If you’re not from the UK or have otherwise been living in a box then you might not have heard of Francesca Martinez. She’s a comedian, who also has cerebral palsy, and I love her perspectives on life.
“I wondered why physical perfection was always linked to happiness when it often appeared to cause problems. I mean, if being rich and beautiful leads to inner peace, wouldn’t we all be buying self-help books from Kate Moss? So who did this ubiquitous superficial value system really serve?
It became clear why this mass worship of conformity dominates our culture. It’s not because it spreads light and joy and peace across the globe, it’s because our society is built on consumption. And consumerism will only thrive if you can convince enough people that they’re lacking in some way, and that what they really need is the latest product/outfit/look to be "normal". That’s it. We’re sold this lie so that we’ll keep buying crap that we don’t need. So that we’ll continue to attempt to attain "normality" through purchases and surgeries and upgrades and iShit.”
Check out the link to read the rest.
There is nothing like leaving a house and coming back a few weeks later for seeing things with fresh eyes and going “what a flipping mess”. Having a big house is bad for discipline. This combined with the blessing that we have lived in this house for nearly six years, which is longer than I have lived anywhere since I left home at eighteen which was a long time ago. Back then I used to be able to transport my life in one (pink and grey, Karrimor – do they still exist?) rucksack. And of course accumulating kids increases the rate of multiplication of stuff on a logarithmic scale. So I am gradually sorting stuff into keep-give away-chuck. The spare room is done, apart from the cot to give away. I’m currently working on the kids’ room, helped variously by Joni and the new drawer unit which arrived on Friday. Our bedroom is next. The garage will be last, by which time I will have either gathered strength or run out of steam.
More difficult is the non-physical stuff. What do we do with our time, how to find more time to do the more important stuff, how to be more disciplined about dealing with strident voices of other things which demand our attention but are probably fundamentally less vital. At least going away and coming back to some extent provides a bit of a hiatus and a chance to make some resolutions and decide what to prioritise for those first blank diary pages after return. Limit screen time and make it useful, read more, pray more, sleep more, love more, eat chocolate.