Week two – Look back to look forward!

Me with long hair in my past "rock and roll life"

As the second week of 2014 comes to a close, we can already look back at 10 days of a new year!

Sounds melodramatic but one thing is for sure, time waits for no one and the next minute you know we are already shopping for Christmas presents for 2014!

We should not take time lightly and as I have written before in previous blogs, time is a very important commodity we all posses but we need to use it wisely in order to look back and think, “that was time well spent”

And I got thinking about time not because of the last 10 days I’ve already lived in 2014 (though they have already been eventful!) but because through the amazing power of social media and the Internet I was able to spark something magical related to time, something that allowed me to look back in my history and past times.

Most of you who use social media as a vehicle to share experiences, thoughts and feelings with those in our lives would confirm that through this platform we have rekindle with various people from our past. People that perhaps without the support of the Internet, we may have never seen or speak to again in our lives.

For several years I have been doing this very same thing, and since I got hooked onto Facebook I have contacted many friends and family members I had not seen or heard from in years. Being a “foreigner” in my country of residence means I have met hundreds of people who like me, came from other parts of the world to live and work here. Many of those went back to their countries (unlike me who came for 3 months and 28 years later I’m still here!) and we lost touch. I also lost connection with many family members as they were all so far away and I was, believe it or not, lazy to write to them! I blame it on being young! Nevertheless, without social media and the Internet in those days, if you did not write a letter and post it, wait for a few weeks to get a response, you would loose touch with people. But thanks to technology nowadays we can at the drop of a hat let the whole world know what we are up to and know about people’s very interesting and new lives!

And this has extended even within my work environment. I’ve been working for my company for over 22 years and I have also met many people with whom I have worked and shared many great experiences. Because of the nature of the business (hotels) I have moved around and worked in different locations and cities and every time I’ve moved I have left a bunch of great people behind with whom I had form a bond, a friendship.

This week in one of this virtual social media hang outs someone posted a scanned picture of times gone by. This picture then sparked a conversation between a group of people and we wanted to get in touch with one of our work colleagues from the image. Next thing you know, we’ve tracked him down and we are all in touch again. Then someone says “it would be great to get the gang back together” And that one picture in the Internet with some ex-work colleagues of mine sparked a great moment when I thought “you know what, we can bring everyone that worked in that hotel together” and thanks to the magic of the virtual social network we are doing just that! We began a page inviting anyone who worked a certain era of that particular hotel and within hours we were brining them all in.  It was like being in a pub for a re-union (minus the drinks) everyone began sharing thoughts, names and pictures that brought back such great memories. There is even talk of actually physically meeting again but that may not be as feasible as we are finding out that we have people in that group that now live in all four corners of the world! Then again, through the magic of social networking, we don’t need to be physically there, we are all in one virtual Pub reminiscing on the “golden” ear we all enjoyed.

Looking at some of the comments posted got me thinking we had such fun, it was great to work there and did I really have that hairstyle! And I ponder on the importance of our past and how we must look back at what we did, whom we knew and how we enjoyed our time together, these are all important aspect of who we are today. And who we are today is a refection of our past. This is so powerful that we should never take for granted our history, where we came from. For me I have reminded myself this week never lose track of where I came from, because it will continue to help me get better at what I do and cement further relationships with people that I want, in the future, remain in contract with them through virtual networking.

Have you lost touch with someone from your past? Do you need to get your old photo albums out to remember where you came from and what you have achieved? Don’t be afraid of social networking on the Internet, sometime is a great way to look back at what we were to figure out what we will be.

Week one – Stay in control

My Window of inspiration!

Happy New Year to all!

And as promised on my last blog in 2013, this year I will be sharing with you my observations and experiences on a weekly basis. This is my personal goal to push myself to do more writing and exercise my power of observation. And if you read my last blog (if you haven’t you can still do so, still there!) you will recall the analogy I made about staring out of the window. I shared the impact of turning what you see and observe into reality. The concept focused on a writer and how he or she is busy at work while staring out of the window, getting inspiration for their next piece. In other words, writing is the easy part, getting the idea is hard. And I challenged everyone to stair out of your own window, and use that moment to get your best ideas to put into action.

I talked about my window being my travel time, observing everything around me and that I would use it as the basis of my blog, what I saw or experienced. As it turns out, January will be a quite month for me with only a couple of trips planned and the rest of the time working from my office or being at home. But nevertheless, I did promise to write every week and that is what I am going to do, so here is week one, a blog about observations of the last few days of 2013 and the beginning of 2014.

I’ve entitled week one “stay in control” as the thing that hit me in the face this week was how much I need to be in control of my emotions and how important it is to manage situations you are faced with.

And the holiday season is a time when we need to be in control of our emotions and feelings. I am sure we all experience these past few days’ emotions and feelings as we met with many family and friends to celebrate the festivities of Christmas and New Year. Some of these were positive and some were negative, as we try to socialise with people we may only see occasionally and around this time of the year. I have been at home since my last trip in 2013 and it has been great to spend well-deserved time with my family. We have also seen and met friends over the holiday season, gone out a couple of times and hosted people around in our house, it is all part of this time of the year.

And it was during one of these events that I understood how important it is to stay in control. During social gatherings arguments always spark on subjects we all feel very passionate about. What happens when you discuss a subject you know about? Well, you believe you are the expert.  And often enough you may not be the expert and the other person may know more about it than you. At this point you should always back away and give the ground to the expert to finish off the conversation and move onto the next subject. However, we know this is not the case and fuelled with a bit of wine and too much emotion we not only know we are the experts but we are also the person who had experienced on this particular situation, so we don’t let go.

Sadly, I fell a victim of this situation during one of this social gathering and at one point I slammed my feast onto the table to make my point and that got everyone’s attention bring that awkward silence and moment where you wish you had not done that.

Later that evening, my wife reminded me of the moment and that it was pretty embarrassing.  I have to admit she is right. So as a person who does not believe in hindsight or having regrets about my actions, I wanted to use the power of observation and I played a memory video in my head of that moment to see myself completely and utterly not in control! Lesson learned, and now I am aware I must stay in control!

Apart from helping me to change my own behaviour, this was my “staring out of the window” moment, my chance to observe human behaviour to inspire me to write. So I’ve taken what happened that day and I am putting it into good use.

First of all, it was the inspiration I needed to write my first blog! My objective is to stay on track of my commitment to write and I just needed that moment to “stair out of the window” to bring my first week’s observations to life, and I do hope that by the end of the blog some of you will identify with this situation and beginning to think about staying in control.

I am also now more aware of what I did and I won’t let situations get hold of my emotions and feelings towards someone or something. Shortly after this incident I got an e-mail, which I read, I pressed the reply button straight away and I began to type furiously my answer. I got about half way when I stopped and remember to be in control. I closed it and moved away from it. This is an important part of my everyday life as I deal with thousands of people both during travel and at work that can easily get me wind up and I might end up banging my feast again. So no more feast banging for me, I will now smile and think, “I am in control”

I also think that self-control is probably a good topic to start my year. It is a much bigger subject that would take more than a blog to explore, so we can come back to this topic throughout the next 51 weeks to remind ourselves of the power that exists from being in control.

For now, and I did promise to keep it short, as we beginning our new year of observation, I encourage you to reflect on what experiences you had this holiday season with people who may have rubbed you the wrong way, either at a dinner party, at the supermarket, when you were trying to board a train or just simply someone closed to you trying to get you to see something their way, did you stay in control or did you end up banging that feast to make your point?

Staring out of the window…

They say life is what you make of it and when all is said and done, most is said and very little done!

But without getting all melodramatic on this, every year I look back at the last 12 months and what I have achieved, what I have accomplished and what fun I had along the way. But I’m going to make an exception this year. So much happened in the last 365 days (actually less as there are still 10 days left of 2013) that it would take 300 pages to write it all down. So instead I want to share a lesson I learn this year; don’t leave for tomorrow what you should have done today. Bear with me and you will see what I mean.

If you were a regular follower of my blog (or if you have bothered to read at least one of them) you would know that I enjoy writing. And I often write based on my observations and what I encounter in my life. I like to share wisdom and ideas with those who follow my writing and some times offer valuable advice based on my experience. I also express some of these experiences and observations in my script writing. But I have not captured everything I’ve seen this year, and that is where my fault lays. So I’ve decided to start writing my blog on a weekly as of 2014.

I get to see so much in my travels and interact with so many people that often by the time I get down to write I have forgotten most of what I’ve experienced. This year I managed to take 123 flights where I encountered endless tales of the “unexpected” human behaviour. And I regrettably have not recorded all incidents I have come across over thousands of miles travelled. So as part of my lesson learned, from 2014 I will write weekly, shorter blogs that will allow me to share with you more entertaining observations of a traveller. These may also serve as memoirs for the future in case one day I get down to writing a book about my life!

And this idea of capturing everything I see came from a quote I saw in Facebook today from a page I follow called “Freedom With Writing”. They publish quotes to inspire writers to sit down and write and today they place a quote by Burton Rascoe that says “A writer is working when he is staring out of the window” and I thought, “yes it is true but many writers, like myself, have a much bigger privileged window called travel”.

I have often said I am blessed that my job allows me to travel every week. This may sound like a nightmare for those who hate the thought of being away from home, but in my case it is a great opportunity to “stare” out of the window, the window of the world! And please don’t get me wrong, I do miss my family and not being at home, but thankfully I have a very understanding wife and kids who support me in my job. However as I have to travel as part of my work, I might as well make the most of it.

So I sit and stare, stare at the world in front of me. I often get my inspiration through the observation of what I see as I travel, people I meet or situations I find my self in. Artist will often tell you that the best way to get inspired is to observe. Actors learn more about how to play a characters in a bar or a bus than the script they’ve been given. Landmarks or models have inspired all great paintings. The best songs ever written have probably been composed in a park. The most powerful way to get inspired is by taking that time to observe, to look, to stare out of the window, that’s where the hard work is.

But I believe we all have that opportunity to sit and stare out of the window. We all have to get somewhere every day. Whether it is to the shops to buy milk, to work by bus or car, or just simply go out and walk the dog, we all have that chance to take time and watch the world go by. My advice? Take a small notebook with you, your phone, or anything you can quickly make a note of what you have seen. Once you see it, it inspires you and you need to write it down. Then when you get home or to work look at it again and start to develop your idea. And I am not talking just about writing, acting or painting; this idea serves all aspects of life. If you run your own business and want to continue to innovate your product or establishment, if you are working on a project for work or college and need to get that extra edge to it to make it stand up or just simply looking for inspiration to write a card for someone special in your life, everything around you can give you that inspiration you need to make it more special, more inspiring.

This is why I am making this my focus for 2014; I want to write more often to capture even more of what I see. I will also continue to capture some of those inspiring moments in my script writing to bring to life those characters out there waiting to be born.

I also want to take the time here to thank you all for supporting me in my passion and taking the time to read what I write, I promise to continue to provide you all with what I see out there in the world!

Someone once asked me why I liked to write so much and I replied; “I write because someone out there reads”. Have a great 2014 and keep on “staring out of the window”

Midlife Crisis! A blessing in disguise

Last year I celebrated my 45^th birthday and entitled it “I’m, halfway there” because I have aspirations to leave to at least 90, anything after that it’s a bonus! Reflecting on having lived half of my life helped me focus on how I want to leave the next 45 years.

Now I am turning 46 and beginning to ripe the efforts of my change of state of mind. Back then I began to focus on my fitness and weight lose and work on other things that help me enjoy life to the max. I have always believed that we only live once and you cannot take anything with you to wherever place we end up, so you might as well spend it and get it all done while you are here as nothing is coming with you.

Focusing on these ideals has made me a very different man that I used to be, and fro the record, I am not obsessed with my fitness or staying in shape, I just simply found a way to enjoy my life and make sure I get to 90 in good condition. In my recent holiday to Portugal with family and friends, I knew that in order to enjoy the Portuguese delicious cuisine I needed to get up every morning while everyone was still asleep and go for a run. You may think “Sergio, relax, you are on holiday” and that is exactly what I was doing! By getting up in the morning and go for a run I was doing two things; first spending time with myself to energise and reflect; I see running as a great way to get my thoughts together, think of my writing projects, focus on what I’m going to do next and get just a little bit fitter. Second I was pre-burning those calories I knew I would enjoy during the day. This daily run allowed me to not to worry about what I was eating and whether I was putting on weight, which I will then have to work really hard to get rid of it. How many times have you said that? I know I have and getting rid of it afterwards its a nightmare. But by simply getting up in the morning, going for my usual run, at no extra effort, I could enjoy my holidays and stay in shape.

So no, I am not obsessed with losing weight and staying in shape, I’d like to think of it as just being in control and enjoying my life, enjoying those 45 years I have left. Remember, self-discipline is harder to follow, as there is no one pushing you to do it, it is up to you not to let yourself down.

So am I having a so-called “Midlife Crisis”? Perhaps I am and in this “Midlife Crisis” I have purchased a Rebook ZR9 Treadmill, which is now seating in my front room, a gift for my 46^th birthday. In some ways this is my “Parked outside Red Ferrari” because the “Midlife Crisis” comes to all of us in different forms. And by the way, “Midlife Crisis” does not only come to men but to women too, they also find themselves with a new lease of life but may not be in the shape of a “Red Ferrari” or my ZR9!

The reality is that for many people becoming 40 something is a wake up call, a reality check that brings us to change our habits, our outlook and in may cases our entire lives, depending on how dramatic your change is. But I don’t think anyone escape going through “Midlife Crisis”.

But why do we call it “Midlife Crisis”? Reflecting on this and knowing what I‘ve seen in other people, the term “Midlife Crisis” is used because some people’s lives, at the midpoint, had had a very impactful change and become “Crisis”

We’ve often heard the stories; “he left her for a younger woman” or “she met him in the internet and just left her job and career to go and live with him in another country” These changes are much more dramatic than getting a treadmill, but I don’t think they are any different to my new fitness regime, the fact is that when you become 40 something, most people may feel they need to change their life in a dramatically way. I think that those who make a much more dramatic change are seeking something new which comes from deeper issues and a string of unhappiness in their lives. This pushes them take the plunge and make a dramatic change; mine was being unhappy with my health so I began to run, theirs was being unhappy with their relationship or general life so they leave it all behind.

Now I am not suggesting that this only happens when you become 40 something, there are plenty of people who make dramatic life changes before or well after this age, I know I did when I left my first marriage, but what I am suggesting here is that there is a time in our lives, usually around half way, when we become a little bit wiser and aware that time is ticking, that there is no turning back, we know that moving forward the way we want will help us have a happier and more enjoyable life. And so we change, we change our habits, our mentality, our routines, our minds; we just simply know that it’s time to change before it is too late.

So whether you are 40 something, not yet there or you well past already this stage in your life, I hope this personal encounter of such critical time in our lives has help you in some way to either know that change is good and comes to all of us in different shapes and sizes, or to know that whatever your “Midlife Crisis” looks like, it will make things better in your life. And if you haven’t been there yet, you may want to think about it, and like me, take control of whatever time you have left on this earth, because if we do not know where we will end up, we might as well make the most of today and when we get there we can turn around and say “yes I lived my life the way I always wanted”

If this is a subject you enjoyed reading about and would like to enjoy a moving story on this, you can check out my play called “40 something” in my website www.sergiosnyder.com it is the story of a woman who realises she has devoted all her life to others and never to her, and she knows it is not too late to change.

www.sergiosnyder.com

I write because someone out there reads

I’ve been writing since I was a child. My mother always encouraged me to channel my very vivid imagination to the arts; music, drawing, theatre and writing.

And as a kid, I wrote a few short stories that amused my mother and those who cared enough to read them. I never got any feedback or told if I was any good, but I enjoyed writing them and it really helped me to get my stories immortalised.

I then gave up writing, became a young actor and I was able to release my mind through the performing arts. And for many years I tried hard to become an actor. Difficult profession, but one that gave me real satisfaction knowing I could use my imagination to transport myself into the characters I was playing. At a later stage, with the help of a local amateur theatre company called Group 64 in Putney, London, I discovered other forms of expression such as directing and designing. I had the opportunity to direct several plays and it was at this point I realised that being an actor was not for me, I really wanted to work doing something where I was able to project what I could see in my mind, and place it on the stage, with actors, costumes, lighting and scenery.

And the amazing discovery for me was realising that you could take a play and place it on the stage in any way, shape or form you liked. Proof of this was when I was given the opportunity to direct one of my favourite plays, “Six Characters in Search of an Author” by Luiggi Pirandello, which takes place during a rehearsal of a play, a play within a play. It’s an easy production to stage; all you need is an empty set, a theatre and a group of actors plus a few props and lighting.  As I was planning the production in my apartment I suddenly had a vision. Why not turn the whole things around! Let the audience sit on the stage. After all, the action takes place during a rehearsal and generally actors sit and hang around the auditorium during rehearsals and the stage is usually bare. So we did, we brought the audience in through the workshop and onto the sage, sitting facing the auditorium, a view not many had experienced before!

The production was a great success because we had good actors and it is a great play but I also believe it was because of the setting; it was interesting for the audience to experience something very different. And I knew at that point that imagination is the most powerful tool we have and I needed to put my to good use!

During my time with Group 64 I found again my passion for writing and wrote several plays. I was fortunate enough to be allowed to put them on the stage. I say fortunate because people don’t like to take risks, especially when it comes to new plays/scripts. There are so many sequels littering our cinema screens, Hang over 3, Fast and Furious 6 and if Stallone could have done it, we would be on Rocky 20! Mostly it is because Hollywood in particular won’t take risks, as unknown writers don’t pay the bills! So instead to taking risks and investing in new scripts, they re-make successful films over and over again.

And that goes for anything to do with the performing arts: plays, musicals, films, songs, it is very rear that you are given the opportunity to show case your work and launch your career, specially as a writer.

I left London through my day job and I moved away from my artistic path, finding my feet in the hotel industry, where I have been able to build a good career. And I forgot about my writing, for a while.

But 6 years ago I got promoted and my job required me to travel around Europe. Not a bad job if, like me, you like travelling. I found myself spending the majority of my time on the road. And I mean on the road as the time it takes to get from one place to another. After a while of being “on the road” I realised that I was spending on average 16 hrs a week to get to and from my destinations. At first I used to do what most travellers do; read, eat, watch a movie and sleep.

But soon I realised that when you have 16 hours a week, which I considered being dead time (strap to the seat of a bus, taxi or plane) then there must be something better to do with this time. And I remember, I remember my passion, and I picked up my journey from where I left and began to write again.

It was perfect! I had time, a computer; I was tied to a chair and a vivid imagination waiting to burst out! The four key elements to be able to write. And over the last five years I have accomplished a lot as a writer. I have developed several plays, ranging from monologs to full-length dramas, I have drafted 3 sitcoms with several episodes, I have put together 3 full length musicals using songs from famous artists, I have written 3 film scripts, 4 short stories, several articles like this and drafted many ideas for scripts which are waiting for me to put down on paper (or rather laptop nowadays) and all that in just those sixteen hours I have every week.

Now, all of my work, except for one play a comedy called Lodgers, which was chosen by a company called Writers Avenue as part of their annual competition “The First 20 minutes” and performed in Soho Theatre, London in 2011, all of them have never been performed or read by more than a handful of people. We are talking about hundreds of hours of work, put together in scripts and stories, the fruits of my hard labour, have only been seen by a few lucky ones, those few that are usually forced by my to read them!

So why do I continue to write, when I know only some will read it? Very simple, there are two things I believe in and I express through two sayings:

“Our dreams are our realities of tomorrow”

“I write because someone out there reads”

These two phrases, as a writer and an artist, keep my soul alive, my heart fuelled and my pen moving! And I know that if you are reading this article, I have fulfilled at least one of the phrases, because someone out there is reading this…

Keep on going, no matter what obstacles there is, at the end, the journey is only the path to our success.

"Second Chances"

Don’t burst my bubble!

Have you ever stopped to think where this phrase comes from? 

Positive Energy is something that drives humans to get through the day. It all begins with you getting up in the morning and mentally telling yourself “Today I’m going to have a great day!”

From that moment you are destine to have a great day. Positive Energy is easily transmitted in all you do and it is a mental state that tells you body to keep going feel good and full of energy, somehow it all fits into place. The cells in your brain transmit to your body those electrons of that give your strength, your PMA or Positive Mental Attitude helps you deal with your day and achieve all you wanted to do.

To put this into context, let me take you through a day where you have an energy bubble created by that PMA. So you get up in the morning, on the right side of the bed, and you go to the bathroom. There you look at yourself in the mirror and say to your self “Today is my day” As you open the shower, the water is hot and powerful and you feel that energy the drops of water transmit to your skin, re-charging that self-battery to it’s full capacity. Then you go to the bedroom and turn the radio on, and no matter what song comes on, your feel good. The clothes you chose to wear that day make you feel powerful and in control and you know you look good in them. You have a good breakfast, a good conversation with your family or friends and on top of all this the sun is shining! You set off and driving to work knowing you are in control and look forward to a successful day. The roads are clear, there is no traffic and another of your favourite songs comes on. Finally you arrive a your work place.

So far you are having a great day! Your positive energy has governed most of what you have done so far and most of it is not by chance, it is just that a PMA makes you see things in a positive way. You know you can take on the world, you are ready for anything; your PMA is driving you there.

So you meet your first work colleague. “Good morning!” you say with all that energy oozing out of you, “How are you today?”

“Terrible! I had the journey from hell to get here today!” says the deeply depressed and tired worker as he/she walks by. Their PMA is somewhere on the basement and their negative energy is like a small kindle that gives a little prick to your bubble of energy. As you feel the air coming out you cover this small hole which is beginning to let some of your positive energy out by just walking away from that person and focus on your day ahead, after all, in the words of James Brown “You feel good! You knew that you would”

Your next interact is also similar to the person you just met, bursting your positive energy with a phrase like “Not to bad” or “I’m ok I suppose” or even “fine”, all common phrases we know and use on a day to day bases but that have a negative connotation and contradicts the positive energy you are feeling that day. And each of these encounters is another little prick that is letting your positive energy out of your bubble. You are running out of fingers covering these holes and soon you won’t be able to stop the air from escaping.

And then you meet your boss, who by all accounts never recognises what you do or appreciates your work, but you deal with it. And they call you into the office.

By now your bubble is pretty much damaged by all the negative energy surrounding you and it only take one word, one sentence, one statement from that person to “burst your bubble”

You leave the office and now you are a field of negative energy. You are angry, annoyed, pissed off! And things start to go wrong. You get more bad news, the deal you were working on has fallen through, the package you were expecting has not come, there is a customer complaint lading on your desk and you just shouted at your assistant because she forgot to book an appointment you were sure you told her to do.

It’s time to go home, you had enough! You car won’t start. Finally when it does and you are sweating because of the stupid heat, you hit a traffic jam, some idiot has had an accident! You get home, the food is cold as you forgot to tell your partner you were going to be late and she/his not happy! There is nothing on TV, you’ve run out of beer so you can’t even have drink, the dog has made a mess and you have to clean it up and finally when you get to bed, your neighbour is playing loud music and you can get to sleep! You lay there, looking up and thinking, “Can’t wait for the day to end!”

Interestingly, at this point you are now so full of negative energy that you cannot see the good feeling you had when you woke up this morning, your world was crushed by the negative influences of those around you, in other words they burst your bubble.

Have you been there before? Have you had that feeling? I know I have and can bet you must people also experience this many times. It is a hard thing to combat, to deal with and you need to be both, physically and mentally strong to make sure your bubble is not burst.

The only way you can combat negative energy is to block it from your day. People with negative energy will transmit this to you, so you have to be strong and block it.

But how can you do this, when there is so much of it in our lives? Walk away from it, don’t let it feaster in your mind, think of the positive energy you have in you and re-charge your battery by focusing on the good. A bad encounter with a negative person can leave you drained and excused. Here are some things I know work for me:

·      Take a walk, get some fresh air, re-group with your positive thoughts and do something that will bring back your positive air into your bubble.

·      Make a call to a loved one just to say hello, their voice is your inspiration to keep going.

·      Watch a clip that would make you laugh, or find something funny, laughter is the most powerful weapon we have against negativism and it produces that all important positive air as you laugh.

·      Put it into perspective. Think what is the worst thing that can happen in life, then work backwards and think where you are now, most of the time what you are going through is nothing compare to what is the worst thing that could happen in your life.

·      Do what you like doing best. Sing, write, take a picture, draw, run, skip if you must!

·      Be silly, pull a face, do a silly walk. All these release some of that negative energy and you’ll make other laugh!

·      And finally say, “Sod it!” even if you don’t swear, still say “Sod it”. There is something about this phrase that has a magic effect. It’s like a good cure to all your troubles and helps you move on.

And then move on. This is the final hurdle because no matter what happens, you have to move on, deal with it and leave it behind.

Positive Energy can get you through the toughest situations in life, as well as enhancing the way you live your life. I am a great believer that the more positive you are, the more energy you have, the more you become immune to the negativism many people bring into out lives.