Can Change Be As Good As A Rest?
Change can be as good as a rest, it is often said. That is all well and good, of course, and it is true that breaking the routine can definitely help you out of a rut. Springtime is notorious for prompting us to clean out cupboards, both physical and metaphorical. Something about seeing the first green shoots of spring wakes us from the stupor of winter and encourages us to take a new broom to our lives. What we seem to forget about this same time last year is, while the results should be worth the effort, change can be quite tiring and far from restful.
There are many changes afoot in our home. After about twelve years in the same place, We have embarked on our first major home improvement project: To make our living space more appealing we are remodeling our average three-bed semi into a comfortable four-bed home with larger rooms and more natural light.
The Ties That Bind Us
Blood is thicker than water. That is how the saying goes. From a young age, we are told that family bonds will hold us together, supporting us through good times and bad. Family will always be there to fall back on and they will protect us against outsiders and the follies of fate. In reality, though, families can be a root cause of those bad times almost as much as they are the saving grace we are led to expect.
Many families are a dysfunctional mish-mash with little in common other than blood and memories. Rather than The Waltons, more often than not our families better reflect The Simpsons. We indulge the peccadilloes and tendencies of family that would be unacceptable in our friends. But somehow, and against the odds, families work. As another saying goes: you can choose your friends but you can’t choose your family.
The More You Travel, The More You Appreciate Home
Travel is a wonderful way to broaden the mind, develop a fresh perspective and understand cultures that otherwise might remain alien to us. I guess most people will agree that seeing things first hand far outweighs anything that can be read in books or learned online. Travel has given me so many vivid memories and such a greater appreciation of other lifestyles that it has been integral to my education.
I have been lucky to travel extensively, visiting countries far flung and near. From the Caribbean, Asia and the Americas to the more familiar Europe and Australia, I have seen, heard and eaten things that I could only read about in my youth. I have just returned from three weeks in Peru. Travel has become more reasonable and countries have become more accessible, enabling us to satisfy our hunger for new adventures, and giving me chance to visit pandas in China, see gorillas in the Congo and hold koalas in Australia.
Can Serbia Ask The Right Questions Before Facing A Future Within Europe?
As Serbia is granted candidacy to become the newest kid of the EU bloc, the country will face difficult questions and need to resolve many issues. Not only will the work begin to improve and develop Serbia’s political, business and social structures if Serbia is to take up this opportunity to join EU nations, but also the government must fight at the ballot boxes before an increasingly alienated electorate.
By joining Montenegro, Macedonia and Turkey as candidate countries on the long road towards full membership of the EU, Serbia has set itself many challenges. Croatia has already seen this for itself in almost a decade of measures to make the EU grade. What will be required, but has previously proven hard to achieve, is a clear and open debate on the issues facing everyone in Serbia.
