Thursday 6 December 2018

Dancing in space

Imagine you're line-dancing in a small square hall. Your line moves forward with the music until you feel hemmed in by the wall in front of you, not much wriggle-room. Then the dance changes and you ease back away from that cramped feeling, and you can breathe freely again.

Johari came up with a similar idea encouraging us to dance in space. Sometimes it's something we can do for ourselves, but at other times it can only be achieved through others. The art is to make sure we grow fulfilled lives that include reserve capacity to cope with those times when there's too much going on.

A little stress is good. Deadlines can encourage high performance. Too much permanent pressure leads to overload, depression, and exhaustion. Every new new gadget can add to hassle, unless we tame them, and why not? God gave us a command to make sure we look after ourselves. 'Love your neighbour as you love yourself'. We often hear the first half without registering that we can only be true neighbours if we love ourselves.

I had a scam that made me laugh, but raised concerns until the 'punchline'. A message was left on my phone telling my my arrest warrant number, and pending execution! To find out more and avoid imminent death all I had to do was get in touch with Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs department. No doubt I would then be asked for personal details, and a ransom.

If I didn't have a fulfilled life because I was alone and frightened, my reaction could have been very different. Others have had scams about watching porn, needing to resend bank details etc etc. We need to have fresh air in our lives so we see things in perspective.

Incidentally, I recommend uk.whocalledme.net [notice 'net' not 'co.uk'] because it is community run and relies on trust. Some of the others are effectively scams which seek to make a profit from unwanted callers.

So Happy 2019, and may we encourage trustworthiness at every level, so we can live fulfilled lives. If you like, 'dancing in plenty of space'.