Do you sense any lightening up out there? Are there any...uh...green shoots? Is it just me (the glass-half-full maniac) who detects that things are turning? Or is it just that the sun shone for half an hour yesterday and the blossom is out in my back garden and I will grab any reason to be cheerful?
Look, there is no doubt that it is pretty grim out there but I have decided to take control (at least as far as my little bit of the world is concerned). This is partly prompted by the lovely John Carleton, of the PWC regeneration team (and an esteemed BURA Board member) calling me to report on the excellent BURA Dinner held in Liverpool the other night for the "Waterways Renaissance Awards" (which we JV with the Waterways Trust). He said "Jack, we all get so bloody hung up about the huge regeneration projects, but I was blown away by some of the small projects receiving awards. They didn't cost much but have made a huge difference to peoples' lives. It was truly humbling."
This from the geezer who advises on some of the biggest bits of infrastructure kit going! I am deeply proud to lead BURA which - uniquely - occupies the space between the public, private and voluntary sectors and which recognises and awards the small projects which have a profound impact on people's lives.
So, continuing in this vein and having spent some time studying the cold, broken down, stressed out, utterly miserable faces of my fellow passengers (sorry, "customers") on the London tube, I have decided to start a campaign to promote the small pleasures in life. The God of Small Things. I am sick of feeling powerless in adversity. I am bored with being miserable. I have taken to smiling inanely at sad looking people at bus stops. Most importantly, I have embarked on a programme of random acts of kindness and I intend to do at least five additional kind things every day from now on. Everywhere I go I am seriously entreating people to be nicer to each other and to have MORE FUN. As the Sunday supplements point out - ad nauseam - a plate of spaghetti with friends doesn't have to be expensive.
Life is short. And we oldies have known things to be a lot more poverty-stricken than this (as I'm sure has been pointed out painfully by an oldie near you in the last few days). I'm not saying it isn't awful out there (it clearly is!) but you sure as hell aren't going to make a jot of difference to any of that by being buttoned down and miserable in yourself.
Turn your radio up and dance around your kitchen. Phone your poor long suffering mother. Sniff your baby's head. Eat a bag of chips in the street. Send a postcard to a long-lost friend. As I say, life is short (I even have a mate who texts me "LIS" every so often to remind me) and you owe it to yourself and others to make the best of everything you can.
Enjoy the people around you - they hold the seed of our salvation.
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