Same or different?

I was chatting to my friend Jane last week.  She's really interested in personal development but hasn't got much spare thinking time at the moment because she's recently separated and has got 2 children the same age as mine.  During the taxiing to football, tennis, cricket, athletics, and every other sport it's possible for a 10 and 12 year old to do, she spends precious time sitting in her car in traffic (thank God for traffic jams for a few peaceful moments), thinking about how she thinks she'd like her life to be different.

'I just haven't got the time to change what I do', she said, 'I can't find a way to free up time to really have a look at doing something different'.

'What would you like to be different?' I asked. 'Hmm, I don't know' she said.

When we talked a bit more, she decided that she actually likes a lot of what she has, and that she just wants to think differently, for the moment, anyway.  She says she loves the conversations she has with her kids (in the car, of course) - 'Mum, what's for dinner? Jack cut his leg open really badly today.  He tripped over a javelin.  Megan said it looked like sausage, can we have sausages for tea?' - etc, etc.

Jane said she falls into the trap of thinking about what she hasn't got, instead of what she has got.  We talked about how the Barefoot Doctor (our hero!) often mentions that we have the life we have chosen right now - our unconscious mind has drawn to us the things it wants, often without us knowing much about it. 

Jane seemed very cheerful when she went off to pick the children up for the next round of fetching and carrying.  She said 'I'm going to think about how I'm actually doing what's important to me right now.  When the time comes to make some changes, I'll know.  For the moment, I'm going to make sure I get a sense of achievement and confidence from the juggling, multi-tasking and all the other things that make women fab.'

As Buddha said, 'it's your mind that creates this world'.