It’s a New Year and for many the first of January was the decisive day. It’s already a few decades ago that I determined I can make a new beginning at any time of the year. In fact, I believe we should make a new beginning every single day. So, the first of January was no big deal for me.
It’s so easy to get stuck, resentful, or distracted. In some senses I’ve always been a late starter. I started family life at 33, had my last child at 42, nearly 43. I started working at the UN at 55. I’m learning to take care of myself, over 60, and still figuring out who I am and what I want to do.
Yet actually as a child, I was an early developer and had moments of consciousness that I believe many of my colleagues have still not reached. I was the only one of my generation in Australia, who travelled at 19, worked in Switzerland, travelled to see the midnight sun in northern Sweden, above the Arctic Circle, and then down to Turkey to holiday at a military beach camp while the war broke out in Cyprus.
So, you see, it doesn’t matter who you think you are, or who others think you are. We are all unique. Whether I’m an early or late bloomer, I can always learn something, and I can always contribute something.
During 2021 I’ve come to examine my paradigms. I’ve realized I have a time paradigm. I’m driven by ideas of all the things I want to do and keep thinking I don’t have enough time.
You see I plan to prepare a portfolio to show my accomplishments, to prepare for all the next things I want to do. When I have time.
I plan to scan all our family photos and complete an album for each of the kids. When I have time.
I plan to catalogue all my videos and upload and edit and tag them – and I have begun! I had a few videos that got stuck while uploading to WFWP Europe YouTube, from 2017, and I finally found the originals, in the process of cataloguing my videos, and uploaded them and edited the description, and deleted the failed uploads.
My next challenge is the aspect of sharing. I want to share everything. Some of, in fact a lot of, my stuff is historical. I consider myself an archivist. I am also an analyst. I am also a critique. A proof-reader. Anyhow, since I have been recording meetings I’ve attended for years, and then went to work fulltime the next day, apart from my family duties, I hardly ever managed to edit or tag or share so much of my material.
My mother died in August last year. Every time I went home to Australia, I tried to interview her, to get snippets of her life. And I realise, that one day, I too, will be gone. So what was the point of all my filming and storing videos? I am driven to share my stuff!
As I said, I’m an archivist. I am not proud of the quality of a lot of my material. It is rather the historical value I see in it. One of the stuck videos was of Christl Scharf. I planned to do an In Memorium page on my blog. Well, I’ve uploaded the videos from 2017.
I just posted a comment to FaceBook after reading the Zoom newsletter.
In 2021 I upgraded my office with new hardware, a desktop pc, a scanner, a webcam. I think I still need a better microphone because the sound of the live-video on FaceBook was totally disturbed! I got myself a paid Zoom account. Since then, I am still providing my services voluntarily, but I am all set to get into professional virtual office assistance. The Zoom newsletter provides lots of interesting snippets of information that helps to keep me informed.
So maybe I’ll still count the meetings I did in 2021. Maybe you’ll find photos or videos I’ve taken in the past. Now, I’ve also got the Black Magic DaVinci Resolve video editing programme and will put that to good use.
On Wednesday I hosted the Women’s Federation for World Peace annual review meeting on my private zoom account. I live-streamed it to Facebook on the WFWP-AT page. Now I’ll probably still upload a copy to YouTube.
I’m starting this year with an honest share. Let’s see where we go in 2022!