Happy St Patrick's Day

What's your favourite weekend thing to do. Today of all days I am tempted to say that I'd love to start Saturday morning with coffee from a little cafe in Temple Bar, shop Grafton St., visit my favourite paintings at the Municipal Gallery, walk through St. Stephen's Green, and sit in a pub and watch the world go by. . . spring is a terrific time to be in Dublin.

What I love to do in Toronto is work. That's because the training I do recharges me the way my perfect day in Dublin would recharge me. I connect with the parts of me I like best, and I connect with great stuff in other people. If I begin with a scratchy throat, it disappears. If I am tired and stressed on Saturday morning, I am tired and relaxed on Sunday afternoon. I love to train.

It's often true that our training leaves people feeling like they've been on a really good holiday - the kind of holiday that mixes familiar pleasures with new places and new pleasures with familiar places. It's hard for people to understand. Too few of their school experiences charged them up and sent them out, ready to take on the world. It's a pity. I teach young people in a college and just a little support, a little enthusiasm, a little rigour goes a long way.

St. Patrick didn't get support. He was captured by the Irish, made a slave, and set to tend sheep on a very lonely hillside. In the silence, he listened until he heard what he needed to get up and get moving.

Travel changes people. Training changes people. It creates a space for listening (and it's much nicer than tending sheep in the rain).

Happy St. Patrick's Day.

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