Seeing what matters beyond what seems to matter There are occasional, sublime moments in sport that elevate the event to something beyond competition, beyond theatre. I witnessed one such moment many years ago watching a kids indoor soccer match. The kids were at that bittersweet age between playing from joy and playing to win. The parents were well on the wrong side of that divide. It was an important game, the teams evenly matched. The kids ran and jumped, their nascent skill turning the contest one way and then the other.

The Cat in the Hat was wild I was traumatised by The Cat in the Hat when I was a kid. Especially when he came back. In his attempt to annihilate a single dirty spot, he spread and multiplied it. As the mess grew, he doubled down on his attack. Ultimately, his chaotic army of fiendish little cats smeared the stain across the entire yard (or, as it seemed, Universe). Has a “War on…(anything)” ever worked? To this day, the sense of a problem being magnified by the attempt to fix it flashes me back to The Cat and his minions charging headlong towards disaster.

Patience is a virtue, but is it also a pain in the arse? As a kid, my family went on a long driving holiday across Australia from East coast to West. Mum and Dad in the front, five kids in the back of a 4WD. Driving 10 hours a day for a week across the desert. It sounds like the recipe for an “Are we there yet?” nightmare. But we had a ball. With all the innate creativity of children we filled those hours and days with endless, timeless play. And to this day, my memories of that trip are rooted in that voyage across the desert. Memories of the destination are there, but blend seamlessly with the entire journey.

A pilgrimage to nowhere My sister walked 1,200 km around an island in Japan. Walked. In a (very large) circle. I went with her for 800 km. Isn’t that the opposite of sensible? Almost anything you can think of that could be obtained on such a trek, can be obtained far more easily in other ways. What was the damn point? Is being sensible always sensible?

Betting against a Google review The moment I saw his house, I knew my laptop would never work properly again. I’d been pet-sitting in a remote suburb when the sat pet, a cat, broke my laptop screen. Don’t ask how. Such are the heroic risks of pet-sitting. But my luck was in. There was a computer repair shop in an adjacent suburb! “Try Your Luck IT” But was it good luck, or bad luck?

Victory, or Flow? Watching my son grow up, the continuous unfolding of subtle but profound leaps in his development was exhilarating. As new levels of adorableness arose, I partly wished I could hold on to each phase, and partly lived in perpetual wonder at the emergence of the next one. Whatever age he was at, I would say to myself “Oh, this is the best age,” only to refresh my appraisal the next month, week, or day. But Life had zero interest in my desires to cling to a certain age, or to long for another one. It just rolled on. It flowed – as it does.

Nature is humbling I'm often astonished by nature, and how it does it's thing so well. The perfection in the simplest budding of a flower, the regeneration of a fingernail... There's no natural process, no matter how "small", that doesn't leave the greatest achievements of our species - let alone any of my personal victories - in the shade. Can the most sophisticated technology replicate the majesty of a single leaf? Does my most cherished success hold a candle to the miracle of the smallest flower?

When is there more than meets the eye? There's a scene in "The Devil Wears Prada" where Meryl Streep's character ruthlessly deconstructs the myriad forces that combined to produce a blue jumper. Before this, Anne Hathaway's character believed the superficial fashion world was beneath her. She saw no value there. But through her boss's brutal tear down - she senses a deeper sophistication and power in this industry. There is more going on here than had met her eye. Where she saw just a jumper, Meryl Streep's character saw a whole industry. A whole art form.

It's hard to find what I can't see. Someone needed to show me. Some years ago a friend invited me to an Archie Roach performance. “Why not?" I thought. I'd never seen him before. It might be fun. ~~~ The room was silent, but at the first note we plummeted into a deeper silence. Into another realm. A realm where we could not move. Could not look away. Could barely breathe. Our breathing was being done for us. To us.

A lesson from the best tennis players in the world. After the final of the Women's US Tennis Open recently, the runner-up, and new world number 1, Aryna Sabalenka was asked about her greatest achievement this year. Her response? Her greatest achievement in becoming world number 1, was learning not to care about becoming world number 1. The winner, Coco Gauff, was asked about the importance of her Christian faith in her success. Her response?

We don't make good choices. We find them. By definition, visionary decisions see beyond our prevailing assumptions. The innovative colleague whose vision penetrates our assumptions about how things must be done. The enlightened activist who sees the distant consequences of our current actions. The recovering addict who sees the freedom beyond the attachment. The wise person who takes a breath before lashing out. And in fact there is something breathtaking about all visionary decisions. They reveal a stunning landscape that had been hidden to us. Hidden behind what we were sure was true. So, visionary decisions are more a matter of letting go than of creating. They are revealed rather than constructed.

Nature never asks "Are we there yet?" In nature there is no rush. But it gets stuff done ok. While human productivity — making money, things, creating and processing information — has accelerated 1000-fold, have trees learned to grow faster? Maybe they have. An evolutionary biologist might be able to tell me. Regardless, nature's way is so much calmer than our frantic striving. Although all life has an agenda — to achieve its potential — as humans we often hijack and distort it. We get jacked up on adrenaline in our desperate craving for achievement.

Things look better in hindsight You know how most problems - when you look back at them - seem far less significant than they did at the time? Sometimes we are even grateful for them - wouldn't change them for anything. And notice how hindsight's view is more accurate. The problem appeared huge at the time, but actually wasn't that big a deal. Usually, it's like that. Wouldn't it be great if we could see our current problems in that diminished, more realistic way - and avoid the stress that comes with blowing them out of proportion? Caught in the gravitational pull of these issues, we can react in regrettable ways - damage relationships, make short sighted decisions, etc.

You've been procrastinating. But finally you bite the bullet and do what must be done. Is there any better feeling than that? Well, yes, there are a few better feelings. But it's pretty good, right? The relief of escaping procrastination. I give it 6 out of 10. It certainly feels better than procrastinating does. But why does it feel good? It's not that we love what we were avoiding - that's why we avoided it. And it's not that we don't like what we did to procrastinate - that's why we did it. It's because we raised our standards.

I am doomed to a life of misery. Nothing is more certain. At two o'clock this morning, tossing in bed, I was convinced this was true. Plagued with fears of a desolate future. Haunted by regrets. I was catastrophising. I couldn't reason or distract my way out of the tailspin. Sleep was out of the question. But by 3am I was sleeping like a baby. And I woke later feeling fresh and inspired. What changed? What lead me from that nightmarish path to a delightful one? The short answer is: Gratitude. Against the magnetic pull of consuming fear, I found a glimmer of gratitude. A spark. Just enough. A sliver of light opened and I dived in - following a trail of things I'm grateful for.