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Happiness: Be Interested in the Changing Seasons

“To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with Spring” George Santayana

I spent most of this week in Ireland teaching at UCD Smurfit Business School and then running a corporate event at Croke Park.  This week’s video is from Croke park – you can see in the background they are getting set up for the Rolling Stones concert.

If you are only happy in spring, you’ve limited your state of wellbeing to less than 25% of life.  Life comes with seasons.  It is best to learn to take the best from each of these seasons.

My dad often said “A leader should never waste a good crisis”.  The winter is when you can get people to change their habits.  When a company is growing and all is going well, you won’t get change easily.  When the company is struggling, competition is fierce, the winds are howling… people are hungry for changes.

Often the roots of new success are planted during the winter moments of our lives.

6 responses to “Happiness: Be Interested in the Changing Seasons”

  1. Doh! … A minute or *two*!

  2. This reminds me of a little “game” I used to play when I worked in a major law firm in Toronto. My office was on the 42nd floor. The elevator ride was usually a minute or too, but for a lot of people, it felt particularly long on a Monday morning.

    Every now and then, on a Monday morning, I’d wait for the doors to close and then I’d say, to an elevator full of people I didn’t know, “How’s everyone today?” Invariably, someone would lament the fact that it was Monday. To which I would respond, “Ah, don’t wish away your Mondays; they’re one seventh of your life.”

    This always elicited a variety of responses, but my favourite was the time this one guy looked up with a serious look on his face, paused a moment and then said, “Shit, he’s right.”

    Of course, we have good days and bad days, good weather and bad weather, but your video is a great reminder that in the end, all we have is the present and we need to take advantage of it. Because every moment offers us something.

    Great stuff, Conor!

    1. “Shit… He’s right” – great response. True. Live with intent.

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