The perception now is that things should be ideal; we should work towards a situation where all that we have and everything that surrounds us is perfect and uncluttered and ordered and new and bright and clean and undisturbed and without chaos.
This is utterly false, though.
I was sitting in the garden of my 'old' house, the one that we'll vacate in about 2 weeks from now, so many happy memories here, so many brilliant things have happened, so much life, so much growing up with my family.
For years, we've had Charlie, who looks after our garden, just one morning a week, but he has spent the last 13 years making it magnificent.
The garden at the new house, the new place, is not magnificent (yet).
And so I can look at the new house and sigh and think what a job I have on my hands to make it 'perfect' and for a couple of weeks, I can go back to the old house and move some things and see how perfect this one is, but if you scratch below the surface in the old house, the garden is far from perfect, all the patio needs pointed, it needs jet washing, there are weeds, the old railway sleepers around the place where we had our table or a blow up hot tub or rotten etc.
It's never perfect, never ever perfect; it's just our perception of comfort, happiness, security, order, and regularity.
It's a slow death that, though.
If I had stayed here, I would have just got slower, fatter, and lazier.
We have to push ourselves out of our comfort zones. Whatever age we are, whatever our targets or our plans or our dreams are, it's essential to stretch because to not stretch is just to watch the world around you shrink back and back and back to the chair in your living room.
Blog Post Number - 4190