When I saw Sabien standing up there on the podium singing and waving her hands during the school musical, I suddenly realized how grown-up she looked.

She still had the glowing face of her childhood, but there was something extra shining through. Seeing my little daughter as a young woman ready to bloom touched me deeply, and I almost had tears in my eyes.

Life goes on doesn't it?

There you are the whole winter, long and dark and freezing cold. And you are thinking then, well it doesn't matter. Part of nature's way is all. Be patient and wait long enough.

Summer will come and make the long wait well worth it. Bright and sunny and warm.

Now it is the beginning of July, and I am wondering when that day will EVER come. It has been dreary and cold and it has been raining an awful lot. The summer is half way gone already.

Just part of nature's way is all. Something we all have to understand and accept.

No use complaining the rest of your live now is there?

The creative challenge of balancing a multi-project environment is nothing more than using your common-sense, planning in a clear and structured way, getting the facts down on paper, and allowing your heart to help make the right decisions when required.

Not everything in the big bad world of project planning can be reduced to resources, timescales, milestones and deadlines.

Gut-feeling is darned important, especially during the clinch.

Sorry to tell you this, but you have been conceived in a genetic lottery.

Does that then necessarily reduce the importance of your purpose in life?

I think not.

So you figure that this afternoon you would surprise everyone and come home extra early in order to spend some more quality time with the four kids.

You have been working so hard lately that they have not seen you very much the last couple of weeks. That's a shame. Why not give them a pleasant surprise? You walk in the front door, greet everyone with a loud fatherly yell of delight, and stare into emptiness.

Where is everyone?

One is upstairs chatting away endlessly on the computer with ten other kids simultaneously. The youngest is glued to the television watching that yellow sponge Bob bounce up and down under water with bubbles coming out of his mouth. The oldest has just dashed out the door with an overdose of after shave saying he is going to town to hang out with his friends. Finally then, the last one complains and cusses because you told her to be home by eleven thirty, and she runs off anyway saying she has had enough with such lousy parents and is finally moving out for good (see you later also).

Well, there goes your evening.

Or better yet, now you can have fun and relax and enjoy life just like you have always been hoping for way back in the so-called good old days, when the kids were small and crying and needing so much attention.

Congratulations, you've finally got it made.

People should always discuss things in detail before taking an action that will affect them all as well as the people around them.

However, this is never an easy task.

A discussion can go on and on endlessly causing unnecessary delays and eventually resulting in complete failure because of hesitations and indecision. Let?s all sink in the quicksand, alright...

On the other hand, rushing into things head-on because it should have been done yesterday may bring seemingly quick results, which in the long-run fall apart completely because of incoherency. Watch out for the bottomless pit, oops...

A combination of the two could perhaps be a better plan of approach.

It feels like any moment now I will get hit by that lightning over there. I can feel it in the air, getting closer and closer. I predict the future, attract it towards me with my pending thoughts of doom. Shouldn't be doing that.

The bike trip back home is not even ten minutes, but all it takes is a split second. I know that. Huge and elaborate capillaries of light, sparkles really, are spreading out across the darkened sky as the rains falls like it has just begun and will never ever stop.

That's right when the bolt from heaven comes down in a wink and a flash, neatly striking the base of the tree trunk just to the right of me, a surgical swipe through the air.

What a tremendous BOOM it makes! The concussion and blistering heat blasts in my face. Shredded bark and broken twigs float down upon me and have this funny electrical burned-up smell to it, mixed with blue ozone.

I am now pedalling faster and faster towards the safety of my own home, and I can hear the huge tree falling to the ground with a tremendous triple crack and then a thumping crash. A distant echo of the lightning flash which struck it down not ten seconds before.

Nature can be brutal and wonderful at the same time. What are the chances of experiencing such a miracle and living through it to write about it later? Life goes on.

If I were to tell you that none of this is really happening, would you believe me? And then again, if I were to tell you the exact opposite, would you then change your mind and decide that I was telling the truth afterall? Either way, you are caught in a bind unless you can think of another way out. Try it.

So how the heck am I supposed to get in shape as well as sufficiently tanned in preparation for Crete when it has been pouring down rain here for most of the summer?

Hopefully, I will not get burned to a crisp the first few days that I am there, and my flabby belly will not hang out of my swimming suit too badly that I feel overly embarrassed.

It was certainly a very long trek before we would arrive, whenever that would be, they kept telling us with a tone of voice that was just enough to inspire us to continue.

--- Time to continue, keep on going. ---

The elders kept telling us over and over again that in the long run it would be worth it. They had been telling us that as long as we could remember.

In fact, they even told us that their elders before them had previously been telling them that all along, as long as they could remember.

--- There was no need to doubt its truth, because up until now the contrary had not been proven. It never would, so keep on plodding away and enjoy the journey as much as possible while you can.---

That is what it is all about anyway.

Alright, we're finally off to Crete.

Away from it all, enjoying the sunny beach.

Just relaxing and doing nothing in particular for as long as possible.

See you in a little more than two weeks.

Hopefully.

There is nothing wrong in your life,
there never has been.
Your whole life is teaching you
who you are.
Your whole life is awakening you
to the truth of who you are.

- Samarpan

Two weeks seem like a long time, but when it comes to a fun and relaxing adventure in Crete, time flies by pretty darn quickly. And then again.

In other words, we made it back safe and sound.

The fine village called Matala where we stayed hadn't changed much in the twenty years since Thea and I went there on our first romantic journey way back in the good old days.

Except that this time around we had four wild-and-crazy kids keeping us occupied and entertained.

Quite an adventure you could say.

First of all you have to figure out where all of the bits and pieces can be found: over there, around that corner, behind that giant boulder, under that tree, up there just beyond your reach.

Then you attempt to collect all of the bits and pieces together, categorize them, arrange and re-arrange them, until things start to make some kind of sense: not perfect sense, maybe not even that sensible at all yet, but good enough.

Now you can start putting the pieces of the puzzle together. Be careful and concentrate.

Of course, the picture you create from all these jumbled pieces will never agree one hundred per cent with the true situation, but it will nonetheless approximate a model which is quite useful in finally getting started.

The tricky part is to know when you have enough of the pieces and mustering up the courage to say: okay this is it so let's get going with what we have.

There is a fine line between just not having enough information and leading everyone into a bottomless pit and just having sufficient knowledge in order to make it happen.

The momentum builds up and things take off with more energy than you originally put into it.

That?s what creative energy combined with courage is all about.