Archive for month: November, 2021

An online survey by Today Online, of 1,500 respondents is Asia’s most comprehensive psychographic study in terms of the number of respondents, geographical coverage and insights into 16 key topics: Beauty, communication, education, entertainment, fashion, food, health, kids, love, luxury, media, money, sports, technology, travel and vehicles revealed that 75.4 per cent of people feel that happiness is more important than making money.

So would you rather be rich or happy?

I love surveys like this one because they go to re-prove again and again that… money doesn’t make you happy.

Psychologically most would say that they know this to be true, so why are so many of us obsessed with becoming rich? I have been doing a straw poll of those I have met today and my instant findings are that when people are talking about happiness they mean feeling secure with nothing to worry about. We seem to collectively have the belief that if we had money we would the be happy because at a deeper level we feel that it would give us security and that we would then have little to worry about.

Worrying about money

Well, I have worked with many very rich and very unhappy people and very poor and very happy people. I know you can be poor and miserable and rich and happy. But try this for size…

In the present, in the here and now, at any given time or point, we are both safe and secure. Check it out as you read this. Are you safe, are you secure, do you have anything to worry about right now this minute? I find that people with money are more likely to be worrying about it. The questions I have been asked and this things I have heard include,

‘What do I do with it all?’
‘What happens if I lose it?’
‘Who can I trust? Are my friends only friends because I am rich?’
‘Life is so boring and meaningless’
‘People hate me because I have money’
‘Should I give to the kids or do they need to learn about working?’

Bottom line is that the money that you can usefully use is the byproduct of what you do. It is the doing that gives the money meaning. If you have money for doing nothing then the money has no real value, it is just there to be used. Once we start worrying about what will happen next we will forever have an anxiety syndrome. And money gives us a lot to be anxious about from interest rates to thefts. We can then start craving for what was when we were living a normal life before we were distracted by the money. If we keep worrying about the past and craving for what was we will be in a depressive syndrome. If you do both you will be anxiously depressed. It doesn’t matter if you are rich or poor, young or old, healthy or infirm if you live in the present you can find happiness and being in the now at this very moment does not need any money at all.

Anxiety, control and intolerance

One thing that I have observed about people who have anxiety syndrome is their need to be in control in order to manage their anxiety. People who are controlling are very often suffering from an anxiety disorder that they are compensating for. Many rich people suffer from the this ‘anxiety-control syndrome’. The nest step is that to create and maintain control our tolerance of others and our ability to let them simply be who they are and do what the want or need to do diminishes.

I have met and worked with many wealthy but anxious people who cover up their fears by being controlling and in so doing become intolerant and insensitive to the other people around them.

Of course there are people who are both rich and happy just not as many as we might think..

Live in the present and be happy now

Take care

Sean x

I guess that anyone following UK politics over the last couple of years could not fail to notice the interesting difference between what comes out of our politicians moths and their actions. It is as though there are two scripts running side by side one for us and one for them. In reality the same thing happens in all areas of society from schools and hospital to businesses and institutions. It does make me wonder about Cop26 and whether the action will match up with the pledges being made?

There is a psychological phenomenon known as ‘attitude alignment’, the idea that we, below our awareness, take on the prevailing attitudes of whichever group we are with or we are listening to. When the government decides it is going to the country in a general election the seduction begins. It is for me a fabulous opportunity to watch attitude alignment in action as the various spin doctors and attitude manipulators doing their best to sway us voters to embrace their attitudes. Are we actually being seduced? Well if enough of us are then the spinners get their way. Brexit is the perfect example.

I see both the advantages and disadvantages of capitalism and both the advantages and disadvantages of socialism. Though I am not seduced by either. Ed describes himself as a ‘centralist’ and I guess I join him in that. The centre ground is where most people are. In any election the attitude aligners will attempt to sway the centre ground to either the left or the right. So, here we go again, when there is another election. Prepare to be swayed ot seduced.

Both Ed and I are not really politically motivated though we do have the shared attitude alignment in the belief that human beings are best served by coming together as groups in common interest rather than breaking down in ever smaller factions. because of that we were and are both ‘remainers’ though not ‘remoaners’.

For me I know see the real issues of Brexit are now manifesting economically, socially and illegal immigration. The biggest issues I see is breakdown in the development of human consciousness which I see as the reality of evolution. The process of evolution that took single celled organisms to the primates and homo-sapiens of today is not only the evolution of biology, physiology, sociology and psychology, it is also that of evolving consciousness.

Evolution is not something that did happen and then stopped, it is happening right now in you and me and all around us. Evolution continues and ever will do so. The key to understanding evolution will always be the investigating evolution of consciousness. Evolution is the increasing awareness and awake-ness of mind that is expressed in physical form. In many senses evolution is the increasing ability of consciousness to become aware of itself.
Looking back at social history we can show that behaviours and practices that were acceptable a few hundred years ago are now considered difficult, wrong and unacceptable. After all it was only in the 1960’s that women in Britain ceased to be the property or chattels of their husbands or fathers and homosexuals could be imprisoned. In many countries women still suffer inequality with their men folk. I suspect that many women in Britain would, even now, feel that they do not have full equality.

As our human consciousness evolves people’s behaviour gradually develops to be less damaging and more helpful to itself and to all other beings and even the environment and the planet as a whole. With greater awareness we learn to attend to the needs of each other. As I often say my simple life philosophy is that…

…if we all look after each other we will all be ok

Without going over old ground too much social history shows us that the division of countries across Europe and across the world led to the two great world wars. Following the creation of the League of Nations, the United Nations and the European community, NATO and the multi-various trade agreements have all be the expression of the natural desire of consciousness to envelope. That is human beings growing in awareness, coming together and working together.

Division and separation, in the end, serves no one and creates more problems for human being and all sentient beings and the environment on the planet.

As we look at the environmental crisis of global warming, pollution and plastics look out for the aligners.

Look out for the aligners
Who is attempting to align your attitudes with theirs. Each party and each group will be attempting to get your vote. One thing that we need to consider is what people are telling us the truth. Vaccination Vs non vaccination, climate change Vs a weather event, I could go on. Each side have aligners seeking to convince us that they are right. Many aligners are psychopaths in that they act without either insight or empathy and are only concerned in their own point of view and their own importance.

Psychopathic behaviour when applied to politicians is the ability to appear genuine and sincere and then go and do something completely different. When someone will tell us anything at anytime to get the response that they really want we need to be mindful and listen for the sound behind their words, what is it that they really mean? What are they really saying?

If you recall that vast amount of money that was advertised on the side if the UKIP bus that would be put into the NHS which was then denied by Farage when he was directly questioned in an interview. The NHS could really do with all that money right now.

Being seduced can be fun
When I go to replace my car I love that process of the salesperson doing whatever they can to secure the sale. It is seduction in action. There is nothing wrong with being seduced as long as we are mindful of what is going on and that we are seduced with both our knowledge and consent.

So, through this period as we come through Covid and Brexit enjoy the seduction that you are subjected to by friends, family and the media. Be mindful of what is happening and simply ask your self ‘Why are they saying that, what do the really mean, what is the true sound behind their words?’

Take care and be happy

Sean

How do you feel about getting on plane right now and jetting away? The people I am talking to are split both ways. There are those that would grab a bag right now and rush to the airport while others are saying to me that they don’t expect to be going abroad until at least 2023. 

So, one client said to me, just as an aside, “why is it that we go on holiday to get away from where we live and the people who live where we go on holiday are going some where else for theirs? Can’t we all just stay where we are have a good time?”

The idea of needing to get away would suggest that where we are is never really good enough. I get it that the act of taking a break, of doing something different, is stimulating and often relaxing but the question got me thinking about do we really appreciate where are and what we have? Are we able to enjoy the space that we live in.

I am reminded of the amount of the amount of times when we have been driving around europe and have been spellbound by views and vistas. Yet there are many times when we have noted that we have views like this where we live on the Wirral. There is a beach on an island in the Florida Quays that people go to every evening to watch and marvel at the sunset. It does have lovely sunsets. But, when I watch the sun going down over Hilbre Island and the Welsh coast I am stunned on a daily basis just down the road from my house.

The peninsula named Wirral is know as the insular peninsula mainly because people, once they arrive, never leave. I know many people that were born on the Wirral that have never travelled anywhere else, not even for holiday. I note that those that do manage to leave often return after a few years as though they have been drawn back by some invisible elastic umbilicus that will not them truly leave.

Wirral sticks out into the sea with estuaries either side. There is the river Mersey between Wirral and Liverpool and the river Dee between Wirral and Wales. Both estuaries empty into Liverpool Bay and eventually the Irish Sea. At the top end of Wirral there are beaches, and all the fun of the holiday trade. There seems to be a balance here of industry, residential and holiday occupation and accommodation.

Where do you live?

How well do you know your own area? What do you know about it’s history?  Maybe this would  be a good time to get to know where you live? Especially if you are not holidaying abroad fro a couple of years.

I have lived all over the world and only came to Wirral with work and stayed and now I cant think of a better place to live. Like most of the British I feel that the weather could be warmer and that the sun could shine some more but taken over all I live in heaven. In ten minutes I can stroll down to the beach. In twenty minutes I can be in the centre of Liverpool. In twenty five minutes I can be in Chester and in forty minutes into the mountains of Wales. The motorway system that runs through the middle of Wirral connects us to the rest of the UK and on through to Europe.

Once I became interested in the Wirral and began to look around it I found places that are gems. There are areas of richness and poverty, areas of beauty and the not so beautiful. I discovered that Paul Hollywood’s dad has a bakers not far away, that Lillie Savage was brought up here and Wirral has been home to Ian Astbury, Ian Botham, Fiona Bruce,Ellis Costello, Daniel Craig, Chris Farrell, Austin Healey, Paul Hollywood, Eric Idle, Paul O’Grady, John Peel, Patricia Routledge, Harold Wilson, the list goes on forever. And there was a Viking parliament in a place called Thingwall apparently a corruption on Ing meaning assembly and Voll meaning field- Amazing.

Anyway, I digress. My advice to you is to get to know where you are. Don’t become blind to what is around you and certainly enjoy your holidays in foreign parts, once we can safely do them again, but maybe begin to understand why people from other parts of the world might like to come to where you live for their annual holiday.

Take care and be happy

Sean x