Thinking BIG - progress, or not?
In a quiet season a British holiday maker was sitting in the harbour of a quaint Spanish coastal village when a fishing boat came in and docked. Inside the boat was a small catch of fish. Showing interest, the holiday maker admired the fish and asked the fisherman how long it took for him to catch them.
The fisherman replied, "Only a little while, senor". The holiday maker asked why he didn't stay out longer and catch more fish. The fisherman said that he had caught enough fish to provide for all his family's immediate needs.
The holiday maker then asked, "So what do you do with the rest of your time?"
The fisherman said, "I play with my children, take siesta with my wife, Rosana, stroll into the village each evening, where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos. I have a full and busy life senor."
The holiday maker smiled, "I have an MBA from a top Business School - that's a degree in business administration, and lots of corporate business experience - I could help you. You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds buy a bigger boat, with the proceeds from the bigger boat you would buy several boats, eventually you would have a fleet of boats. Then instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell to the processor, eventually opening your own factory canning the fish. You would control the product, processing and distribution channels. You would, of course, need to leave this coastal fishing village and move to the city of Madrid, then have offices in a number of international cities, where you would run your expanding empire."
The fisherman asked,"But senor, how long would all this take?"
The holiday maker replied, "Fifteen to twenty years."
"But, what then, senor?"
The holiday maker laughed, "That's the best part. When the time is right you sell the business on the open market and become very rich. You would make millions."
"Millions, senor? But then what?"
"Then you would retire, move to a small coastal village, where you could sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siesta with your wife, Rosana, and stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play guitar with your amigos."
http://www.woodlandadventurers.com
https://www.facebook.com/WoodlandAdventurers
http://twitter.com/woodadventurers
__________________________________________________
Hunter Gatherer or Modern Society?
Hunter Gatherer or Modern
Society?
In the outdoors, with children
playing, isn’t it great to see them using their imagination and deciding their
own activities. Finding resources,
materials, even mud to play with – it’s fantastic! As adults, we are often here to just provide
the resources and to enable it to happen in a safe way.
I sometimes wonder though.
What is the trigger and influence
for many activities?
Boys often want to make
weapons…to use weapons and to chase each other…aka “man hunt”.
They like playing with knives -
potatoes peelers are just not enough for them - it must progress quickly to
knives whilst whittling sticks.
They also love making fires,
stoking fires and playing with fires.
What is this? I wonder…weapons, knives, fire…
Is it modern life? Are they watching too much TV? Gangster movies? Too many action PC games??? To much reality TV (…including the real
news)?
No.
It has to be a natural instinct.
A human instinct.
Hunter, gatherer.
These are basic survival skills.
Why wouldn’t any child want to learn
instinctive, natural survival skills?
Why would any adult prevent them
from learning such instinctive skills?
Surely such skills are better to
learn properly rather than from in front of an LCD / LED screen?
Woodland Adventurers seeks to
enable children to play freely. We aim
to provide the opportunities for children to explore and learn new skills.
In all weathers.
Provided they are happy,
comfortable and safe.
We want to enable children to
learn MASSIVELY. We want them to learn
practical skills, but more importantly social skills, building their self esteem
and self confidence and we want them to have fun.
The most amazing fun!
So whilst they are having this
amazing fun, they don’t even realise that they are learning.
At Woodland Adventurers we
fundamentally believe that learning is fun, in fact it MUST be fun…and as a
result…with time…FUN IS…LEARNING!
For us these words have the same
meaning!
If a child believes that learning
is fun…just think…they could achieve anything!
https://www.facebook.com/WoodlandAdventurers
http://twitter.com/woodadventurers
__________________________________________________
Aliens have taken over!!!
Hi Everyone,
Welcome to the official blog of Woodland Adventurers www.woodlandadventurers.com. Woodland Adventurers is led by Chris and it is aimed at getting children outdoors, away from their PC games and 'modern' artificial entertainment (which I admit, does have a relevance and place in our lives!), into the great outdoors, having 'real life' fun! The focus and philosophy is very much fun-based. The belief being that if you are having fun then you are much more receptive to learning and opening your mind to new things. And children, at their young ages, have such an amazing aptitude to learn and remember information, that can continue to grow and be built upon. We believe that socialising and learning new skills through exciting, fun activities helps build self esteem, confidence and that 'rounded' person that we would all like to be!
A bizarre story...
I (Chris) had a very strange experience the other day, travelling to London by train. One that I had lost touch with...which I will come to in a little while...
A few years ago, and for many years before that, I had often travelled by train to London for work, as well as jet setting around the world seeing those exciting cities (...well actually seeing the airport, plane interior, taxi interior, hotel room, office and back again!...and alone!...perhaps not so great after all!). I guess I was chasing that career path that so many of us get trapped within. The career path of corporate business, where we convince ourselves that the buzz and excitment of the pressure (and often stress) is enjoyable and it is our preferred choice in life! I was well and truly trapped in this 'exciting' bubble! Regular phone calls to the family from hotel rooms. Sat there alone. But it was necessary, we had to pay the bills, and wow, that hefty mortgage! It had to be paid. Modern life!
More recently, my role became redundant. BANG! Life changed over night!...and only 2 weeks later my younger brother died suddenly of a brain haemorrhage.
Coming back to my train journey...
It was the 07.55am train from Chippenham to London. I purchased my ticket. I walked over the bridge to the platform. Coming down the steps I saw the mass of people on the platform. All the people on the left were facing left, all the people on the right were facing right. You may say...that's normal. But how can it be 'normal'? Clearly the people on the left were on the left platform waiting for their train, and they felt compelled to face the track. There was nothing to look at in particular.
No train yet as it was a long way off. But they all felt compelled to face their own direction even though it was not relevant yet and would only become relevant at the instant in time that the train arrived ready for embarking. Same for the right hand side.
Having not seen this for some time, where previously I thought it was normal and I would have done the same as all these people, this time I was coming at it with fresh eyes seeing it for what it was...from my perspective...very strange, not even sheep-like behaviour, more zombie or perhaps humans taken over by aliens?! Like some movies portray zombie / alien-affected humans walking down the street in one direction with the minority unaffected ones trying to not get noticed by the masses in fear of becoming the same.
But in this picture, I was the minority, not conforming, so I started to wonder if I was the odd one.
Perhaps I was the alien?
The train arrived. I got on the train. It was 7.55am. Aisle seat in Carriage B. The woman next to me already working on her laptop, detailed spreadsheets. Lots of business calls going on. Lots of business conversations. Wow! Had I missed something? There must be loads of crises that I am oblivious to, all requiring urgent activity!
A very loud, over weight, balding (and frankly unhealthy looking) business man, I guess late 40s/early 50s on the phone. BOOMING out to everyone. Talking construction sector stuff like.."he's the CDM"..."and I hold him responsible for bla...bla...bla". BIG ego! I'm sure nobody wanted to listen to him, they had no choice, but they all continued as if not noticing, engrossed in their own business conversation, spreadsheet or powerpoint presentation.
I started to feel a sensation of panic!...and a dislike of where I was. But I was the only one.
Was I the alien???
A woman across the aisle facing me, swigging her coke cola bottle, presumably her 'fix' for breakfast, still before 8.00am! I got thinking...perhaps this is all 'normal' these days? Perhaps I'm the only one thinking this is a bad picture?
The train stopped at Swindon. I got up at last. Phew! A sensation of hope. For freedom to go and get a different seat by the window. One with a view for distraction. But I soon realised this was no good.
Some of the seats had reserved tickets in them and I noticed that mine was one of those. It's reserved from Swindon to Paddington!
I got up and found sanctuary in the doorway between two carriages. Carriage A, where no talking was permitted, but it was jammed solid with people. And Carriage B where I had come from. Then I did some thinking. I used to be a part of this world and why was I finding this journey so tough? I thought more...Perhaps Carriage B was full of fully transformed 'humans into aliens', or aliens that just looked like humans? Whereas Carriage A was full of people that were subconciously resisting the alien transformation, trying desperately to hold back on the inevitability of the insatiable pull for them to enter the alien world?
I came to a conclusion. These humans all around me had somehow lost the plot. They had forgotten the importance of living life to the full. Enjoying every minute. Giving time to their families, partners, children and to themselves. Forgetting that in the scheme of the universe, the world, their families and indeed themselves, the business pressure at 7.55am is trivia and taking away vast chunks of their lives.
I also concluded that I had finally gone bonkers!
And a small part of me (in fact only about 3.26723%) is also wondering if I have become compulsive obsessive and paranoid. Which surprisingly, actually feels, bl***y fantastic!!
Playing in the woods and countryside, having great fun and enabling children to enjoy the outdoors and the things that are important in life!
http://www.woodlandadventurers.com
https://www.facebook.com/WoodlandAdventurers
http://twitter.com/woodadventurers
No comments:
Post a Comment