs for most of my life. The prospect of living in an apartment or small property in a large city makes me nervous. The thought of having to use subways, trains and buses on a daily basis is frightening.

That’s my perception but it’s the reality for millions who would find living in a rural area as I do, beyond their imagination.

We all have our own perceptions and realities, we need to use our imagination wisely to know the difference.

What do you think, leave a comment.

p.s you can buy the book here from my on-line store  or Amazon. or on the home page of this website.

Imagine graphic courtesy Stuart Miles / freedigitalphotos.net

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New technology is something I often blame for most of the sins of the modern world. That is unfair. My life and that of most citizens of developed economies is better in many ways because of some new technology.

That might not be the same for people fleeing the bombing and chaos in Iraq and Syria. Advances in explosives, weapons and communication devices might be working against them.

My concern is not that new technology is bad. My concern is that it is eroding values and causing users to abandon activities that have been responsible for the advances in society over thousands of years.

Values like integrity, respect for privacy, restraint, common sense, discernment.

Activities like thinking, reading, communicating face-to-face with real people, real conversation about important issues, debating, analysing what is read, writing in grammatically correct sentences and paragraphs longer than 140 characters.

New technology is not to blame for the loss of all these, we are. The technology just provides the tools, distractions and excuses.

Thanks to living in Africa during the dawn of the Internet, I had a late introduction to the digital era. When I arrived in Canada in 2004, I could send an email but had no idea what URL or domain meant and had only once visited a web page.

Despite the late start, a curious mind helped me become familiar with the new technology. After a heart attack in 2010 prevented me from earning an income from my usual sources, I was forced to use the on-line world to help me earn enough to survive.

Like many before me, I fell into the trap of believing that knowledge was everything. The more I learned, the more likely I would succeed in the new worlds of Internet commerce and social media.

I soon learned that knowledge without application, strategy and action does not create business.

Since that realisation, I have resisted learning about new programmes, social media platforms and the latest “must have” solutions to every business problem merely for the sake of adding to my store of knowledge

In the last year or two, I have abandoned or unsubscribed from many more social media accounts, newsletters and productivity tools than I have started using.

I have become more discerning, critically asking myself whether this new thing will be really useful or just nice to have.

Life is easier, more productive and less busy.

However, in the last few weeks I have been introduced to two that I do find useful and enjoy using.

The first is Blab.im a video streaming platform that allows a combination of a host, co-hosts and guests to appear in 4 live windows on the screen and an audience of viewers to watch, ask questions and make comments in a message board. Guests can be brought in and taken out of windows by the host.

It’s the next best thing to sitting around a table for a discussion that I have come across.

I have been invited to co-host a blab by The Circadians and am now in training. Here is a recording of yesterdays session.

I did a trial run for my blab last week. I will be hosting my Contrarian Crumbs blab on Wednesday 3 March at 8 pm Eastern here. Contrarian Crumbs Blab. In this blab, I will be interviewing Eric Model, a writer, broadcaster, multi-media publisher and authenticity expert.

There are some tools that I do find useful and which help me become more productive. One of those is Evernote. I have been using it for over a year, it is great for clipping and storing articles and pages from the Internet. It’s also good for keeping lists. I keep my list of books to read in an Evernote folder. It is the digital equivalent of a pair of scissors and one of those old concertina files for newspaper clippings.

The other new one I think could be useful is Trello. a project management and coordination tool that I was introduced to at a workshop last weekend. It worked well for that particular workshop, allowing many delegates to add content to a number of topics on one platform. I will use it for some projects I will be working on and let you know my thoughts in a future post.

What are your thoughts on new technology? Are you the master of it or a slave to it?

Leave a comment

graphic courtesy renjith krishnan / freedigitalphotos.net

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