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Happy Century blog here. :music_band:

I know I always have something to say on every topic now, but I have not always been like that. I once got a commendation for being a "quiet achiever".. Some of us are like that..... we sit quietly for years...the little wife and mother, raising the kids, cooking for the socials, turning up to help out at school, at church, wherever there is a need. Ask me a question once and I might have answered in a few sentences, one eye on the children, the other on the level of the milk in the jug or the need to clear the table of plates.

When did that change? Well, in my late thirties I became involved with Lifeline, which is a telephone counselling line, run in association with one of the mainstream churches, but independent of it, training lay people as counsellors in a 20 week training program. That kind of program focussed our attention on our community and its needs but also on ourselves, "know yourself, understand others" was one of the topics I remember. It was a little like standing naked in front of a mirror, it gave you nowhere to hide. Our facilitator was fairly brutal in her comments if she thought we were being Susie Sunshine or hiding the truth from ourselves or others. She would hammer away until we "fessed up" to that secret we had been hiding.

I remember a friend of mine would always enter the room five minutes late. She would heave a big sigh and with a warm smile say:"Sorry I am late, I've just been so busy, you can never imagine....." and off she would go batting on about her busy, busy day. This lasted a few weeks and then *L* our leader came in with a huge clock under one arm. She laid it on the table and minutes later in walked my friend. *L* let her have her say and then said:" *M* I think I have the solution to your problem." and handed her the clock. *M* stood in silence with the thing clutched in her arms. Then *L* said: "You will see it is actually an hour fast. Keep it that way and I can guarantee you will always be here on time." And she was.

I think about that sometimes, that huge clock and my embarrassed friend, she is no longer around now having died of breast cancer some years ago. I do think now that problems have more than one solution. We could have talked to *M* till we were blue in the face, offer her all the advice in the world and it would have done no good. She actually needed to "see" her problem in another way. And she certainly couldn't say she didn't know what time it was after that.

I had a problem with my mother similar to one expressed in a recent blog here. Mum was well intentioned but did want to interfere with all aspects of my life, and my family as well. She did the same to my sister and alienated her for 14 years ( but that is another story). In my gentle way I got a reputation for not speaking out and so *L* stood me in front of the class with a placard with the label "mother" on her chest and said:"Come on, say to this sign what you want to say to your mother." I did, stumbling at first but gaining confidence as I went along. She told me to go home and practice some of that and then next time I had the problem with Mum to start saying how it made me feel when she said.....

And so I learned to speak out, to have an opinion of my own and how to hold to that opinion. Hey, I am not always right in what I say, in fact I may be way off the mark, have missed all the key words and be blind to the real intent of what someone says but I am entitled to voice my opinion. And so I do.

And because my life experiences have given me some wisdom then I try to bring that into play when I look at someone else's problems and if they are asking for help then I give them the benefit of what I think on the subject. If they reject what I have to say it is no big deal, there are no "one size fits all" solutions to problems anyway, we all know that.

So what a I telling you in this, my hundredth blog? People change, we live and learn, particularly if we look at the advice of other well-meaning people and take from that whatever is applicable to our present situation.

Looking out of the window it is still a lovely day so I think I will go pull up weeds in my garden and try to make the world a more beautiful place.

Meet you in the chat room soon :chat: