Pearls of Wisdom

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In the Trilogy of Life series, I’ve laid out the wisdom that I have acquired under the following 3 themes summarised below.

The ‘Live’ series explore your existence. This is the part of the Trilogy that has a big impact on how your journey of life pans out. The crucial components focus on building a strong base for your life. It helps you build a rock solid foundation that can give you an inner strength. Without it, you could become a spectator in life, watching what others do and being envious of their results. Worse, you could be on the couch wandering what’s going on and being oblivious to events around you. You risk being blind-sided by unfolding events. Often couch sitters are the victims of changing circumstances and are ill-prepared for what lies ahead.

The ‘Love’ series focuses on emotions and how to harness the energy that emotions produce. I’ve deliberately subtitled this section as ‘Love’ as I rate this emotion as the most crucial for a contented life. In other words, love all that you do. If you don’t love what it is you do then why do it? As an alternative, learn to love what you do or use it as a stepping stone towards an end. This will become clearer in future posts.

Scientist used to think that there were two brains, a thinking reasoning brain and an emotional feeling brain. The current view of the brain is that we all have a feeling brain that thinks.

The ‘Learn’ series is about our never ending capacity to learn and adapt.

“The brain is like a parachute. Both work at their best when opened”.

We all have the capacity to learn. The current state of dementia and Alzheimer’s thinking is that to keep our brains healthy we need to keep challenging our brains and keep learning. An inactive brain soon withers and slowly deteriorates. It’s like any other part of the body or set of skills

“If you don’t use it, you’ll lose it

• Live

• Love

• Learn

Future posts under the main title, Pearls of Wisdom, will be based on the themes listed above in the “Keys of Life”. These themes are the “Trilogy Themes – Live Love and Learn”.

Born in the fifties, as I write this post, I have retired from my career of some 39 years in education. I qualified as a teacher and started teaching at Amaroo Primary School in Collie in 1973.

The Start of my Career

After a 4 year stint, I moved to Perth and taught at Willeton Primary School and later Victoria Park Primary School. I received my first promotion as a Senior Assistant to Bluff Point Primary School in Geraldton.My first principalship was to Marble Bar Primary School. At that time it was regarded as the hottest place in Australia, setting the record for the most consecutive days over the old century mark, 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

Later, I transferred as a principal to Kirup Primary School. My next posting was as Deputy Principal at South Bunbury Primary School, a large school with an enrollment of almost 400 students. While there, I conducted stints as a contract Principal at Withers Primary School (renamed Maiden Park) and Picton Primary School.

After completing those Principal appointments, I returned to my former position at South Bunbury Primary.

My main roles revolved around educational leadership, curriculum leadership, student behaviour, event organisation and management and was a member of South Bunbury School’s Leadership Team.

A Shock – and a Solution

On the 5th April, 2005, I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease. This came as a shock. It took me a week to snap out of feeling sorry for my self. An important part of my psyche is to control those aspects of my life that I can influence. Two examples of this is, how I think and my attitude. The long and the short of it is that I set a goal to work until July, 2012 and finally retired on grounds of ill health in 2016.

My daily mantra is “Parkinson isn’t a choice but happiness is”. This was a message to me from the author of a book called ” I Have Parkinson’s But Parkinson’s Does Not Have Me” by Leif  Ogård, publishing house Bulls tryckeri, Halmstad, Sweden,2005 and Elanders Berlings AB, Malmo, 2008. However, my Parkinson’s doesn’t inhibit me and is a story for another time.

Purpose

My life experiences and work responsibilities and the knowledge gained over some 67 years have led me to pen this post as an open letter to my grandson and to any one else interested in my thoughts. This is the genesis for Pop’s Pearls of Wisdom and these posts are taken from a draft that I’m working on titled “Live Love Learn”

It’s a shame to think all the wisdom that people accumulate in a lifetime isn’t shared and in death just disappears.

This blog is my legacy to my grandson and any one else who might be interested in my thoughts

Living a life that is satisfying and invigorating is within reach of anyone prepared to explore this challenge with an open mind.

• You don’t have to be a “star”.
• You don’t have to be “Famous”.
• You don’t have to be the “Centre of Attention”.

BUT

• you need to have principles that can guide you through life
• You need to have a purpose that is worthwhile
• You need an open mind to “see” the opportunities
• You need to be ready to “Learn”.

Contentment comes from doing things that are useful and meaningful.

The pursuit of happiness is often a goal, purpose or reason given for an action.

Unfortunately, it turns out to be a false promise and elusive, taking many on a wasted journey.

Happiness is not an end in itself, but it is the effect that comes from purpose, principles and applying yourself to something worthwhile.

In essence, happiness comes about as a result of “doing”. It is a consequence of taking some kind of action (the Law of Cause and Effect). The Law of Cause and Effect will be explained in future posts.