Success is changing

Our concept of success is changing to a more sustainable model, finally.

The western world seems to be growing more than a little disenchanted with the pursuit of happyness through material wealth and the security it offers. Happyness, fullfillment and enlightenment (spiritual not religous) have been touted as the replacements. But the movement is not mainstream and I would argue you need to be more than a little enlightened to realise the material wealth dreams you are chasing are as illusive as water in the desert.

Apparently budhists monks are among some of the happiest people in the world (Mindfield, Lone Frank). Their success has been attributed to their dedication to meditation or introspection which helps them rationalise externalities (those things they can do little about right now) and their enhances their ability to empathise and forgive.

Five minutes of introspection has shown me that what I appreciate the most in life and those activities that make me happy are not always those things that I spend most of my time pursuing. They should be. No excuses.

Travel is escapism?

After a few drinks a friend recently told me that she thought travelling in order to find 'ones self' was a load of wank and just an excuse to selfishly indulge on all those things you cant do when your friends, partners or parents are around.

At first I was puzzled because I didn't understand why you couldn't simply do those things in your ordinary day to day life if thats what you really wanted. Then I realized, doing them away from everybody in a secret second life enabled you to return to who you were originally without any hiccups if you didn't really like what you had become.

Kind of obvious when you realize that there is an online Many multi-player online role play game (MMPORG) game called "second life" in which you can change your life for better without leaving your desk. I guess thats the appeal, and I can see it (having been addicted to Grand Theft Auto since V1).

So, I guess the next time I go travelling I should really ask myself if I'm trying to escape my friends, family, patner etc so that when I return I can be me again?

Little Kids, Big kid

I think there is one factor everyone over-looks when they slip into the 'baby of the family' stereotype. Its a good factor, not a bad factor. It means you really do get to live up to your name, especially when your cousins are mostly younger... even if it does mean they call you uncle!

For more pics see FlickR.

Top tip from Audit School.

"Fish start stinking at the head."

Christmas & New Year

Christmas and New Year... it has been a time i have usualy associated with 3 months of funin the sun, but all that is about to change with my impending position at PricewaterhouseCoopers. Starting Monday I will be a slave to the wage and promptly locked away to work 9 till 5...

However, I did have a fantastic time before christmas with a very eventful trip up to Cairns to see bryan and then down to geelong to see my two lovely sisters, who put me up the whole time, my brother and my mum and dad. Not to mention the 30 odd cousins that all seem to have grown up way to fast down south! I swear they were only like 6 or 8 or 10 the last time I was down in Victoria!

Camping up on the daintree was a great, its been too long! fishing in the rain, cooking spaghetti on toast in the middle of the Daintree river and watching Bryan empty his tent of water in the mornings were all highlights... ok, so maybe cmaping in the middle of a monsoon is not the brightest thing to do!

Hopefully I will start being able to contribute a little more intelectual data to the blog over this next year, but first i need to get that thesis finished! Just the abstract to go! I'll give you a sneak preview of the acjnowledgements i'd like to make, but probably wont be allowed too...

Acknowledgements

In initiating and completing this Honours year I have drawn on a vast array of support and experience, but in my mind there is no doubting the debt I owe to my parents. To them I attribute my desire to achieve and my penchant for challenges which guided me into this program and served me well throughout it. Particularly, I thank them for never buying a television when I was young. I may never have undertaken this Honours year if it wasn’t for the support and inspiration of Associate Professor Peter Wells, Mihir Mehta and David Bedford and I thank them for that. On a technical note, the programming skills of Jacob Govendir and assistance of Brett Govendir and Professor Greg Clinch have also been much valued. Lastly, thanks to all those who have contributed ideas, punctuation corrections, theoretical suggestions and encouraging remarks in times of despair over the year.