humdrum

This week has ended up being humdrum - had a major motivation crash Monday and Tuesday as a result of feeling pretty dodgy stomach wise. Now Friday and still feeling a little drawn by it. Ah well. The business plan has not progressed much on paper but I did attend the first of my Business Planning courses, fully government funded here in NZ, where we had the sevices of a very competent facilitator to show us a good map to a business plan. Structured, clear and stimulating. Also nice to meet a couple of different people and hear what they are up to - not really networking in the 'Rotary Club' sense but networking nonetheless. There's some good ideas out there. My idea is a good one. The scope needs to be a little bigger still than I thought, at least in pure cash terms. This is because of the cost of certain types of software which would be best to use - $600 to $900 per user. Given that I initially was planning on having up to 8 users for a bigger campaign this ups the ante significantly. I suppose I need a littel time to assimilate that risk into my thinking. Having said that it would be 80% of the startup costs so it's still quite cheap. The thing is though that such an expense would be pure sunk costs - no way to retrieve them at all. Working it.

Noticed further financial turbulence of course, dips and buying into them, more dips, swings in sentiment. Lots of comment in FT and others explaining the risks the markets suddenly woke up to. This is nothing new to what I have seen. There is definitely a buying opportunity coming up in the next few months. Short of a nuclear attack on Iran I don't see a long term issue here for equity investors. I am definitely a major amateur in these matters but the more I see these swings, corrections, slumps and (inevitable, at least so far) recoveries the more I have begun to see them as buying opportunities rather than 'the end of the world'. The trick is in the timing however, and also to buy with the full intention of holding for at least 5 years at least.

Yoga wise, I am swinging right back to the full 3 month India thing now. Looks like my parents will make it out which is awesome - it will be great to experience the thing there with them for some of the time. My practice has been fragmented this week, and a couple of muscle pulls - one mild one on the front of the chest bizarrely - have meant that much of my awareness is being brought to the concept of acceptance. Acceptance of where one is, acceptance of things as they are. Acknowledging all the time the dynamic nature of these same things. Acceptance implies not giving up but seeing without judgement. Therein lies the purity of the idea that is detachment. So often we attach judgement to any acceptance, judging ourselves or others in some way, but to accept with no judgement must be liberating for all concerned. It certainly can remove barriers to progression and development in something like an ashtanga practice. So if the week has been humdrum, certainly in comparison to last week then the harm only comes from the attachment to the idea of comparison between the two weeks. I am subtly different to how I was last week, so would it be right to compare my experiences from one week to the next?