Crisis? What Crisis?

At the age of 49, I’m probably overdue my mid-life crisis. So I pondered whether that meant I was having the opposite of a crisis. But what is the opposite of crisis? The thesaurus offers a plethora of choices - advantage, agreement, benefit, blessing, breakthrough, happiness, miracle, peace, solution, success - but none quite hit the spot for me.

The word crisis comes from the Greek term “krisis” which in 1425 meant the turning point of a disease. So in a mid-life crisis, the disease must be life. And the turning point is presumably when you look back at your life and realise there’s more behind you than in front of you. So I suppose I am past that point.

Don’t get me wrong – there are some things about being older that make me a bit grumpy.  I have what people call laughter lines but nothing is that funny. The brain connections don’t always fire an answer into my head as quick as I want them to. And I am less tolerant than I was (which probably wasn’t that tolerant to start with). But I think crisis is exaggerating the carrier bag of emotions that comes with ageing.

Mostly I just feel very lucky to be where I am, both in work and outside of work, surrounded by special people who make the days better.  

So perhaps I’ll have a mid-life thanksgiving instead. Turkey, anyone?

Jane

Election and Selection

I am sure I am not the only person who is a little jaded by both the election coverage on the television and the endless leaflets being dropped through the front door. Though I think every person should take an interest and ought to vote, when the messages from all the politicians are so negative, it’s hard to be enthused.

My political interest was prodded by the news that Sandi Toksvig was planning to set up a political party but I was dismayed when I heard that it wouldn’t be ready until the next election and further disappointed when I heard the name of the new party. It’s going to be called the Women’s Equality Party. Isn’t that an oxymoron? I love the idea of a party that fights for equality but how can you only fight for equality for half the world? An Equality Party – that fights for equal pay for all – would be fighting for the same end as one that fights for equal pay for women. And if you care about equality, why not fight for equality in areas where men get the raw deal (I’m thinking of Fathers for Justice here).

Equality is, of course, hard to enforce, when so many of the decisions that affect us are based on judgement. Have you ever been in a position where you’ve interviewed people for a role and found two candidates who are equally as good?  You choose the one you “like” best. Now that “like” could be based on their gender, favourite football team or their cuteness. But that’s human nature and I’ve yet to find an example of someone fighting human nature and winning.

Some people advocate positive discrimination but I am not one of them. I don’t believe it is right to use discrimination in any form as a means to expedite social change. I think it creates more discrimination in people’s hearts when they are forced down a single path, regardless of whether they see that as the right or wrong one. No-one likes to be told what to do so we’re back to the idea of fighting human nature again.

Forcing someone that they can only eat cabbage soup or boiled cabbage, when they don’t like cabbage, will not make them like cabbage. What we have to do is devise recipes to make them like cabbage enough to choose it from the menu. Stir-fried cabbage and bacon, anyone?

 Until next time.

Jane