I love Cape Town – it is a city of contrasts.
In Vredehoek, where I live, this morning at 5:30 it was bright and sunny and I decided to go for a walk on the Sea Point promenade.
When I got there I could hardly see my hand in front of my eyes (OK I am exaggerating!) and the foghorn was sounding its warning to ships out on the ocean.
But it was such a beautiful scene – with the sun behind me and the fog just lifting and then there was this moment when there was a reflection of golden sunshine through the fog from one of the windows in a building across the road.
My first “take away” from my walk was that you will still enjoy golden moments even though your life may be “fogged up”.
On the return stretch of my walk, from the Sea Point swimming pool to the lighthouse in Mouille Point, I was walking into a slight breeze and although the fog has now changed to mist (Sidebar: on my return home Google taught me that the only difference between mist and fog is in its density, expressed as visibility – if visibility is more than 1 km it is mist, and if visibility is less than 1 km it is fog. I got all misty eyed for clearing up the fog in my mind about this!) I still had difficulty to see clearly.
Then I realised that some of the goodies in my environment have attached themselves to me and my glasses – the water droplets in the mist.
I had to stop, and even though my attempt at regaining clear visibility left smudgy lenses, visibility was better.
This made me think…
Is it possible that “stuff” from the different environments in which we live (friends, colleagues, working conditions, family members…) gently attaches itself to the lenses through which we look at life and we are initially unaware that we now see things differently – almost in a “slowly slowly catchee monkey” way – and we are the monkeys. Before we know it we are caught up in views, thoughts and beaviours that are not getting us what we want.
Maybe it is appropriate this time of the year to check our “looking at life” lenses and see if there are things on there that we would be better off without – before we walk into a brick wall.
Maybe there are some beliefs that need to be challenged, maybe even some relationships or things we are doing.
You will find these questions from Brian Tracy’s blog most helpful:
“Is there anything in my life that, knowing what I now know, I would not do again today, if I had to do it over?”
“Is there anything in my life that I should do more of, less of, start or stop?”
And if there is, get out the pruning shears and compost and begin to simplify life…
Gerrit Cloete 