# 60 Leap Year Proposals

Leap Year is a funny thing. Here and in Ireland it is a traditional for women to propose marriage. A 1288 law by Queen Margaret of Scotland (strangely aged just five), said that if the proposal was refused by the man he had to pay a fine. Compensation ranged from a kiss to a silk gown and in some places the tradition was restricted to the modern leap year day, February 29.

But I'm not entirely cynical about such things. So I'd just like to say congratulations to my brother and his girlfriend. She popped the question today and he said yes....

# 59 Following your own advice

I am fairly well known my no nonsense and pragmatic approach to everyone else's problems. I can rationalise everything and dish out advice by the truck load and if you follow it generally you'll be okay or so I am told. So why is it that I take so long to get my own house in order? It's one of the stupid things about me that I cannot seem to follow my own advice.

I guess it's hard to be subjective about yourself. Only you know your own heart, your own motivations, hopes and fears and your own reasons for doing what you do. You can see things far more clearly if you're not emotionally attached.

Eventually of course, I do inevitably end up doing what I know I must, but it can take a while to get there.

Sometimes the decisions are periphery and inconsequential. Fish and chips or bangers and mash? Sometimes they can be far more life changing - snog, marry, avoid. So many choices.

Thankfully, I've managed to get my house in order this week. And things are looking decidedly 'up'. This makes me truly very happy and now that everything is settling down I get on with being me.

# 58 Living outside the bubble

I have a friend who is 'blessed' with a very different perspective on life. Well, because of his life I guess. Basically 'shit happens'. In many ways he's lucky to be here at all and because of that he doesn't live in the little bubble most of us exist in of thinking that our own problems are the worst in the world.

Looking at what he has gone through, I'm ashamed of the way I've behaved these last few months. But as I said to him, we all live in our own world and the bubble is all that we know. We don't appreciate the wider story if we haven't experienced it. We just know what we know. And if something's going badly there aren't many of us who can sit down and say well it could be worse 'I could be living in war torn Afghanistan' blah blah blah....

But I would like to take a leaf out of his book because his philosophy rocks and I really don't have anything to complain about. We are all selfish to our own needs in that respect and generally we only see our own problems. But take a look at what's going on out there. It's pretty scary, but it could be so much worse if it was happening to you.