MEDIATION IS LIKE MAKING COMPOST
Finding Insights in the Garden: Lessons from Mediation Before convening a formal mediation meeting, I always have several private conversations with each party. This approach allows me to delve deeper into their perspectives and uncover the underlying issues. I ask questions that provoke introspection: Did the other person make you feel demeaned? What was […]
Like a River Flows
<1230 words> They say that our thoughts naturally turn to contemplation of the future when we watch water in motion. When I was about to turn 60, my brother, Guillaume, died of a glioblastoma multiforme brain tumour and I came across ‘The Waterfall’ by Zen philosopher Shunryu Suzuki. It is his reflection on life, upon a […]
Four Decades of Being a ‘Senior’
<1243 words> FOUR DECADES OF BEING A ‘SENIOR’ WARRANTS A CLOSER LOOK AT THE DIFFERENCES There are more and more forecasts that more and more of us will live to be one hundred. Our eligibility for Canada Pension kicks in at 60. For many of us that marks the beginning of our new status – we’ve […]
Love and introspection shifts a world
Sometimes when you’re engaged in a quarrel with someone the things takes on a momentum of its own…..The person who blinked first was hurt and puzzled….it became imperative that a peace be brokered in a family that felt like it was falling apart, before it was too late.
Do you ever feel that you’re running out of time?
< 904 words> This question was sent to me by someone who read yesterday’s blog about new year’s resolutions and plans and prompted me to think about it. I have in fact been thinking about it over the years, but so here, at this point in time, is my take on it. It is truly relative. […]
In Defence of Procrastination
I have been putting off writing this blog for a month now. Not because I’m lazy but because I’m not. Initially I thought it would be easy because I’m a very experienced procrastinator and would have a great deal to say about it. But then this academic thing kicked in – maybe I needed to explore some of the research because maybe the thoughts I have on the topic aren’t really valid.
Now THERE’s a great procrastinator’s hideout: go check the authorities rather than thinking the thing through with your own brain. This isn’t an academic treatise: it is an original blog by someone who sometimes has original thoughts.
By procrastinating I create that anxiety and tension because the clock is ticking: the deadline is looming (or as we say in our family “the dead lion doesn’t sleep tonight ahh.. whimeweh”).
THE SEVEN CARDINAL RULES IN LIFE – YES, BUT…(or the more PC Yes, and…)
I often wonder how deeply folks think about all the sayings they circulate and receive on social media, forwarded emails, and the like. At first glance they always seem to make sense. They’re sometimes attributed to well-known people like Albert Einstein or some ancient sage – always from ‘away’ as we say in Nova Scotia. I’m a contrarian. I am as naturally drawn to an alternate perspective (or lens, as we say nowadays), as a fish is to water, and so I decided to be more deliberate about one of these circulating messages, and here it is: My take on the ‘7 Cardinal Rules in Life’.