Simple Self Improvement

There are many ways to learn new skills and many places offering courses   Image: Marie Vonow I was talking to a friend on the train the other day. She mentioned she had been given a second hand computer and didn’t really know how to use it other than for playing a few card games. Now she is investigating different places that offer computer classes. These days we are fortunate to have a variety of options for learning all sorts of new skills. These skills may be needed for employment or for personal interest. Attending a class can also be a way to network or make new friends.

Image:Marie Vonow People talk about the benefits of feeling gratitude for the good things in life. But there are times one feels there isn’t much to feel gratitude for. This feeling can descend on us when there are lots of stresses or we are weary. Perhaps you often ask yourself what is there to feel gratitude for in my ordinary life? There is another way of looking at life. Can you be grateful for what you don’t have, for the things you have escaped or avoided? Can you see the positive side of what initially appears a negative?

                                                                                                   Adapted from Pixabay One Saturday before Christmas I discovered an acronym I hadn't encountered previously, NETTEL. I was having a cuppa in a cafe in the main street and looking through the newspaper. I came across a topical article, the tendency of many time poor parents to buy extravagant Christmas presents to compensate for spending little time with their children. These parents are examples of NE...

                                                                                                    Adapted from Pixabay Some people talk about the value of visualisation when faced with a task that invokes feelings of nervousness or downright fear. You may be preparing to attend an interview, give a talk to an audience or do something else which is taking you a long way out of your personal comfort zone. Many people suggest you picture yourself completing the task faultlessly instead of letting yourself think of the mistakes you could make. You are going to give the best speech the audience has ever heard. I recently read an alternative approac...

King William Street Adelaide                                   Image:Marie Vonow Marcel Proust, the famous French novelist, critic and essayist born in the nineteenth century said, ‘ The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. ’ There are many things in one’s local area or places one visits frequently which one probably hasn’t ever noticed. 

                                                                                                  Image:Marie Vonow What does the word ordinary mean? According to my old Heinemann Australian Dictionary (yes the old one held together with sticky tape), ordinary means normal, usual or average. That doesn’t sound very exciting. It sounds like enjoying the ordinary means accepting things that are pretty boring and dull. Actually, it is the opposite. It means discovering the exciting aspects in everyday th...

Nature gives me great pleasure                                            Image:Marie Vonow Everyone gets pleasure from different things and different experiences. Therefore I can't make a list of things guaranteed to bring you pleasure. Even for myself, I have changed over the years so if I had made a list of simple pleasures about 35 years ago some of the items would be different from now. But I do know the items on the top of that list would have been an uninterrupted night's sleep, an afternoon nap and a hot cup of coffee drunk without an interruption. Yes, I had a baby back then.