Maybe I’m a product of my generation and the drug safety education programs I experienced, but my instinctive response to arguments for the legalisation of cannabis tends to be sceptical. But that is only my emotional response.
I have to also recognise that I have no compelling reasons to support such a way of thinking other than gut feel. Maybe some exist, but I haven’t come across them. I am just uncomfortable with legalisation as a harm-reduction strategy. But in the face of evidence-based arguments in favour of legalisation, I have to recognise that clinging to an instinctive prejudice without any kind of evidence for my position is not justifiable with logic. Which means my discomfort has no weight in a debate about the merits of legalisation.
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I just wasn’t strong enough yesterday.
I set out on a run with a very specific target pace in mind. As part of my build up to my next race I have a number of benchmark runs I want to do and this was one of them, so I was ready to put in plenty of effort and put up with a bit of pain in the attempt. After a long warm up, I picked up speed until I reached my target. I then stopped accelerating and just attempted to maintain my speed. It was a speed I thought I should have been able to run, but on this occasion I began to struggle early. After only a couple of kilometres running fast my pace was dropping and it was taking continual surges of additional effort to get it back to where I wanted it to be. I fought on pretty bravely for a few more kilometres, but eventually (still five kilometres from the finish) I had to accept I was not going to achieve today’s goal. Wow. Gratitude towards others is really powerful.
Combined with a sense of feeling valued and cared about by those around you, it makes for an uplifting and emotionally nourishing experience. Prompted by the warmth and generosity of my colleagues last Friday- thank you Campbell Street Primary- I have spent the weekend reflecting on a number of unprompted acts of kindness from many sources over the last few months. I would usually describe myself as having the emotional range of Mark Zuckerberg, but I have to admit I have been genuinely moved and humbled that so many people had shown such care. I dare not try to name everyone, for fear of forgetting someone, so I will just say thank you to EVERYONE that has reached out with support, kindness or affection in recent months. You have all had a significant impact on me. Is there such a thing as a bad goal?
Personally I find goal setting an incredible powerful and rewarding aspect of my life. Not only is it central to making the most of my opportunities in life, there is also a feeling of exultation when I finally achieve a long-held goal I have worked for that is hard to experience any other way. I have been following an interesting and robust online discussion about an aspect of goalsetting that I thought was worth some thought and elaboration. Many goals we set for ourselves are specific actions or achievements (running a certain distance, lifting a specific amount or even reaching a specific weight, etc), which I will call target-focused goals. To reach these goals we often commit to significant changes to our lifestyle- as most worthwhile goals come with some kind of cost- and a long incremental journey towards our target. In the conversation I was following, the statement was made that we often undervalue the effort it takes to make these lifestyle changes in striving for targets we may not reach. And that often making a positive and enduring lifestyle change (or transformative goal) is arguably a more significant achievement than any single target-focused goal. This stimulated a fairly lengthy debate about the relative merits of target-focused goals and transformative goals. Please stay strong Mr Storer.
It is dumbfounding that the Coalition would even be attempting to pass another 68 billion in company tax cuts whilst funding to important programs all over the country is slashed or frozen. If you are one of those people who like forwarding poorly spelt memes about how we can’t afford to support immigrants or refugees (never mind that offshore detention is by far the most expensive way of dealing with them) because we have homegrown issues with homelessness etc, then you should be equally outraged that the government thinks it can sacrifice tens of billions of dollars in lost tax revenue that it could spend on education, infrastructure and other vital sectors (I would like to say homelessness, but we know the Coalition has no interest in supporting the poor or disadvantaged). |
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