Tag: romancing

How To Get Noticed At The Age Of 10.

~ neilwjsmith ~ Leave a comment

I guess that was my first taste of success.

I was just a school kid in Grade Five.

What started as an innocent gesture turned into getting me noticed for the rest of my school life.

And beyond.

And my secret?

Used stamps.

Postage stamps off envelopes.

In those days they could have value as cancelled postage stamps.

Not any more.

Many years ago they were collected by the Save The Children Fund and resold as ‘Mission Stamps’.

The packets of used postage stamps were like a mystery bag where you’d never know what you might find.

Ahh, the good old days.

Those mystery bags were, allegedly, unsorted, and a mixture of countries and values.

Who knows what treasure one might find.

The proceeds would be added to the charity funds that, even today, help the care and suffering of innocent children around the world.

Orphaned, injured in war, suffering disease, malnourished.

Still the case, of course, and still my favoured charity.

I was collecting these used stamps from my friends and neighbours when I decided to ask the Class of Year Five at the East Ivanhoe Primary School in Melbourne, Australia, if they would also save their used stamps for me.

My teacher found out.

She got behind me.

And asked me to start a Stamp Club in activities time every week.

So suddenly the whole school knew.

I had my own school Stamp Club.

Without even trying.

My Stamp Club attracted the attention of the Principal.

Which is how, without even trying, I got noticed in Year Five.

The moral of the story is, a small act of kindness and compassion can lead to greater things.

Which it did.

In my school career.

And beyond.

I’ll tell you how next time.

To follow my unpredictable life experience stories follow my blog (scroll down to find Follow window) –

Neil

PS, You can enjoy my life stories in my two autobiographical books here –

Romancing Your Life & Changing the World

The Great Regency Cover-Up

Is Our Waste World Going To Kill Us?

~ neilwjsmith ~ Leave a comment

I’m a bit weird because I can’t waste anything.

I even insist on showering early because I don’t want to waste any of the day.

I can’t waste any of the food on my plate.

How do you feel about waste?

Because I think that, in the end, waste is going to kill us.

And besides, it’s so, er, wasteful.

About a third of landfill is food.

Wasteful.

But there ‘s one kind of waste we seldom or ever think about and one day, I’m concerned, it’s going to be the end of us.

It’s ‘space junk’.

“Currently in Earth orbit, there are more than 23,000 objects larger than about 4 inches (10 centimeters), another half a million objects larger than about 0.4 inch (1 cm) and possibly 100 million more smaller than that, according to NASA.

“And there’s all sorts of stuff up there: dead spacecraft, spent rocket boosters, lost gear from space missions (including a glove, a camera, a blanket, a wrench and, somehow, a toothbrush), random bits of wrecked gear, paint flecks, bits of metal, frozen propellant, and a lot of screws and bolts.”

This according to the website Space.com.

There have already been collisions.

What if just one unfortunate incident starts a chain reaction and . . . well, who knows.

Could our communications networks be knocked out?

What about our Internet satellites?

Is our Internet safe from space junk?

How safe is anything?

You and I didn’t create this waste.

Nor can we be safe from the consequenses.

Except to avoid depending on it.

Best wishes.

Neil

PS This is the first of blog posts related to my new book ‘Romancing Your Life & Changing The World.’. For more visit HERE.

How To Romance Your Life

~ neilwjsmith ~ Leave a comment

What do I mean ‘romance your life? Is it an idea we were born with, that our lives were meant to be different to what we’ve been told?
How are we to make that shift from what we’ve been told to a different reality, one that was how we were meant to live?

Have you ever been in love?

Then you will know the feeling of being in love and how everything takes on a new exhilaration in life, like you’re floating on air.
That’s what I mean about life as it was meant to be lived.
A famous movie star once said she always performed her best work when she was in love.
I think it was Bette Davis.

What does ‘romancing’ mean then?

Why can’t life always be a ‘quality or feeling of mystery, excitement and remoteness from everyday life’ as described by a dictionary definition of ‘romance’?
Does this describe your life right now? Or not?
It’s a mystery, isn’t it?
Because, after all, I’ve got to believe it’s how we were meant to live, don’t you think?
Surely it’s where we are being drawn when we have feelings of inadequacy, failure, depression or midlife crisis.
It’s what’s going on whenever we feel unhappy about our lives. Isn’t it?
What if adjusting to romance is the way to fix it.
“Follow your bliss and doors will open where you never knew they existed” said mythology author Joseph Campbell.
Bliss = Romance.

Want to know more?

I hope the ideas in my new book ‘Romancing Your Life & Changing The World’ (buy your copy above) will bring you a little closer to that idealised state of existence, life as she was meant to be lived, the true romance that is your life.

Love and Peace.

Neil

Are We All Trapped In Our Own Group Soul?

~ neilwjsmith ~ Leave a comment

Watch a flock of birds as they all change direction at precisely the same time.

Why?

Because every bird in the flock is trapped in their group soul.

As are we?

Is this why we have become social animals through the urge to gravitate to our own group soul and why we can feel miserable when we’re rejected by our group of friends?

Chances are we’ll seek to join another group soul or social group.

Is it because loners, or introverts, tend to be regarded as unfriendly or anti-social because they choose not to belong to a group soul?

And are we all on a path to individuate?

To become whole, complete within ourselves?

Could this be the soul destiny of the human race?

In other words, have the extraverts taken over not realising that they are living out the phenomenon of belonging to their group soul?

Is socialising another word for maintaining the group soul?

And a resistance to individuating?

When I was studying philosophy at university the question was: “Is football a religion?”

At the time my answer was probably yes, but today I would more likely reply that it’s the wrong question.

The real question, for me now, would be: “Do football and religion each have group souls?”

My answer now would be, that is the common denominator of the two.

Group souls can each have a different make-up.

A theme that will attract those seeking a common purpose or goal that they feel they can fit in with.

And, who knows, maybe we’re drawn to elements in our soul’s make-up from the time we are born.

Our workplace is a group soul.

Our social media are group souls.

Our friends are a group soul.

Moving out of one can be full of difficulty.

Moving into another, the same.

Moving from one to another, wow, that can mean trouble.

Is this a reason why 85% of us* are unhappy in our jobs, because we’re in the wrong group soul?

Surely, as we well know, moving into your own space, your own life, your own reality, well, that’s a courageous move.

Maybe that’s our soul’s destiny, an evolution that today is just beginning and which we find ourselves caught up in.

We need to decide whether to be carried along with the group, like the flock of birds flying within the same mentality, or are we to choose our own way, follow our own path, to individuate.

No matter what the rest of the flock says.

Could this be the answer to many of our life’s and social problems?

Best wishes

Neil

Author of ‘Man Steps Off Planet’ and ‘Romancing Your Life’.

* Source: ‘The World’s Broken Workplace’. news.gallop.com