For several weeks now I have been getting regular updates from a motivational speaker and blogger, Craig Harper. I was particularly touched by today’s blog and thought I’d share part of it with you:

To live the life you want, you must stop playing destructive games. But what makes giving up games so difficult is that we tend to surround ourselves with people who play the same games we do. Sometimes we will find, if we stop playing destructive games our current relationships evaporate because they weren’t based on true intimacy, they were based on game play. This is most obvious with alcoholics and drug addicts, but it can happen to anyone with ingrained destructive patterns, even overeating.

I’ve heard it so often before and done it myself.

Don’t have time to exercise.

Can’t go to the gym, it’s too humiliating.

I really can’t walk without the proper shoes, and those are so expensive, maybe next month I can afford them.

I’m so tired. Let’s just have fish’n'chips or pizza for dinner.

It’s quicker just to heat up an instant meal.

Work’s been hard. I need to reward myself.

…and so on. It’s all too easy. I’ve got one buddy who needs to lose weight, he has a bad back, he’s a cancer survivor, he has a loving wife and two small children. When I suggested the friendly atmosphere at the local gym to him, he told me that he’s tried gyms before and after 2 weeks loses interest. Well, there’s an acceptance of an aspect of human nature, but it does nothing to help his back. Instead, he’s taken up smoking a pipe. Don’t even get me started on how I feel about that. I was a huge fan of Graham Chapman’s and devastated when he died. Of cancer. From smoking a freaking pipe every waking moment.

We create ourselves in our own image.

We carry within us the seeds of our own destruction.

Yesterday I planted some groundcovers around the frog pond. Here’s a “before” picture of the pond:

In the top on the right you can see that my dog, Bluey was supervising. The pond still hasn’t got any running water yet, and we don’t have a power source for the pump. For some reason, Beloved is a little antsy about plugging 240v into an underwater pond pump. Go figure.

These are some of the things I have planted on my bedroom balcony (just next to where I sit when I do my blogs). Yesterday I put in some lettuce and snow peas. Can’t wait for these to grow up. I love to snack on fresh picked snow peas.

Here are some strawberry plants. They are self sown.

I have a worm farm that I get most of my potting soil from. It’s great fun, you never know what’s going to grow up. I have stacks of parsley and tomatoes from the worm farm. I even got a kiwi fruit. The kiwi plant grew so fantastically, I knew I couldn’t leave it in a pot, so I transplanted it to the garden. Sadly, this was a tragic mistake. It got burned by the drought, eaten by a possum and finally dug up by the dog. This was in the days before I had bokashi though, so I’m planning on that not happening when I plant my mulberry on the weekend.

This is a kumato that grew itself thanks to my worm farm.

I think I’ll have it for my lunch.