On the weekend I did a Positive Psychology Certificate at Victoria University, it was based on the popular Harvard course that is constantly oversubscribed by students. Over recent years renowned researchers Seligman, Ben-Shahar, Lyubomirsky have put empirical research around the happiness concept. We all think if we get a better house, car or job, we will be happier. Or if our spouse or boss would only…you add the blanks..you would be amazingly happy.

However, research has now shown that only 10% of our variance in happiness comes from our circumstances. The difference between the happiness of the mega-rich versus blue collar workers is insignificant, with the mega-rich only scoring a 1% higher happiness level than their blue-collar counterparts. 50% of our happiness levels come from our genetic base or “happiness set point” and the other 40% is determined by our behaviour. This means that regardless of our situations or genes, we have the ability to increase our happiness by at least 40%. Happiness enhancing interventions were not falling in love, buying a car, or having that overseas trip. Happiness was enhanced by intentional activity in the following areas: gratitude, optimism, forgiveness, having goals, being spiritual, finding meaning, optimism, kindness, having good social relationships and coping strategies. It would seem then that happiness is within everyone’s reach and control.

So what are you grateful for? What random act of kindness did you perform today? Or have you set yourself a goal that might just dazzle your grin back onto your chin? Huh?

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Building on the theme of those who are physically talented versus those of us who are not – Look at how amazing these performers are…Amazing…

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Funny how in life, the anticipation of the event is sometimes scarier than the reality. I was seriously scared about getting on the bike. I am uncoordinated, floppy and lack confidence about physical things. Give me a mental problem to solve and I am confident and fairly quick with a retort. Make me stand up in front of a group of 800 people and say a speech, I won’t be scared about forgetting what I have to say, I won’t need to imagine the audience naked to calm my nerves, but I will be slightly nervous that I trip over my feet as I head onto the stage!!! I know my limitations and physical adroitness is not up there with my talents, it is one of the reason’s I have decided that I should learn to be better physically! Hence, the bike (and of course, my friend Debra’s incessant nagging to join her…)

We took our bikes down to the velodrome and put on our riding shoes with “cleats”. Let me make it clear, up until a month ago, I would have thought a “cleat” was something else and I would not have associated it with a bicycle, anyhow, we arrive, in our gear and vaguely look like people who know what they are doing. We mount our cycles. Deb sits and practices, getting her cleats in and out of the pedals. Me? I decide, I should just ride. I push off (some people say finally!) and click the cleats in perfectly, I feel the wind in my hair, the joy of freedom, I cycle round the velodrome grinning, like I have won the Tour de France. I come full circle, grinning at Deb’s husband, Peter. I smile and yell, “I am going to fall”, I grin and I elegantly land on my side, While Peter rushes to my aid!

Afterwards, he says “I had no idea you were going to fall. You looked so happy”. I thought about it. This bicycle thing is not unlike how I deal with my life. I love learning new things. More often than not, I just get on and try it. Often, I am so busy enjoying the experience that even when I fall I am still grinning. It has stood me in good stead in a lot of situations! What would also stand me in good stead would be a bit of planning and not so much waving to the crowd (in this case, Peter). I needed to have planned what I was going to do if I could not get my feet out of the cleats. I could have just done another lap, kept going and tried another click out of the pedals. Oh, well, now I know! I spent the rest of the ride clicking in and out. Being at one with many things is fabulous, being at one with a bike is great, except when you suddenly need to be “at two”.

How do you learn? And is it fun?

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Change is exciting and dynamic! And TERRIFYING! I have heard somewhere, that the universal fear that every human is born with, is the fear of falling. Tomorrow, I get on the road bike for the first time. I am visualising myself staying upright, but honestly, I am terrified of falling…I was even scared of falling in the spinning class and the bike was stationary!

The bike I have just acquired is beautiful, sleek and looks like it can move like the wind. It is specially designed for a woman. A fast one! I am sure that when it was in the factory, dreaming of its new owner, it fantasised about a strong athlete, who had the heart and stamina of a winner. Poor bike, didn’t realise it was getting me – with a penchant for rather chasing a muffin! If this was another area of endeavour, it might have been more lucky. But alas, it is not!

If success is “feel the fear and do it anyway” then I am half way there, I aim to try to get on the bike, stay on the bike and get fit. I believe, according to the weather forecast, that it is going to be sunny tomorrow in gorgeous Melbourne, so it appears that there is no excuse except to “hit the road”. Figuratively, only, please God!

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I was on the train this morning and my iPod shuffled onto “Song Sung Blue” by Neil Diamond. Suddenly, in an “Alice in Wonderland” moment, I was no longer on the train. I was no longer an adult. I was a whispy haired blonde child in my garden in South Africa, the sky was as blue as it can only be on a Highveld summer’s day, pigeons were cooing gently and Springbok Radio was floating in the breeze out of my mother’s kitchen playing “Song Sung Blue”. I could almost hear our neighbour and my mum’s friend, Aunty Bridget, going “Cooo eee” over the fence and asking whether we would like to come and have a cup of tea and a crumpet.

Songs for me hold memories and sensations locked in between their bars and notes and I just need a few chords and the chords of my memories are struck and pulled and I am somewhere entirely different. The song ended, the train shook, and I came flying back into my body as an adult on my way to work in Australia, but I took that little girl, who had been in the garden listening to the Harvards droning overhead and gave her a hug and thanked her for still being there with all her wonder for the world and her memories of sunny African childhood days.

Where were you when Song sung blue was floating on the soundwaves?

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Tomorrow I am getting my road bike for The Argus. My friend’s husband (THANK YOU) has been enormously generous with his time and negotiations skills and has hounded the manufacturer with the promise of the sale of two bikes with Shimano 105 gears, in a stop start economy, and has scored us beautiful bikes at a never to be repeated price. He has managed to have the taco-meter, pedals and all sorts of extra’s thrown in. With this work being done for me, I have managed to focus my energies on more important things, like what do I call this new addition to my family?

All my vehicles have had names. My Honda in South Africa, was called Hondela, as Mandela had just been released from jail. My first Australian car was called “Waltzing Matilda” and her brakes appeared to live up to that name. My current baby is called “Gunther” because he is German and has a deep “voice”. My husband’s 4WD is called the “No Girlie Man, Kluger” after Arnold Schwarzenegger made a similar comment when he first became Governor of California. So what to call my new bike? Well, even though I only meet him tomorrow, I think his name will be “Buya Futhi Kusasa” – Zulu – which roughly means “Come Again Tomorrow”. This will reflect my Julie Andrews style of cycling, my African roots and my timing and placement in any cycle race. No need to panic, Lance Armstrong, any comeback you make with me in the peloton, is quite safe!

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My daughter shared this video with me today. It is about a man called Clive Wearing who contracted a virus and lost his memory. He can only remember about the last seven seconds of his life. He has no past and cannot comprehend a future, yet he remembers and loves his wife. He has all his faculties and can speak, he appears intelligent and lucid.

It made me think, who and what do we love so much that we would never forget? Who is so ingrained in our souls that the recognition and remembrance of them is as joyous as the first time we have seen them? We are a complicated mix of the inexplicable and sometimes things like this as sad as they are, confirm that we are connected in mysterious ways and love, truly is all that really matters when you reduce it to the most basic emotion that keeps us alive.

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So just when I was when I thought I had ensconced myself beautifully in the saddle and was able to almost do the Joey -Tribianni- of- cycling- “How you doin’?” – I fell off my bike!

Not literally, figuratively. I hit a wall.

I was fine one minute and not at all fine the next. How does that happen? You are seemingly in perfect health and next minute, spots in front of your eyes and wham! – migraine? I have not had a headache like this since I was 14, and for those of you who do not know, that was a loooooong time ago. It would not have been so bad, if I was at home or at work or somewhere other than spending a day at a client! It is easy to get filled with the hubris of your own health, the assuredness of your body doing exactly what it is supposed to and then when it doesn’t it is quite alarming and rather embarrassing, but a wonderful reminder that we are all human and as much as we think we are in control, we live with a thin illusion that we are in the driver seat. Most of the time we are allowed to think we are invincible, but we are not, it reminded me of a quote from a Resilience Program, I did a few years ago – “Most Executives, think their bodies are just things that take their heads to meetings.” Mmmmmmh, not far from the truth, it can be difficult to pick up the little signals that you need to slow down and even when you do, it can be hard to do something about them when you have so many pressing and seemingly important things to do. BUT, there is one thing that is definitely unavoidable, when your body decides it will not go any further, it needs to be fixed before anything else can be done. It is the great leveller, like the baggage carousel at the airport!

So, if I have been quiet, I have been putting my ego back together, fragile little thing that it is, I have nursed my head and the Osteo has unclicked whatever it was that I did to my neck; my sense of humour has been reinstalled and now I am ready to face the world again. I will try to do this with a bit more regard for the physical side of myself that tirelessly carries me to all the maniacal things I get up to.

Thanks body for falling over, I will try to take better care of you, just try to give me more subtle reminders when I stray…please!

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So there I was at the Sunday Spinning Class and suddenly, totally, fully I was doing what all the other people were doing! Four weeks in and my body just seemed to “get it”! I turned up the dial, leaned forward from my abs, pushed my hips back, pedalled with my feet (hehe, yeah, I did) and put my arms in the racing position, tucked my elbows in and sailed up the “hill”! It actually started to feel like it was mildly me, that I could do this, that my legs would carry me and that they would actually enjoy doing this over time.

Just goes to show that you have to start at your own pace, build it up and maybe, just maybe, you actually will eventually change if you don’t give up. Does that mean, I can do a 100km race in the wind and up a mountain? I have no idea, but I have enrolled for Around the Bay in a Day, the 50km ride around Melbourne in October, so that will be a milestone…I suppose I had better get a bike…and some insurance!

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