Never Too Old Nor Too Late

Do you ever think to yourself that something or other is past it, or can't be done? Maybe, after all, it's getting too old and/ or it's too late.  Depending on what age we are, or where we are in our life, we may have these thoughts about ourselves.  There are two life lessons that I have experienced over the last couple of weeks that have helped me dispel this myth.

The first was our sick 45 year old jeep (Actually my husband calls it a 'go anywhere' Toyota Land Cruiser FJ40, but it's easier just to call it a jeep).  It was in a sorry state. As soon as she started up, she had problems keeping on running - a feeling I know well. I was starting to wonder whether it was worth having an old vehicle and was it too late for her to perform better - I know this feeling too. My husband tried some perfunctory fixing under the bonnet and with blackened, oily hands broke the news that we, as in the both of us, had to somehow get it to a garage.  The challenge was how to do this when the jeep needed to be kept at high revs, otherwise it cut out and refused to move again. It was a double challenge to do this and keep the jeep going, while tackling the heavily congested Bali roads,  which is like diving into a rugby scrum of vehicles and hoping to survive without any scrapes or breakages at the end of it.


We agreed (I somewhat reluctantly - knowing the likelihood of breaking down) that my husband would drive the jeep and I would follow in my car with a set of jump leads, should the inevitable happen.  We had a promising start.  The two roads leading from our home in Bali are quiet, rice field lined lanes, so my husband could let the jeep rip through the countryside at high revs and without stopping. The problems started when we had to cross onto a main road that looked as though we had just hit rush hour, even though it was only 10 o'clock on a Sunday morning.  

My husband had to stop before crossing the junction, otherwise he would have caused carnage. I could hear the roaring of the jeep's engine as he tried, in vein, to keep the revs high, while slowing down at the same time, but after a burst of energy and desperately wanting to keep on going, it spluttered and died.


Now what? I drove behind the jeep, so both our vehicles were obstructing the entrance to the road.  A group of young to middle aged Balinese men were perched in their little bamboo hut, doing their usual 'watching the world go by' and I could feel their eyes diverting to us. 

They were obviously asking the same question and curiously wondering what this expatriate couple would do next. We pretended to look as though we knew what we were doing, lined up the two vehicles and attached the jump leads.  


The jeep started up, my husband wedged his shoe on the accelerator while he detached the jump leads and we were ready to attempt crossing the junction again. I wanted to turn around and find some other way to fix the jeep.  My husband had made up his mind that we were going to complete this mission. Fortunately for us and by some miracle act, we made it across the junction and in one piece. By taking a deep breath and momentarily closing my eyes to traffic approaching me in both directions, I managed to dart across the junction as if my car were attached to the jeep.


Luckily, the road to the garage was straight ahead and after quite a scary, fast and furious ride, revving up behind and overtaking the dawdling motorbikes, cars and chugging lorries, we made it and the mechanics were more than happy to fix our jeep. When we picked her up the next day, she had been fixed and cleaned - she was positively gleaming in the garage.  My husband drove her out and she was as good as new. 


Since then we've been driving along dirt tracks and over bumpy fields down to various beaches and all the time she's roared as confidently and proud as a lion.

The second life lesson happened to be my experience at the gym.  After a two month relapse of not doing anything to keep fit, I reluctantly knew that I had to get back on the treadmill.  My first week back was poor.  It felt like heavy lead weights had been attached to my body and not even the song 'La Bamba' motivated me. 


My friend Alison re-assured me that it would come back very quickly if I took it a step at a time. These words of wisdom kept me going and by the end of the second week I made a turnaround when the old song 'One Way Ticket' by Eruption started booming out of my headphones and quickened the step in my stride.  

There was only one way I was going and that was forwards. The next song 'Coming Back to You' by Bryan Adams made me feel like my body was coming back to me and by the time Iggy Pop's 'Lust for Life' started playing, I broke out into a run for the whole song! Yes, I know my music collection is dated, but these old songs must somehow take me back to my youth and sometimes do wonders for my energy levels at the gym.  (By the way, those are not my fit looking legs on the picture).


I did have to quickly change the tune when Chris Rea's 'Road to Hell' started playing and the good news is that we can actually make these kind of changes.  If something is telling us one thing - whether it is self talk or somebody else and we don't want to hear it or we start to wrongly believe in it - we can change the tune to a better, more productive one. 


What have these little life lessons taught me? As C.S. Lewis wisely said:-


"You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream."



And an equally powerful quote from George Elliot that I like is:-


"It is never too late to be who you might have been."


Enjoy being who you want to be and doing what you want to do.


Janet

An Act of Kindness

This week, Idul Fitri, the end of the holy month of Ramadan, was celebrated in Indonesia.  Our girls had only just returned to Green School after a two month summer break and a week after starting school, they took another two days off for the public holiday. I used to get frustrated by this sort of thing happening, especially as we are paying for the girls to go to school.  Since living in Bali, I have learned that these things happen and calmly accept it. In fact, I recently learned that every single temple and shrine in Bali (apparently there are more temples than homes and there are so many the government doesn't bother counting them, but a rough estimate is over a million) celebrates its own birthday every 210 days and this involves a special ceremony, so in the scheme of things it's a good job Bali doesn't have a public holiday every time there's a temple birthday! I have also learned that it is useful to not only accept these things happening that we rather not, it's good to think of a solution i.e. in this case, what to do with my three girls during this public holiday.

Luckily, the thinking was done for me when my husband announced that he would be in Bali for the whole week, so we could go somewhere over the mid-week public holiday. I suggested we go exploring in the jeep and stay in the nice looking, boutique hotel that we had seen at night with friends a couple of years ago, somewhere along the West coast.  I didn't know the name of the hotel and we found it in the dark at the time, but assumed we could somehow find it, 'rock up' and stay overnight. Not convinced by this loose plan, my husband decided he had to do some research to find where the place was and we could book in advance.  So I left it to him to it and on the morning when we were due to leave for our mini break, my husband started his research by using a map, the internet and our Rough Guide to Bali. To some people this may seem like leaving things to the last minute and it is to me too, however my husband did find a couple of hotels on the internet which were in the direction of where I liked the hotel with no name.  The first place was too expensive, the second place seemed more reasonable but all its rooms were booked.  I suggested that we revert back to my plan, drive the jeep up the West coast and intuitively find the hotel I liked and see if they had a room for the night.  So we followed this plan and although we didn't have an end outcome fixed, it felt like an adventure to not know.

En route to our vague destination, we decided to have lunch at a beach. As we approached the beach, we were stopped by a sign that was positioned in the middle of the road and two smiling Balinese men proudly stood next to it. The sign asked for a fee of 5,000 rupiah (about US 60 cents), which reassuringly said in bold letters was 'in retribution for objectionable tourist' for us using the road.  Rather than take offence we decided that the Balinese person who painted these words had probably lost something in translation in the Indonesian - English dictionary they had used. We chuckled at the sign, as the girls asked what it meant and we moved on having paid our 'retribution'. On our way back, we thought it would be a good idea to take a photo of the sign but it was no longer there.  Maybe the person who wrote the sign did mean 'retribution' for being non-local after all and they had put it out just for us?!

We continued our journey, my rear end having hardened like stone while being violently bounced up and down in our ancient jeep along the potholed and heavily traffic infested roads with the noise, dust and fumes enveloping us in a layer of grime. Rather than let this frustrate me, I calmly accepted that the feeling of being exposed to the outside world of chaos on the Balinese roads would always be the case when we go exploring in the jeep and it's all part of the excitement of the journey. And as part of the roller coaster ride we had a huge stroke of luck, where we instinctively turned into a narrow road that reminded us of where we got lost in the dark and it led us to 'Puri Dajuma', the nice hotel that I had in mind. This was the same hotel that told us they had no rooms available earlier that morning!

We hopefully asked if there was space available anyway and the response was 'no'.  We asked if it would be ok to stay for dinner and the response was 'yes'.  As it was only 4pm, it was too early to eat straight away, so the receptionist kindly offered us the use of their pool and phoned the housekeeper for towels.  Maybe he took pity on us after looking so dishevelled and disappointed, but this simple act of kindness meant a lot to us. It meant so much that we will definitely go back again and next time we'll book in advance. A small act of kindness goes a long way. Our girls had so much fun swimming in the pool, exploring the hotel grounds, climbing their trees, swinging in their hammocks and walking along beach. To round off our day, we had a lovely meal, watching the sunset. Even though we had no place to stay, it turned out to be a great break, thanks to the receptionist.

Can you remember a time when somebody showed you an act of kindness or even when you did this for somebody? I have a feeling that sometimes in this age of positive thinking and achieving your goals, simple old fashoned kindness can get a bit forgotten about.



"No kind action ever stops with itself. One kind action leads to another. Good example is followed. A single act of kindness throws out roots in all directions, and the roots spring up and make new trees.  The greatest work that kindness does to others is that it makes them kind themselves"
Amelia Earhart

Similarly, here's an easy to remember quote which echoes the same sentiments:-

"Kindness like a boomerang, always returns." 
Author unknown

Enjoy giving and receiving more of those 'acts of kindness.'

Janet

Oh, and the hotel if you are interested is www.dajuma.com