http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Am7oKBD3PU

Visit the Festival Website here:

http://www.australianfilmfestival.com.au/

Now to finish off the Android version….

Great story in SMH about it: http://www.smh.com.au/executive-style/culture/a-lone-kayaker-a-marlin-and-one-wild-ride-20120204-1qypb.html and I’ve embedded his latest YouTube video. I want a kayak!!

A saying that I’ve lived by a long time, given regret is inevitable, is that it’s better to regret something you have done than something you haven’t.  And start thinking more about RIGHT NOW than next week next month or when you retire. Today is a gift, which is why its called the present (thanks KFP!). You should begin and finish each day knowing this might be the last one you get.

———————-

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

“This was the most common regret of all. When people realise that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honoured even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made. Health brings a freedom very few realise, until they no longer have it.”

2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.

“This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children’s youth and their partner’s companionship. Women also spoke of this regret, but as most were from an older generation, many of the female patients had not been breadwinners. All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence.”

3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.

“Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others. As a result, they settled for a mediocre existence and never became who they were truly capable of becoming. Many developed illnesses relating to the bitterness and resentment they carried as a result.”

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

“Often they would not truly realise the full benefits of old friends until their dying weeks and it was not always possible to track them down. Many had become so caught up in their own lives that they had let golden friendships slip by over the years. There were many deep regrets about not giving friendships the time and effort that they deserved. Everyone misses their friends when they are dying.”

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

“This is a surprisingly common one. Many did not realise until the end that happiness is a choice. They had stayed stuck in old patterns and habits. The so-called ‘comfort’ of familiarity overflowed into their emotions, as well as their physical lives. Fear of change had them pretending to others, and to their selves, that they were content, when deep within, they longed to laugh properly and have silliness in their life again.”

Full article available here - http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3726692.html

So this is our economic reality – we are the wealthiest nation in the world with 75.5 per cent of our adult population making it into the global top 10 per cent, our economy has grown faster than nearly all others (certainly faster than all other developed countries), our household income growth has been one of the fastest in the world (including our poor having income growth larger than everyone else’s rich!), we have the highest minimum wages in the world, the third-lowest debt and the sixth-lowest taxes in the OECD and are ranked second on the United Nations Human Development Index.

And this didn’t happen by accident.

This happened by design.

This happened because of 30 years of hard, tedious, extraordinarily difficult policy work that far, far too many of us now either take completely for granted, or have simply forgotten about. We have, without even realising it, created the most successful and unique economic and policy arrangement of the late 20th and early 21st century – the proof is in the pudding. A low tax nation with high quality, public funded institutions. A low debt nation with world leading human development and infrastructure. The wealthiest nation in the world where even though our rich get richer, our poor have income growth so extraordinary that it increases at a faster rate than the rich expect to experience anywhere else in the world but Australia. A nation where we enjoy the highest minimum wages in the world.

Yes I am in there, can you find me?

My wife, the media personality! BRW Rich List 2011..

http://au.tv.yahoo.com/sunrise/video/-/watch/27592050/the-rich-list/

“MELBOURNE” T-Shirts & Hoodies by PJ Collins | RedBubble: