Be Happy!

At a business meeting recently I attended a seminar by Debra Stevens from Sold Out Trainers in Milton Keynes. Entitled Red Dirt, in recognition of the fact that once the red soil of Africa gets under your finger nails you are hooked for life, the seminar wasn't about business as such, but about what she has learned from setting up a children's charity in Gambia, http://www.schools4schools.co.uk/ Debra's theme was simply that in the UK we live life at such a fast pace that we lose sight of the simple things that make us happy - friends and family, appreciation of the beauty in the things around us and time for relaxation and contemplation. We're always planning ahead and rushing on to the next thing. What Debra soon realised on her trips to Gambia was that the African people live for the present, and even though they don't have the material things that we in the Western world have, they really apreciate and enjoy what they do have. Amusingly she pointed out that children under 3 live that way too, it's only as we get older that we learn to worry about everything. Dogs live in the here and now too.....and if our dog Tara is anything to go by they never grow up!
Debra's best suggestion was to stop watching the news and reading the papers - it's always too depressing and they only tell us the bad news. Instead you can try http://www.positivenews.com/ where bad news is banned.
Keep smiling!