In Buddhist philosophy one of the most important life ‘skills’ to develop is to loosen ones attachments. I’m not a Buddhist, but as an approach to life it has a lot to commend it but I’ve always struggled with this lack of attachment idea. It’s always seemed to me that...
Although I often wake up with a sore body, 2/3 of the time it works well enough. Sometimes my head feels like there’s a spike through my eye, but I have the time, concentration and sight needed to read wonderful books. Even though I’m often exhausted and can sometimes hardly...
Every day I’m confronted by a dozen little annoyances, lights being left on, fighting my way through the under stairs cupboard to read the meters, clothes left on the floor, washing up not done during the day, and on and on. I used to let it get to me but...
Another good nights sleep last night, albeit a late night (midnight) but also a late morning. I slept through despite reducing my cocodamol dose to 38mg and I will keep reducing it gradually until the restless leg stops me sleeping. The weather was horrible again, but I decided to embrace...
Note: This post is a new version of an older post, adding new hints and tips I know my memory is failing me, it’s never been great, but ten years ago after years of medicinal steroid use (to help with my auto-immune condition) its decline really started to accelerate. By...
This post is part of a series reflecting on the end of my traditional working life as I prepare for retirement this week. This is a difficult post to write, I’ve been in paid work in some form or another for over 40 years, 30 years in traditional employment and...
On this blog I’m always going on about living the best day I can, every day, not living like every day is my last – which seems to extreme – but consciously planning to live well; to avoid going through life on autopilot; to avoid accepting a gradual decline in...
Make my health my first job, I’m in the fortunate position that I’m financially able to make recovering my health my first job, but intellectually this has been difficult to come to terms with. Last year I made some steps in the right direction, this year I’m going to double...
As I emptied the recycling from the kitchen into the bin today I was struck by just how amazing the contents would have seemed only a few hundred years ago. The aluminium cans, the trays, the glass and plastic bottles would have been treasures, now they are rubbish. The seven...
I finished listening to The Obstacle is the Way: The Ancient Art of Turning Adversity to Advantage this morning, it’s been a good book to listen to over the last few days as I faced a new set of challenges with Stills Disease and finally got through them as I...