Seven Secrets of my Survival

written for The Scotsman, 2009

Kindness Being kind is an underrated virtue when you consider the benefit for both giver and receiver. When someone is kind to me it moves me unutterably, and I’m filled with a warm glow. It’s not always easy to be kind: I’m impatient and have a sharp and sarcastic tongue – but when I do give a little kindness to someone it allows me to live more comfortably with myself. This applies to spiders in the bath as well as human beings – don’t flush them away down the plughole, tenderly remove them and put them out through the window.
Laughter Sometimes I wonder if there’s anything left to laugh at. I listen to the news or read about the mess we’re making of the world; I try to juggle the things in my life that need to be kept up in the air all at the same time; I wonder what the point of it all is. Then something happens and I think, ‘Well, it is a funny old thing, life, isn’t it?’ And once I start to laugh I immediately feel my spirit soar. Laughter is relaxing, mentally, emotionally and physically. Just making your mouth smile when you don’t feel like smiling improves your mood – and the mood of all the people who look at you. And laughter is free! And its side effects are all good! Unless you’ve got a broken rib.
Curiosity It’s what keeps my grey cells alive. It may be easier to live in a rut but the boredom would kill my spirit quicker than curiosity killed the cat! So, be curious: explore new avenues of thought and action. Take an interest in the wide, wide world outside your small one. Learn from history. Live in the day, enjoy it, discover something new, something that makes you smile, grin, laugh, something that changes your course a little! Be curious about what the future may bring and help to shape it – which brings me to the really serious one…
Living lightly …and the most difficult. To carry on living the way we do we need the resources of three earths – and we only have the one. This affects my future, your future, and the future of the whole planet and every living thing upon it. We are all going to have to adapt to a new way of living if we want to leave a habitable planet for our descendants. As I try to change to a more sustainable way of living I look on it as part of the great adventure that is life rather than something to ignore or fear and I feel like a pioneer – this is where I need to bring all the other secrets of my survival into play.
Eating well Making a virtue out of a necessity has always appealed to me, as you’ve probably gathered. I love food. I love cooking and I love eating. It makes sense to me that we should know where our food comes from, who grew it and how the growers are treated. It makes sense to know what is added to our food and taken from it. And it makes sense to pay a price for it that reflects its true value. Food is not something to stuff ourselves with thoughtlessly, but something to savour and enjoy. Too much of anything is bad for us. Though I’m tempted to exempt chocolate from that.
Reading voraciously This is where the chocolate (fair traded and organic, of course!) comes in again. A bar of chocolate and a good book = heaven. Books can supply what life sometimes fails to deliver: an escape, a relaxation, a satisfying of curiosity, knowledge and information, a good belly laugh. Never, ever leave yourself short of a variety of books to read according to your mood or need. Currently I’m reading the graphic novel Watchmen, Richard Yates’s Revolutionary Road, Fred Vargas’s first Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg novel (in translation) which I’ve almost finished, Ifor ap Glyn’s Lleisiau’r Rhyfel Mawr (Voices of the Great War) full of moving words written by Welsh soldiers, and I dip now and then into my favourite poetry books for a quick fix. What are you reading?
Marrying a Scotsman Hard work – but it’s worth it!