My Sunday evening ritual includes ironing shirts for the week. The way our living room works, this is usually done with stereo headphones. Last night I chose to listen to some music that had been a significant soundtrack to my life through the late eighties and early nineties.

John Mellencamp sings about the soul American life; personal searching, family struggles, injustice and the need for justice love and happiness. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised at how the lyrics and beat reconnected me with some deep convictions and elevated my sense of purpose leading into another working week.

There are a few ‘disciplines’ that predictably move me to a higher level. If you are like me, it is too easy for these disciplines to get squeezed out in the busyness of life. But to go through even one week without being plugged in to the things that really matter to me is a waste of a week.

Over dinner with some friends recently we were talking about how in the West we unquestionably accept that longevity is a good thing. Health, sustainability etc are typically about prolonging life rather than enhancing it. Now undoubtedly there is a complex relationship between prolonging and enhancing, but the point is that we probably need to redress the emphasis on longevity to make sure we make the most of what we already have; today.

For me, this means plugging into the things that matter most, so that whatever I do is framed by those motivations. Even though the routines of business are the staple weekly activity, routines only become a meaningless treadmill when divorced from higher purposes. So, I hope you get a chance to ‘plug in’ this week.

Imagine being immersed in physically extreme situations with not much time in between. For example, imagine being in a context of extreme poverty in India, then in one of the new 6 star hotels (I think they’re doing 7 star now) in Dubai. Or being crammed in Tokyo peak hour then being on solo retreat in a wilderness, etc. I have often wondered about a reflective social / psychological experiment that travelled this gauntlet.

I came pretty close to this a couple of weeks ago. 2 days after swimming in the Mediterranean on a stinking hot French Riviera day I was standing in sub zero temperatures on the Jungfraujoch in Switzerland at 3500 metres. So, what did the experience teach me?

In a phrase, the ‘power of now’. While immersed in an extreme context it is nigh on impossible to muster the physical sensations associated with another. In other words, the warm waters and carelessness associated with the [stoney] beach may as well have been on Mars while the icey wind battered my naked ears.

Clearly this is not the case with emotions from extreme events, which we carry with us as involuntary baggage. What I am talking about here is the sensation of physical environments. So what?

For me it reinforced two things:

1. All I’ve got is now, or put slightly differently, ‘I’ve only got now, now.’ We can waste so much of our lives by wishing for another reality, often one that never comes. So, as my friend Steph reminded me the other day, the imperative is to be alert to truth, beauty and goodness now, right now.

2. The emotional skill of managing our emotions in any given context is non-trvial yet fundamental to a healthy life unless we want to be at the whim of circumstances. Our work with leaders helping to develop emotional intelligence encompasses this.

So, I wish you an alert week, a week where you have eyes open to truth, beauty and goodness … especially at work, while you simultaneously seek efficiency, effectiveness and profitability.

A few posts ago I wrote about walls, inspired by the experience of being in Berlin. Geneva offers an antithesis.

On the 24^th June 1859, Henry Dunant, a Swiss business man witnessed the aftermath of a bloody battle in Solferino, North Italy that left 40,000 men killed or wounded as the Austrians were expelled with the help of the French. He was appalled at the abandonment of the injured and mobilized the local population of deliver relief with the resources that were available.

On his return to Geneva he wrote “A memory of Solferino”, in which he proposed that the States should ‘formulate some international principle … for the relief of the wounded’. Along with four others (The Committee of Five), 100 years before my birthday in September 1863, he formed The International Committee for the Relief to the Wounded Soldiers’ and drew up the First Geneva Convention. The Red Cross was born. Again the story of one person’s vision and commitment has had a cascading impact for good beyond imagination.

While debate about its effectiveness is live and appropriate, the subsequent story(s) of the League of Nations (post WWI) and the United Nations (post WWII) similarly evokes in me a swelling of pride in the capacity of humanity to do the right thing. Maria and I were guided through some of the meeting rooms in which very significant negotiations and agreements were forged and got a glimpse of the scale of ongoing conversation that happens between leadership of nations. Perhaps the time has come for the UN to get a renovation, but the idea of facilitating a coming together around the most significant challenges facing humanity with objectives that embrace peace and human rights is indeed a great thing.

I drive my car to work pretty much everyday. Apart from the time it saves me, my commitments across Melbourne more often than not mean it is impractical to get around any other way. But I resent it. Even though my Vectra is a great little car, it uses too much petrol. I know that I could change my transport habits if I wanted to … but it will require a resolute commitment and some sacrifices.

So why am I thinking about cars and transport? Because my limited recent experience of Germany and France makes it so clear that there is another way. Some people who read this blog are Europeans, so you might not appreciate how your governments have invested in public transport infrastructure in ways that are fanciful for us Australians. For example, the Paris metro has 300 stations. Yes, it is true that Paris was already a big city when the technology to build underground railway got implemented for the first time, but the government still had to have the foresight to design the infrastructure that would serve the people as it does.

Bicycle paths and hire bikes seem to be the norm in French and German cities. Not particularly complicated, just great common sense for the common good.

OK, so it will cost billions to create a system even approaching this kind of coverage in a sprawling Australian city. But where is the vision for the future in the planning that is happening now? The ‘spider’ train systems of Melbourne and Sydney are not real networks. Even the complementary tram and bus systems hardly create the kind of network that make getting around efficient.

Instead of debating road network extensions, which are of course good for the car, we should be having robust arguments about a truly visionary approach to building public transport infrastructure, even if it is 50 year plan.

In the early 90s I had one the great cultural sporting experiences. It was a Carlton v. Richmond AFL match, which is not particularly enthralling in and of itself (although this last Saturday’s offering was sweet), except that this was on the hallowed turf of the The Oval, London. It was one of those exhibition matches.

The first signal that it was going to be something special was the mint condition pale green FJ Holden parked outside. Inside the 15,000 crowd, (I was with a Kiwi, I reckon the other 14,999 were Aussies! - so much for a foreign exhibition) was as vocal and yobbo-ish as I’ve experienced. Some bloke had a life-size cardboard cut-out of Sticks Kernahan; whenever the ball ended up the other end, he would do a dash across the half forward line with his cut-out … how he got the thing to England I’ll never know.

It was the era when Ange Christou’s raking left foot kicks were greeted by the crowd with the ‘wooosh’. Weird stuff in England. The half time kick-to-kick with an estimated 10,000 people with Sherrins that emerged from everywhere was a total kak, even funnier was the bobbies trying to get everyone off the field for the start of the 3^rd. Ever been on the London tube with the train totally packed with Aussies? I have, totally brain bending.

Anyway, last night we had another special cultural sporting moment …

It has been a stinking hot day, mid 30s and the evening is balmy. We are in the centre of Avignon in an outdoor café, it is 8:30. For those who have not been to Avignon and how know Melbourne, imagine Lygon St. closed to traffic with every restaurant spilling their tables out onto the road. Except it is paved and the building are centuries old. Every place has a plasma … so there are screens everywhere.

It is the final of Euro 2008, which doesn’t means heaps to the average Aussie punter … believe me, it has been mania here. Spain has not won for 44 years. Last night they were against Germany. So here we are, and through no planning or design, we find ourselves surrounded by tables of loud Spanish males. When the totally brilliant Spanish striker Torres managed to conjure a goal toward the end of the first half, it was, well …. special.