New Coastie

Ed Amon edamonnz@gmail.com

Talking to the hand

Life seems to be a series of milestones. Our big brains have trained us to organise our lives in neat chunks. As soon as we are born, our calendars start to fill up with events and activities. Six-week vaccinations, birthdays, day-care registrations, primary school, secondary school, university, 21st, job, 30th, marriage, children, 40th, colonoscopy, 50th, another colonoscopy and so on until our last breath.

that self-help gurus can go suck an egg. I am human and accept the fact that I am a big bag of meat and bones full of contradictions. I’ll slow down or speed up when I want to. The only people I will take advice from on how to live my life are my parents, doctor, and partner.

Essentially, if you have written a book called How to be a Millionaire by 21 or Seven Ways to Slow Down, you can talk to the hand.

Croquet is played at the Ōrewa club every morning, six days a week. New players are given free coaching lessons in association and golf croquet before taking part in club days. Pixie says there is plenty of scope for those interested in competitive play. Info: email secretary.Ōrewacroquet@gmail.com

Record breaking interest in budget

Auckland Council’s Annual Budget 2023/2024 consultation closed with a total of 28,850 online submissions, breaking the previous record of 21,000 for online submissions to the Emergency Budget 2020/2021 during Covid-19 lockdowns. This number is preliminary and doesn’t include feedback received through other channels – overall submissions are expected to almost triple last year’s Annual Budget consultation, which received 11,500 submissions. Council staff are compiling and analysing the feedback and a report will be available late this month. The Governing Body will consider the feedback in workshops during May and June, with the final budget to be adopted on June 29 and come into effect from July 1.

We have divided our time to the smallest unit so our days are filled with “things to do’’ till the last second. As soon as we wake up, we are working towards sleep time. On Monday we dream of Friday. On January 1, we yearn for December 31. We can’t wait to get through many of these milestones. However, even with our constant obsession to get to the next milestone, we resent the passage of time. ‘Oh look at the time, I need more time! It is 12 already? Gosh, it’s April already, where did the time go?’

As I write to a deadline for this column, I can’t wait to finish it and at the same time I hate how quickly this time has arrived. Self-help gurus constantly make us feel bad about how we live our lives. They are a contradictory group of people. Some tell us to slow down and enjoy the moment, and others tell us to have goals, make plans, create a vision board, and strive to achieve these goals as quickly as possible.

I am confused. I do not know whether to slow down or speed up. So, I have decided

As an example, I am going to see my family in Pakistan in April, and I am filling up my calendar and doing as many things as I can so that the time goes faster till my flight. In Pakistan, I will let go. I will let my family plan my time there; I will relax and go with the flow. I will slow down or speed up on my own terms. Maybe that’s the way to do it. Maybe we are too hard on ourselves. Now as I write this, I feel like I have given advice to you on how to live your life. I feel like a self-help guru. Well, I can just go jump in the lake. Who am I to tell you what to do? Read the self-help books if they improve your life. Life is short and we can deal with these life-events as we want to. Damn it! I did it again.

A life less ordinary

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