Dreaming Of Dreaming

Yesterday I was reminded yet again of the necessity of having dreams. Now, I'm not referring to 'goals' that we make, that usually involve a plan and time frame. A dream, to me, is a group of goals put together and the end result of those goals combined.

A dream, or multiple dreams, give us hope. And, as I've said before, without hope we have nothing. Not saying we can live with the hope of hope alone of course.

Hope gives us a reason to get out of bed. Hope gives us a reason to get up when we fall down. Hope gives us the opportunity to momentarily escape our current circumstances to dream big. I think the trick to dreaming big is to do just that - dream big. Don't so much worry initially how your current reality looks in contrast to your dream, but instead let the dream consume you, take you away, the more ridiculous, the better.

Sometimes people lose their hope along the journey we all travel which is this life. Sometimes their hope is trampled on by others. Sometimes they allow the opinions of others in to crush their dreams.

Sometimes people find their hope. And I think it's a lot like riding a bike - even if you go for a period without a bike, you will still be able to hop on one and take off, balancing when you get another one. Dreaming's the same. As children we all dream. We dream what it will be like to be an adult, we dream what we will do occupation-wise, who we will or won't marry, how many children we will have, where we will live, what type of house we will have.

But then adolescents fast approaches with all it's changes, peer pressures and inadequacies, and somehow it doesn't seem so important to dream. In fact, it seems almost child like, infantile. So we keep our dreams locked away inside. Sometimes the strength of the dream is enough to keep it alive inside. Sometimes the pulling of low self worth works against the dream, with all our strength going towards healing ourselves from problems arising from our own sense of self worth, while the heat from the fire of the dream reduces.

Then as adults we grow comfortable in our skin. Sometimes the dream is still there, but buried. Sometimes it's difficult to find, buried under years of junk that we shouldn't hold onto but do. Sometimes we look for the dream and find it without trouble. other times we look and after a period of time we give up the search, because we're disappointed, distracted or just too busy.

So if we, as children, can all dream, then why do we find it so hard to continue doing it as adults? Because for one reason or the other society seems to dictate, okay, from my observations western society seems to dictate that to be productive, we must be busy. Time is money, money is time, money is precious, therefore time is also precious. Really time is nothing more than activities given priorities. As adults we often have children ourselves. When we have not only ourselves to look after, but having moved 'up' a generation we now have our own families to look after also, we fail to recognize the importance of having a dream, of spending time dreaming.

So be very careful what you say to other people. We don't always know the dreams of the people around us, the people we love, and it would be a horrible thing to unknowingly (and probably unwillingly too) crush someone else's dreams, with words uttered without thought, soon forgotten by the person that spoke them, but forever remembered and played over and over in the head of the recipient, especially if they for whatever reasons are sensitive regarding their dream.

Some people live their lives never willing to try to achieve their dreams. Perhaps they don't have enough belief in themselves, and if they've had the courage to share their dream with those around them, perhaps they don't have anyone else to believe in them and their ability to achieve their dream. Some are scared of failure. Others are scared of success.

If ever given the opportunity, speak encouraging words to someone regarding their dream. Even if you don't particularly like hearing what they're saying, it's their dream, in their life, at least try to find something positive about it. A lot of past successes may have been failures without someone believing in them while they were still dreams.

If you can't find someone to believe in you dream, don't give up. Just believe with all your being and never, ever give up. And encourage others with the pursuit of their dreams in the process.

Have you neglected your dream? Do you know what it is or was? If not, it's never too late to dream, and best of all - like all good things in life, dreaming is free!

Timely Time

I can't believe how school holidays have nearly come to an end for yet another summer. I also find it somewhat amusing how our perception of time changes as it passes - at the start of the holidays all those weeks without school seemed like an eternity. However at the end of the holidays, it really doesn't feel like it was that long ago that the kids were at school.

Same thing happens in pregnancy. While carrying a child, it feels like you've been pregnant forever, even more so as you reach the uncomfortable stages at the end. However once you're holding your baby, looking back the pregnancy seems to have gone almost too quickly.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that I believe most people would agree that as you get older time seems to speed up. Kind of like a spiral, you start on the outside large circles, and the circles go around and around the inside of each other, getting smaller in diameter with each resolution. As a child christmas takes an eternity each year before reaching us, then as an adult we comment each year, something expressing our surprise that christmas has come around again (who'd have thought?!).

My younger brother and I had a conversation some time ago on our perception of time and how it changes as we age. My brother had an interesting theory, which I have come to agree with.

My brother believes the reason why time seems to pass more slowly when you're younger is because generally there is always something to look forward to. And we all know when there's something to look forward to it takes ages for that time to be here. So it seems time is going slower.

So keeping in line with this theory, I guess it would be sensible to suggest as adults we have to keep looking for things to look forward to. As children we have birthdays, friends birthdays, christmas and easter (well, they were celebrated in my upbringing, I guess it depends on your cultural beliefs as to what you celebrate). On top of those annual events we also have several other age related milestones.

Based in Victoria, Australia myself, these ages may differ from country to country, and even from state to state. We have the excitement of kindergarten at the age of five. We then have the excitement of starting school at the age of six. Then we have reaching double figures to look forward to. Then finishing primary school and starting high school. Then becoming a teenager. Then turning sixteen and applying for a Drivers Learner Permit, and possibly gaining our first job and money to spend. Two years after that the big eighteen, possibly the ending of secondary school and the start of university. There's an entire world opened up to us when we're eighteen. And isn't it funny, once you've passed the minimum age requirement by at least ten years, the minimum aged people in your presence all look to young to be at an over-aged event.

Then when all the excitement of 'becoming of age' gets old, we only have our twenty-first to look forward to, when 'officially' we will be an adult, and provided we got our drivers licence when we were eighteen, we will then be removing the giant 'P' from the windscreens of our cars. Other than that, nothing really changes all that much in my opinion between the ages of twenty and twenty one. Oh, and of course traditionally here you'd get a big card or a cardboard key when you turn twenty one. I don't understand the key part of, a part of me thinks this could be the 'key to the city' but if that means what I think it means isn't it three years too late? Don't we get access to the adult world, the 'key to the city' when we turn eighteen, via our drivers licence with its shocking head shot or those key pass id cards they used to have around, which I'm not sure if they still do.

I'll just quickly divert here and let you know that I am one of those people you've probably heard of who smiled in their licence photo's. I never realized you weren't meant to. I mean if someone asks to see my id I'm going to be flattered and smile, so it makes more sense to have me smiling in my licence picture as well. It was my grandmother who pointed out we aren't allowed to smile for the picture when I laughed at the serious look she wore in her picture. Nobody told me that when I had the photo taken though!

So I think the solution to the problem of time seeming to speed up as we age is to pencil in more events to look forward to, something big every few years. Then if time does pass quickly toward that event, provided it's all organised it shouldn't be a problem. But chances are, if there's something planned, it's all organized and we're really looking forward to it time will go that little bit more slow in getting us there.

And maybe if we schedule in less for us to do. Being busy all the time isn't good for anyone, even if all that busy-ness does lead to some form of productivity. So let's try more to do as the children that populate the earth do, let's try more to do as we used to do, to think as we used to think as children. Let's take the time to smell that flower, jump in that puddle and feel that mud. Let's have a day periodically with nothing planned and keep it that way. Let's just get up, get dressed and get out of the house, away from responsibility, away from age appropriate behaviour and just play as children play. Sure, it won't have us aging as children aging, and our bodies may no longer move as easily as they did when we were children, but let's believe, if only for a little while, that we really are only as old as we feel. And rather than take that to the extreme in seeking the fickleness of youth through a justified temper tantrum, let's instead be kind, to ourselves and those around us. Let's take the time to really get absorbed in what we're doing, for no other reason that we've left it too long since the last time we did.

Planning The Day

I have started to take back the ownership of my time. You know how at one point, or another, we say we don't have time? Well I'm sick of not having time, so I thought I'd try something a little different.

I've started scheduling my tasks into days. Now I've tried this on and off throughout my life and always failed miserably. That's because I don't allow enough flexibility into my scheduling. Life happens, things come up. If you apply a rigid schedule to life it doesn't happen, and you only end up beating yourself up from not sticking to it or dropping from exhaustion and taking a week to recover.

I'm taking a different approach this time. I'm viewing this as the testing stage. I'm allowing gaps between some tasks. Nothing time, so if I get distracted half way through a task I've got time scheduled in at the end of it to complete what I ran out of time to do. I can swap tasks around, and reschedule them to fit with anything that should happen to come up.

All those things I've been putting off I can now get around to doing simply by scheduling them in to my timetable. And if it's a task I really hate doing, I'll only schedule in fifteen minutes of it, because fifteen minutes isn't long and we can all do anything for fifteen minutes.

So my schedule I guess you could say is like a 'to do' list, a flexible, productive to do list where things actually get done! But other than my schedule I don't do the stereotypical 'to do' list because I never get the things I don't like doing done on it. I replaced my 'to do' list long ago with a 'done' list. Rather than write out everything I want to do of an evening for the next day, I write out everything I have done at the end of the day. Not because I need a record of the things I've done (though at times this can be priceless) but because it makes me feel productive, which makes me feel good. A never complete 'to do' list makes me beat myself up. And honestly, when is a 'to do' list ever complete - there's always something to do!

Daily scheduling gives you a reason to get up in the morning. I have a fear of wasting time, I'm not against taking time off to recharge, but I'd hate to get to the end of my life and look back to see I spent a lot of my years running around in circles, always busy to spend time with the people around me, but never getting anything done.

So I've decided to use the calendar on my iPad to keep track of everything. I've always opted for using a paper diary, but thought I'd give this a shot, because I can sync my calendars on my mac and iPhone with it so if one device fails I still have my calendar.

Whatever type of diary or planner you use I'm sure doesn't matter, different methods for different people. But one thing remains - unless you use it regularly, it's useless.

The proof of which method will work for you is in the pudding, or rather, productivity!

Now, Each Other And Hope

All that we really have is now and each other, all that we really need is a hope for our future. When these things are realised, I think we are usually in a position of humbled compassion.

It's sad that it seems to take a tragedy for us to realize that it's not how much money you have in your bank account (but how you use it, partly), it's not the type of car you drive, the brand of clothes you wear that is the reward for our existence. The richest thing you can have in life, besides a sense of humor, is a compassionate, unselfish love for those around you.

No amount of money can buy good relationships, though enough money may pay for a relationship counsellor who possibly could improve your relationships.

What I think I'm trying to say is why do we get so distracted with things that don't matter? We seem to get comfortable with the way things are, lulled into a false sense of security, we become ungrateful, complacent. We seem to forget that life is temporary because it doesn't change much for a period of time. We become comfortable with the way things are.

Then the unthinkable happens. But that only happens to other people, right? Not this time. It only takes a minute for lives to be totally transformed, both for the good and the bad. There is a period for all things. And I guess that helps in making all things relative, thus the highs higher, lows lower.

Why is it when we become comfortable in our lives we seem to lose our compassion for our fellow man? Why is it we as society are generally happy to help those we pity, hopefully not because it makes us feel good, but out of genuine selfless compassion, yet we won't help the person who is succeeding, rather we'll criticize their success out of our own insecurities and fears of being left behind.

When a tragedy happens, we are changed because of it. We are still us, but some unseen parts of us will never be the same - it may be obvious, or we may hide these different parts from those around us.

Natural disasters are an example of this. Like seeing green growth after the bush fire has crisped everything to black, the way humanity genuinely cares about each other after a large scale disaster, supports and encourages each other, is the beauty that comes from the tragedy of losing everything but your life.

An increasing amount of us know what it is to lose everything but the clothes on your back. I lost everything I owned in a house fire eleven years ago. When you lose everything, you pick yourself up and you start again. You may have lost everything, but you still have one thing that can never be taken - and they are the memories you carry around inside you.

For me, the most challenging thing was waking to an alternate reality in the morning. Because upon waking, your brain doesn't jump onto the fact everything has changed because of whatever event. Things could be the same, you aren't thinking about it upon waking generally. But once you're awake the reality inevitably creeps in, and that reminder is heavy, sometimes enough so to take your breath away as your brain wakes up enough to get your head around the way things now are. And sometimes when you wake to a new reality you come to find the nightmares of the past easier to bear.

That feeling of compassion, wanting to help other people because you care about them, taking the time to check those around you are okay, even though you're yet to know them, that is a beautiful thing, and it's sad that the spirit of it can't be bottled for when we all get too busy and start forgetting to care about each other.

Doctors and Grumblings

The time has come now for me to seriously consider my relationship with him. For over twelve years he has been my doctor, but it gets ridiculous when you're at the doctor and notice on the counter a note that reads, 'due to excess demand please note consultation time is limited to nine minutes per appointment'. Nine minutes? I wonder if medicare know how much they're paying my doctor for a nine minute consultation.

I really don't know how to go about it. The problem is not just the consultation time. It's trying to get an appointment. Having the doctor say to you make an apointment next week and having the receptionist tell you there's nothing available for three weeks. Then there's running out of painkillers and having to beg the receptionist to get the doctor to write you a script for it.

It's not that I'm not happy with my doctor. Well, in this case I'm not, more so I guess because he's overworked, and I'm being left in a room to rot with perhaps expectations that are too high in regard to what a doctor can and can't do.

The doctor obviously isn't going to fix me. I go to the doctor, he gives me scripts and sends me on my way. I've lost heaps of weight, my skin is flaking off me for whatever reason, and I still can't walk far without tiring and hurting. I have come to the conclusion that my doctor now can order tests, only the ones he judges are relevant, and write scripts for pain relief. That's what doctors do. Provide pain relief. My next stop I think will be a physio.

I worry about going to see a physio. I worry about getting from the bed I'm in to the car. I worry about the car drive there, then there's the walk from the car into the physio, the wait in the waiting room and there's the appointment itself. Will I have to get on my stomach? I haven't laid on my stomach since the start of December. I don't think I could tolerate anyone touching my lower back in case they bring on the pain.

I need to know what I can be doing to speed up my recovery. I'm guessing that's what this is - recovery. I'm not getting any worse, though I feel I'm getting better so slowly I barely notice. The only way I can tell I'm getting better is comparing things I can do now compared to things I could do for the first few weeks after it happened. I can get out of bed by myself and without screaming in pain. For the first few weeks I'd be pulled out of bed and would just yell, then find myself feeling relieved and dizzy to be on my feet. Other times I'd get up and get an instant headache when I'd stand up. That's started happening a few weeks ago.

I'm sick of being on painkillers. Days turn into weeks, weeks are turning into months now. We're over a month. I've been off my tree for over a month and I'm sick of it. It got really bad a few times because the pain killers would make me feel sick so I couldn't eat, and then days would go by where I wouldn't eat, and taking the painkillers on an empty stomach was just making me feel more sick. So then I'd have to not take the painkillers long enough for the nausea to go away so I could eat, then gobble down those pain killers on a full stomach. All the while begging my doctor for the tablets that can ease nausea and vomiting. And he wouldn't give them to me. I pleaded again with him for them and got them and yes they help. It's maddening that I had to take the painkillers for so long without them though.

But the problem isn't so much in deciding my GP is no longer the one for me. It's finding a new one. There seems to be a shortage of GP's and a great demand for them. Some can leave you a lot of cash out of pocket. Others bulk bill and you don't pay a cent. Some you need an appointment, others you just walk in off the street. Some doctors manage to squeeze you around their elderly patients with their once a week social visits (did I just write that?!). And other doctors you end up getting more sick from spending three hours being coughed on in the waiting room while waiting for your appointment which again is running late. Or you get a short wait and a nine minute consultation which is turned into a three minute consultation plus a near six minute crutchered walk to get into his room and comfortable.

So I know what I don't want in a doctor. What I do want in a doctor is someone who employs receptionists who recognize when an emergency is an emergency, where there isn't ridiculous waiting lists, where there is isn't ridiculous waiting times before appointments - we turn up on time, surely the doctors can make an effort to be punctual? Or maybe it's us whinging patients that make them late?!

I don't care if I have to pay for the doctor or not, though of course I'd prefer not to if I didn't have to. Going to medicare is a pain, especially as it's over half an hour drive to get there, then the same to get home. Another pet hate is when the doctor's get you to pay a gap, then they get the medicare cheque for them posted to you, then you have to take the cheque in for them. Surely they can get medicare to post the cheques directly to the doctor? Maybe some doctors do this?

So the time has come to say goodbye to my GP and hello to a family GP that can be relied on and who doesn't make assumptions without much consideration. Time to find a new one. And I guess that starts with letting my fingers do the walking, my mouth the talking and my ears the listening.

Things, Attraction And Disassociation

Sometimes we have to do things we don't like, things we just don't want to do. Though at other times we get to do the things we want to do, things we like to do. Sometimes we have to do the things we don't like because they are the things that have to get done. And more often than not these are the things that need doing more than once.

Everybody has things to do they don't like doing. If you're really lucky, you'll find someone who enjoys doing the things you despise, and hopefully you'll enjoy doing something they don't like and then you can come to some form of agreement, potentially effectively avoiding the disliked necessary task. Or you could consider paying someone to do what it is you don't like doing.

Unless you have someone else to do the task, then it looks like you're going to continue doing it. Which then leaves you with two options. You can continue grumbling and procrastinating, blowing a normally simple task way out of proportion and making it bigger, worse and more time consuming than it ought to be.

The other option is to make a decision to LIKE WHAT YOU DO. Can you listen to your favorite music while you're doing it? Is it really all that bad while you're doing it, or is it just the thought of having to do it that's overwhelming? What if you just changed the way you think about it? Could this possibly make a difference?

I believe what we think we become. I guess it kind of is like the law of attraction - though I wouldn't go so far as to believing I can attract anything to me simply by thinking hard enough about it, or asking the created universe. You've got to get off your behind and work towards what you want, work towards your goals. But often people who are fixated on a dream will devote their energies and time to actively working towards that dream. And when they reach that goal, yeah we can write it off as law of attraction, but we shouldn't do so without pointing out all the hard work along the way. In other words, if the law of attraction doesn't work for lazy people, there's the proof you need to see the law of attraction needs to be teamed with hard work and commitment.

The way we see the world, the way we see ourselves, the way we think about what is around us determines the way we interact, and respond to the world around us.

What are your views on humanity? Is there justice? Are people friendly? Are people happy? Which makes me think about how our state of mind can influence our relationships with people. Is there a person in your life that has hurt you, and more than once? And you end up all bitter and twisted at the person, struggling with an internal conflict because of your relationship with that person. You should like them but you don't, though when you're in their presence as sometimes needed you smile and nod politely. They have no idea you don't like them. And the hate you feel for them continues to chew you up inside.

Why would anyone live like this? I like to live simply, and I mean I like everything to be simple, and uncomplicated in my life. I'm not a fan of drama in my life - if I need a fix I have a girlfriend whom I love dearly I can call who has one drama after another happening around her. I like a moderate degree of stress, as I seem to be more productive in times of stress, though I don't like it all the time.

What if we really are in control of our reality? Well, guess what - we are. The only one who limits us is ourselves. And if you're jumping off blaming someone now, I'll point out it's your reaction to that person that dictates your reality. I don't think anyone would purposely go out with the intention of hurting another person (unless that person going out is hurting themselves, and this is how they deal with it, by hurting others). But I do know when we have bitterness and hatred in us it actually does more damage to us than the person who we choose to let get so under our skin that even when they're not around just the thought of them consumes us and dictates our mood.

Sometimes disassociation is necessary. I mean, this is a drastic step, but you'll know when it's necessary. If someone continues to hurt you or those around you don't let the cycle continue, especially if you look back through the years and notice history repeating itself through the generations. Forgive that person for what they've done, chances are they are hurting which is why they're carrying on the way they are. And move on. It's sad when it comes to that. But by moving on and forgiving, there is no longer any bitterness consuming you. And also by giving the person all the room they need they may actually start to reflect on what's going on, which may be the encouragement they need to start working on internal issues that could end up being what's needed to heal your relationship.

And that, again, is nothing more than my point of view.

Change, Time And Bad Luck

Change is inevitable, so if you're choosing to despise it you're only making things harder for yourself, really.

Our concept of 'now' is an illusion. There is no set 'now', because 'now' doesn't really exist. A moment can be captured in a photograph, though when you look at a photo taken 'now' later on you're no longer looking at a photo of 'now' but looking at a photo of 'now' back when the photo was taken. And the only difference between the 'now' now and the 'now' then is - you guessed it - change.

Now having said that now doesn't really exist I'm going to totally seem to contradict myself and say that now is all we have. To me such a statement isn't one of hypocrisy, because my understanding of now includes no real, tangible past or future, but rather an ever-changing, always amazing, unstoppable, questionable, remarkable, impressionable now.

So regret, and in particular the desire to 'go back in time' can't exist. Because all we have is now, there is nothing to go back to. So that also means there is no time. Which brings me to my concept of time.

What is time to me? Time to me, like now, doesn't exist. Time is simply a measurement of that which is temporary. Time itself isn't real, or tangible, the same way, say, a millimeter or litre isn't real. Minutes and hours are just used to give us a sense of control over that which can't be controlled. I always feel time is winding down, even though it counts forward if that makes sense.

Considering the 'future' is still important, as the future is just 'now' after the change 'time' delivers. The future is a consequence of the choices of now. And that's all that really separates us, our choices. And our choices can be influenced by many things, I think the biggest thing though is our views - our views of ourselves, our views of the world. If you have a poor self worth maybe you think you don't deserve success, so you never gain the motivation behind the confidence you'd need to attain your goals.

Why not dream big? Why not dream about a future that when viewed against now and it's current circumstances is laughable? Think about what it is you want, to hell with what you think you deserve, especially if you have a poor sense of self, just if you had everything you could ever desire, what would life be like? Then the even more creative thinking is involved for the next step. How can we get from where we are to where we dreamt about being?

What are we doing now, today, to invest in the bigger dream? If there's nothing that you believe can be done, then you need to stretch your brain some more and think hard about the goals you'll need to get from here to there (which of course will be 'here' when you get to there). It's like having the big, long term goal, then setting medium term and shorter term goals to lead you to the longer term one.

Sometimes change is pushed upon us so hard that adjusting can take a bit of work. Life is irrational, intelligently designed though totally irrational to us living in it. It's spontaneous. Just when you think you have everything planned out something will come along and change everything. An injury, the death of a loved one, a job loss, a birth. Even those expected changes can still come along and make you realize in the rush that what it is is nothing like what you were expecting, so not only do you have to adjust your life for the change, but you also have your emotional response to deal with, and then possibly the difference between the reality and your expectations to deal with all at once.

It's almost like we get too comfortable for too long, without taking any form of risks (good or bad). Then it's forced upon us, refining our character as we react to it.

No doubt almost everyone will relate when they hear about someone having a run of bad luck. Well, I had one earlier this year. I was living in the tropics in far north queensland, and had just moved house. I moved into this new house to find there was no curtains. So I pegged up sheets until I had time to go out and find some curtains (which wasn't long). Not that that's bad luck, but anyway I moved into this place and found the hot water service didn't work. I rang the real estate, being the wet season up there at this time the plumber's were all busy with flood work. It took over five weeks but eventually I had a new hot water service installed.

Simultaneously, I had no home phone, I would call the phone provider and be told that according to things on their end everything was okay. I couldn't get the internet on until the home phone was working properly, so I was being billed for home phone and internet and not actually getting them. It took four technicians before the problem was found and fixed, but in the meantime that was nearly seven weeks without internet or home phone. So no hot water (cold showers weren't a problem as I was in the tropics in summer - just annoying having to boil the kettle to do the dishes), no home phone or internet, and at that stage I needed internet for work and uni, so I was having to call uni to arrange extensions for assignment submissions, and having to call them from the pay phone around the corner.

Plus on top of no hot water, no phone, no internet, not being able to work, not being able to study, none of the locks on the doors of the house worked properly, so it was either risk locking myself out when the lock wouldn't unlock with the key, or risk my stuff getting stolen by leaving the door unlocked. Plus there was a major cockroach infestation in the kitchen. Though this was dealt with immediately when I rang the real estate and complained. Though the exterminator who come around said they'll keep turning up but I'll find them dead, or near dead, on their backs around the edges of the room where he had sprayed I don't know what chemicals. So cockroaches too, which my children affectionately called 'cock-a-roaches'.

When my car started to play up around the same time I seriously thought Murphy had come to camp on my couch in the lounge. Everything I touched would break.

Then the children got gastro from the school, apparently some gastro bug had been picked up from where the older children at the school were camping on a school camp and it was brought back to the school and spread through the toilets and they had to get cleaners in to disinfect the school, but not before my kids caught the bug and it went through the household.

So not the best of times, though when I remember it it makes me thankful that I got through it. It got to the point at the end of my run of bad luck when I went and bought a flat pack wardrobe. I got home, got half way through it and couldn't find some pieces I needed. I spent ages looking through all the pieces I had, and noticed I was definitely missing some, including the pole that the coat hangers hang off. So I called the shop where I had bought it and they asked me to read stuff off the side of the box, including the bit that said 'box one of two'. That's right, the person that had got me the wardrobe had only got the one box when there were two. That meant I had to drive back to the shop and pick up the other box.

When the wardrobe thing happened I laughed when I was going out and getting back into the car to go and pick up the second box. It had got to the point where I had to laugh, because if I didn't I would cry. I would tell friends about my run of bad luck and they would be shaking their heads in disbelief. I also told them not to stand too close to me in case they caught it!

A few other little annoying things happened. Basically everything that could go wrong, did. I had never had a run of bad luck like it. People say things go in threes, well I wished at the time it was really limited to only three things.

What I did find though was things started to improve when I started changing my attitude in response to what was happening. Throughout it all I tried willing my way out of the 'bad luck' and at the time I never referred to what was going on as 'bad luck' because I didn't want to start thinking it in case doing so would somehow attract more of it.

I think the lesson to be learned from it, for me personally, was that not just thinking about something can attract it, but having the wrong response to something can cause it to keep recurring until I develop the maturity to deal with it in a constructive way. Complaining and whinging and getting mad were not constructive ways. However when I started to laugh in response to things going wrong they didn't stop happening straight away. But the frequency and duration of each gradually lessened until nothing was happening at all.

So sometimes the lesson's in how we respond to things. Do the same things keep happening again and again to you? Try changing your response.