I have relocated COMPASS in September 2007 to a new home : www.berendlange.com

Please go to the new KOMPASS Blog for Posts from September 2007.

I am sorry for any inconvenience : Berend

I thought I had seen it all.

But now we just stood there, mesmerised : right in front of St. Jakob church on the medieval paving in the old town of Villach, a young man – alone, totally absorbed – played his guitar and at the same time juggled an array of electronic devices with his feet, making some really beautiful instrumental music. Multiple instruments, mind you!

The contrast to his venerable surroundings couldn’t be bigger. He turned out to be an Australian in Austria and personally handcrafted his unusual four-string guitar from an old, precious piece of piano. He composes his music as he plays along and sells it on CDs.

An unconventional fellow, like many others we saw at Villach’s annual StreetArt Festival last week : very friendly, utterly passionate about what they do, and very non-conformist. I like people like that.

For adults it takes courage, though, to be different and stick out from the crowd – I wonder why sometimes.

After all, it’s a fact that we are all different – nobody is exactly like anyone else, not even ‘identical’ twins. And that’s a good thing : just imagine how boring life would be if we were all the same.

If it is natural to be different, why are most of us afraid to show and express our uniqueness?

Because from the moment we are born, there is enormous pressure on us to ‘fit in’, to behave in a way that’s ‘acceptable’ to the people around us.

And there is a good reason for that, too : the urge ‘to belong’, to be part of a group is also natural for human beings. In the early days of mankind, nobody could survive on his own – the different skills of the members of the tribe, combined to achieve a common objective, defined the success of the community, and still do.

So there is no conflict here : everyone makes a unique, valuable contribution and lives happily ever after …

If only it were that easy : if we want to fit in, why does it take pressure to be accepted in a group, and where does it come from?

Most of the influence to conform is well-meaning and comes from family and friends at first, meant to help you do well in life. They taught you the facts of life, what worked and what didn’t, and helped you avoid many painful experiences.

Later, peers and superiors largely with their own agenda join in the chorus and steer you in a direction that suits them best, rather than having your interest at heart.

That’s where the pressure sets in : different interests are trying to dominate … it’s all a power-game!

Wherever we turn, there is a swarm of institutions and lobbyists these days telling us that the world is a dangerous place – selling us a safe berth in their harbour and convincing us that we can’t live the dreams we are having.

Many of our cultural influences are strong, others are subtle – we need to be fully aware that part of their mission is always to keep us in the herd.

Staying alert is not easy because our natural filters against the information overload in the media cannot cope anymore – we can’t switch off altogether to escape this game, so we develop an attention deficit to protect ourselves as best we can.

Initially, we have set up our social, commercial and political structures in a way that used to enable a small group of naturally courageous, resourceful and talented leaders to guide a majority of followers.

But with the power of leadership comes responsibility and I get the impression that personal accountability often gets lost these days, somewhere along the way to the global village.

Leaders don’t seem to think of their followers as individual persons anymore – for them they are groups, markets and voters … herds. It’s a lot easier to direct and manipulate a few uniform, labelled masses than to convince six billion people individually to buy the flavour of the month or go to war.

And the prestige of leadership depends on followers – if there are no followers, where does that leave the leaders?

Every self-professed expert hands out his glossy brochures these days and makes us believe that he alone has the power to make our dreams come true, whilst the decision to follow is always made by ourselves.

In whose hands is the real power then?

Value, just like beauty, is in the eye of the individual beholder. There is nothing wrong with being selfish, in fact it is a lesson we all have to learn : to listen to ourselves and to our own innermost desires in the face of so many other options offered to us.

I am not suggesting that there is a conspiracy to prevent us from making our own decisions, but our generation has been conditioned in such a massive way that we no longer recognise the influence of a belief-system that denies the importance of personal feelings.

Ready-made ladders are put up for us everywhere and we are hypnotised to climb the rungs en masse – only to find out at the top that the ladder is leaning against a wall we never wanted to be on.

Don’t get me wrong : I am not condemning this system, just observing. We have all agreed to follow the rules of this game, we chose our place in the cage – and now it’s difficult to see the exit, although it is wide open.

But some do and get unplugged, like the young musician at Villach’s StreetArt Festival – I just love it!

Until next time, all the best from : Berend

Ich habe gerade eine neue Seite für Übersetzungen auf meinen Website gestellt, da ich jetzt immer mehr Anfragen dafür erhalte.

Guck doch mal rein!

Hier in Villach haben wir an diesem Wochenende ein ‘New Orleans’ Festival und wir machen natürlich mit!

Rechtzeitig dafür hier ein englischer Trinkspruch in zwei Sprachen :

Das Leben ist wundervoll,
man muss es nur durch die richtige Brille sehen.

Life ist wonderful,
you just need to see it through the right glasses.

Have a nice one yourself :

If you feel out of balance, here is something I guarantee will help you.

I was totally out of sync today, so I surfed around on some inspirational websites and ended up on the ‘Gifts’-page of ‘The Secret’.

If you have been on my ‘Recommendations’-page you know that their DVD is one of my favourites, but I never knew that they had plenty of other good stuff.

Anyway, if you want to feel better in exactly two and a half minutes flat, just click here on ‘The Secret to You’ (or on the image below) and you’ll go straight to a short movie : it is a beautiful visualization with awesome images and great music, really inspiring – just click, sit back and relax :

You’ll love it, even if you’re fine right now. You can download it to your desktop as well, like I did, to watch it every day or whenever you feel like it.

And don’t forget to share the good things in life : alert your friends to this, they’ll appreciate it.

Hope you like the new COMPASS header, by the way.

Have fun : Berend

Ist das wahr?

• Viren verursachen Krankeiten
• Kalorien beeinflussen unser Körpergewicht
• Inflation ist unvermeidlich
• Gefängnisse vermindern Kriminalität
• Waffen bringen uns Sicherheit

Die meisten glauben das, und was wir glauben, das ist wahr für uns. So stellen wir uns die Welt heute vor.

Wir glauben auch, daß die Welt wirklich so ist, wie wir sie uns vorstellen. Unsere Vorstellung von der Welt prägt unser tägliches Verhalten und bestimmt damit die Realität, in der wir leben.

Vor ein paar hundert Jahren glaubte man, daß die Erde flach sei und man herunterfallen würde, wenn man nur weit genug segelt. Ist die Welt wirklich so, wie wir sie uns heute vorstellen?

Glaube ist ja eigentlich Illusion und ändert sich mit den Jahren – was wir heute glauben ist nicht unbedingt ‘wahrer’ als das, was man früher glaubte.

“Was wir zu wissen glauben
hält uns häufig davon ab,
zu lernen.”
Claude Bernard (1813 – 1878)

Glaube birgt also auch Gefahren.

Denk mal drüber nach : Berend

Wenn es ein Zitat gibt, das mir mehr als alle anderen hilft, auf Erfolgskurs zu bleiben, dann ist es dieses von
Paul J. Meyer :

“Alles was Du …

• dir klar vorstellen,
• leidenschaftlich wünschen,
• aufrichtig glauben,
• und wonach Du begeistert handeln kannst …

… muss unweigerlich geschehen.”

In wenigen Worten hat er hier ein universelles Gesetz formuliert, das uralt ist, lange verschüttet war, jetzt aber wieder häufig diskutiert und in vielen Variationen beschrieben wird : das Gesetz der Anziehung.

Es ist ja auch unglaublich, daß es nur vier Voraussetzungen gibt, die nötig sind, um alles zu erreichen, was man will. Unweigerlich. Alle vier gleichzeitig, natürlich.

Das klingt zu einfach. Trotzdem ist es so : nicht leicht, aber einfach.

Schade, daß wir so oft nicht alle vier zusammen auf die Reihe kriegen, oder? Wenn es ums Wünschen geht sind wir alle groß dabei, aber dann die anderen drei?

Was wünschst Du dir denn nun wirklich?

Darüber solltest Du mal nachdenken : Berend

Here is a little fun to brighten your Monday again :

What’s the difference between Heaven and Hell?

IN HEAVEN :

• The police are British
• The chefs are French
• The mechanics are German
• The lovers are Italian
• and it’s all organized by the Swiss!

IN HELL :

• The chefs are British
• The mechanics are French
• The police are German
• The lovers are Swiss
• and it’s all organized by the Italians!

Until next time, all the best from : Berend

“Die Tanzenden wurden für total verrückt gehalten – von denen, die die Musik nicht hören konnten.” Dieses Zitat von Angela Monet gefällt mir.

Das gleiche sagt Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) :

“Warum sollten wir uns so verzweifelt beeilen, erfolgreich zu sein, und in so dringenden Geschäften?

Wenn jemand nicht Schritt hält, dann hört er vielleicht eine andere Trommel. Lasst ihn doch im Takt mit der Musik bleiben, die er selbst hört – egal wie gemessen und fern sie sein mag.”

Es gibt nie nur eine einzige Perspektive von den Dingen, die wir sehen. Alleine wissen wir einfach nicht genug, um die gesamte Wahrheit zu erkennen.

Ich habe mir deshalb abgewöhnt, die Dinge, die um mich herum passieren, dauernd als ‘gut’ oder ’schlecht’ einzustufen. Meine eigene Sichtweise ist ja nur eine von vielen, und ich würde mit dieser Scheuklappe soviel Neues und Interessantes verpassen.

‘Leben und leben lassen’ ist für mich schon lange eine gute Devise, auch im Geschäft – vielleicht sollten wir Andere einfach öfter mal nur gelten lassen, während wir nach unserer eigenen Pfeife tanzen.

Willkommen beim ersten KOMPASS auf Deutsch heute. Die zunehmende Beliebtheit meines englischen COMPASS eNewsletters hat dazu geführt, daß ich immer mehr Anfragen erhielt, ob ich nicht auch etwas auf Deutsch schreiben könnte.

Besonders meine 5-teilige HORIZONS JOURNAL Serie hat viele Kommentare und eine Menge Anteilnahme an unserem Werdegang ausgelöst – sie beschreibt unseren Entschluß, nach fast 23 Jahren in Südafrika wieder nach Europa zu ziehen, und unsere Fortschritte auf dem Weg von Kapstadt nach Österreich. Irgendwann bald werde ich diese Serie wohl abschließen können.

Während mein englischer COMPASS betimmte Themen mehr in ausführlichen Artikeln betrachtet, wird der deutsche KOMPASS eher kurze Splitter enthalten – Überlegungen, die ich für relevant halte, um als Mensch und im Beruf zu wachsen.

Darum geht es mir : zu zeigen und daran zu erinnern, daß Wachstum immer passiert – ob wir uns dessen bewußt sind oder nicht, ob es uns gefällt oder nicht. Und daß zielgerichtetes Wachsen auf allen Gebieten zu erstaunlichen Ergebnissen führen kann – führen muss.

Neue Perspektiven unseres Daseins sind der Anfang und das Ende dieses Vogangs : Wachstum ist Menschsein für uns, Menschsein ist Wachstum.

Viel Spaß dabei und Frohe Pfingsten wünscht : Berend

I stumbled across Mark Shuttleworth’s Blog on Sunday and his latest entry there impressed me SO much that I’d like to call your attention to it today.

I have often said that everyone gets the government he deserves, and Mark Shuttleworth confirms this when he speaks from my heart about making, and constantly remaking, cultural and political choices.

In Defense of Independent Governance comments on the value of three key principles across continents and decades :

• That human nature is unchanging across the world and across time
• That the presumption of innocence until the proof of guilt is a vital choice in the maintenance of a free society
• That freedom of speech is essential for a healthy society

Close to the end he concludes : “These principles are not written in the laws of physics – we create them in society, and we must defend them. They cannot be taken for granted, even in countries like the USA, which have them written into their constitutional DNA.

Since they are a choice that society makes, and since society is reborn in each generation, they are a choice that society must make, and remake, constantly. Sometimes, we fail.”

If you can, I’d like to urge you to read the whole article – it’ll only take you five minutes, but here is another excerpt (my emphasis underlined and bold) :

“It is a tragic thing to impose ones own cultural, religious or political views on people who see things differently. That tragedy has played out far too many times – from Apartheid, to the Holocaust, to the invasion of Iraq in recent history, to the acts of the Conquistadors centuries ago.

It shows up when a new government renames the streets and cities of the old government, which renamed them from the previous government. We lose our own identity when we lose the voice of history, even if it is a history of which we are ashamed.

It also shows up in the homogenization of global culture, with McDonalds and Disney turning the rich culture of the world into large swathes of barren desert. I am very sensitive to the beauty of the cultures that I’ve been privileged to experience in depth – South Africa, Russia, England, America. And I find it sad when one culture arrogantly suppresses another. I believe in letting people make their own choices. The future belongs to those who embrace global thinking without losing their identity and their culture.

At its largest, grandest level, “making choices” is what democracy is all about. However, sometimes the illusion of democracy is used to give legitimacy to choices that were not, at all, democratic.

In Zimbabwe, for example, we have a government that is in power “democratically” because of the systematic culture of fear that was created every time people expressed an interest in making a different choice. I cannot therefore pay much respect to the idea that the government of Zimbabwe is a true reflection of the cultural choices of Zimbabweans.

In such cases, we are obliged to question the decisions made by governments who claim to hold power by democratic mandate, when in fact they hold it by brute force.“

Until next time, all the best from : Berend

This is hilarious and will make your Monday – one of my loyal readers in Sydney sent this over the other day; read it out loud and you’ll laugh your head off :

Official Language in Europe to Change :
From German to English = “Euro-English”

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.

As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5-year phase-in plan that would become known as “Euro-English”.

In the first year, “s” will replace the soft “c”. Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard “c” will be dropped in favour of “k”. This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter. There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome “ph” will be replaced with “f”. This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible.

Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.

Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent “e” in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.

By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing “th” with “z” and “w” with “v”.

During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary “o” kan be dropd from vords kontaining “ou” and after ziz fifz yer, ve v! il hav a reil sensibl riten styl.

Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.

Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.

If zis mad you smil, pleas pas on to oza pepl.

Ontil next tim, al ze best from : Berend

Here’s a little laugh for you on a Monday morning : if you are working in an office and are not familiar with the following vocabulary, you are seriously out of touch.

I found it on business coach Philip Humbert’s eNewsletter TIPS a while ago, have fun :

BLAMESTORMING: Sitting around in a group, discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed, and who was responsible.

PERCUSSIVE MAINTENANCE: The fine art of whacking the crap out of an electronic device to get it to work again.

SEAGULL MANAGER: A manager, who flies in, makes a lot of noise, craps on everything, and then leaves.

SALMON DAY: The experience of spending an entire day swimming upstream only to get screwed and die in the end.

MOUSE POTATO: The online, wired generation’s answer to the couch potato.

ASSMOSIS: The process by which some people seem to absorb success and advancement by kissing up to the boss rather than working hard

CUBE FARM: An office filled with cubicles.

PRAIRIE DOGGING: When someone yells or drops something loudly in a cube farm, and people’s heads pop up over the walls to see what’s going on.

SITCOMs: Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage. What Yuppies get into when they have children and one of them stops working to stay home with the kids.

STRESS PUPPY: A person who seems to thrive on being stressed out and whiny.

SWIPEOUT: An ATM or credit card that has been rendered useless because magnetic strip is worn away from extensive use.

XEROX SUBSIDY: Euphemism for swiping free photocopies from one’s workplace.

IRRITAINMENT: Entertainment and media spectacles that are annoying but you find yourself unable to stop watching them.

ADMINISPHERE: The rarefied organizational layers beginning just above the rank and file. Decisions that fall from the adminisphere are often profoundly inappropriate or irrelevant to the problems they were designed to solve.

404: Someone who’s clueless. From the World Wide Web error Message “404 Not Found,” meaning that the requested site could not be located.

GENERICA: Features of the American landscape that are exactly the same no matter where one is, such as fast food joints, strip malls, and subdivisions.

OHNOSECOND: That minuscule fraction of time in which you realize that you’ve just made a BIG mistake. (Like after hitting send on an email by mistake).

WOOFS: Well-Off Older Folks.

Until next time, all the best from : Berend

Three years ago today, Friday the 23rd of April 2004 was a brilliantly beautiful autumn day in Cape Town – warm, sunny and calm. The perfection of the universe was showing off in a spectacular fashion, and for most people it must have been difficult to see the other, darker side of the coin inherent in every aspect of the world we experience.

For me it wasn’t, because my father passed away on that day, just before his 83rd birthday.

This was utterly unexpected because my father was visibly enjoying his life – he always liked to be active around the house and garden and had the strength to do a million little things every day.

That’s what he was doing on Wednesday morning, but that night we had to get him to a hospital in a hurry and the fact that he died not even 48 hours later was difficult to understand.

To cope with a loss is not easy and for most of us, grieving is how we react to a tragic event – we feel helpless and sink into emptiness and despair, questioning the apparent futility of it all to regain our sanity.

We think that grief and sorrow are inseparable and believe this process is necessary to overcome the pain and to eventually accept what has happened.

But what if we knew, without a doubt, that there are no accidents in our intelligent universe?

That we have to experience loss in order to learn a valuable lesson, that we have something to gain from catastrophe and death.

I am lucky in that I never had to encounter any devastating blows in my life, so I am not an authority on the subject. But what if we chose not to suffer over a loss which we will ultimately recognize as beneficial anyway? This is not how we are supposed to react, of course, in our European cultural environment.

But I believe that in the western world, what we mostly lament is our own loss, and not so much the fate of the deceased. In other societies, death is an occasion for celebration – I have seen this myself in Bali.

They know, even in times of mourning, that the universe’s timing of people’s arrival and departure on this planet should not be questioned – everything is in perfect order, even painful experiences.

Is the loss of a loved one different from losing worldly possessions? Yes, definitely. Once gone, family members cannot be replaced, ever. But they live on in our memories, whilst the loss of a house, money or a job should be forgotten as soon as possible and stimulate us to move on to even better things.

The basic underlying challenge here is change, and whether we think we can cope with it. I know that my father is where he is supposed to be right now, and I accept his schedule – I’ll just have to learn to live without him.

Until next time, all the best from : Berend

“Are you enjoying your holidays here?” The waitress at the Park Cafe in Villach is very friendly as she serves the fabulously rich cake and strong coffee, with a glass of water by the way, which is typical for Austria.

People often address us as visitors, even when we’re not – or maybe they are right and we are tourists everywhere, except the place we grow up in. We lived in Cape Town for nine years until recently, and settle here in Austria’s Carinthia now – but we are German.

How can they tell you’re different?

‘When in Rome, do like the Romans do.’ I found that to be good advice in the past whenever I travelled to places I hadn’t been to before. Trying to blend in at airport customs in Jakarta is what you did when you arrived in Indonesia via Singapore from South Africa on a second, clean passport during the Apartheid years.

But does it work? Did the locals think I was born in Venezuela when I was in Caracas? I am sure I didn’t pass for a local in Cape Town’s Kayelitsha township, but a few kilometers away in Simon’s Town nobody gave me a second glance walking down our Waterfront.

Fact is that we’re all different, of course – six and a half billion unique human beings on this planet, our fingerprints prove it; and it’s not important how far apart we are geographically – what matters is how close we are culturally. There’s a difference, although there is a proportional relation.

If I start yodelling in the middle of Hamburg, passers-by will stop and stare. In a small village in North Korea I would get arrested and put in an asylum for that, but anywhere in Austria, folks would smile and join in. Well, the way I yodel some of them might think I am dying and call an ambulance, but that’s not the point.

The point is that others can tell very quickly that you’re different first by the way you look, and then by the way you speak. Or write?

That’s what I am trying to find out from you today : can you tell that I am German from the way I am writing this article? I publish COMPASS for subscribers on four continents (Asia doesn’t seem to be interested much) and I consciously try to choose a neutral style here.

Working in Public Relations, on other occasions I would use a different approach for a particular purpose. When I lived in London in 1979/80 I sometimes played a little game with myself at parties : how long could I hide the fact that I am German by putting on as much of a British drawl as I could muster?

After a while, the best score I achieved was just under one hour if I remember correctly – and it was either because of, or in spite of all that really good French red wine they offered there.

Now here in Austria, I spoke to a gathering of Germans and Austrians last week and all of them, without exception, were amazed that I hadn’t lost my northern German accent after 22 years in South Africa.

That’s how the waitress in the Park Cafe could tell we weren’t Austrian, so we had to be tourists : not everyone wears Lederhosen here so we didn’t look different, but I am not one to keep my mouth shut for long.

We spoke differently. Do I write differently? Please drop me a brief comment and tell me what gives me away – or doesn’t.

Next time I’ll ponder on whether it helps or hinders to be different – if there is pressure towards conformity, where does it come from? And why?

Until then, all the best from : Berend

Majestic – that’s the word that comes to mind. We stand on top of Goldeck mountain 2140 m above sea-level in Austria, looking down on the Drau Valley, the small town of Spittal and Lake Millstatt; the Alps pile up beyond.

People ski all around us, they smile in anticipation of the downhill ride. With this perspective, you cannot help to be in awe of all the grandeur nature displays so generously here. Right now, we feel like little ants on this planet.

It must have taken millions of years for the river to carve this valley on its way east, and it was only three months ago that we have arrived back in Europe after 22 years in South Africa, eager to build a new life here. The blink of an eye.

If I think about it, most of our own ride up to this place was actually downhill so far, everything is falling into place in wonderful synchronicity. We must be doing something right – we apply and observe the Law of Attraction consciously at first hand.

If you’re interested to learn more about how the Law of Attraction and Intention Manifestation works, here is Steve Pavlina’s fascinating Interview with James Ray that I found last week – excellent reading!

This is the final stretch of phase two of our mission to re-settle in Europe : wrapping up in Cape Town was virtually complete when we flew out on 20 Nov, the culmination of establishing our new stomping ground in Austria is very close now.

Everything goes according to plan : the furniture we took with us from South Africa will be delivered to our new flat in Villach tomorrow and the brandnew kitchen we ordered five weeks ago gets installed on Tuesday.

Other stuff we want to live with will then arrive in bits and pieces over the next three weeks – it’s been quite intense to put our vision together and we’re more than a bit tired, but happy about the learning curve and grateful for all the friendly and helpful people we met on the way so far.

After this we’ll enter phase three, the last one, which is to establish a new social and work environment : I work as a Management Consultant with small and medium sized enterprises in Marketing and Administration.

Recently I have received a lot of flattering comments about my eNewsletters and several enquiries whether I can help others to publish their own – they know that regular newsletters are a very effective marketing tool.

I thought about it – and found that of course I can, in many different ways. So I put pen to paper and wrote a separate page on my website about it to offer the service officially from now on.

I’ll elaborate further on that over the next few weeks, but please have an early look and see whether there is something for you, or for someone you know. It doesn’t matter where you are in the world, we can put our heads together over the phone and on the Internet to make your plans become reality.

If history is anything to go by, phase three of our new life will be as successful as the first two, and just as exhilarating as the top of Goldeck mountain in winter.

More soon from : Berend

Snow! Finally, it started coming down in buckets here on Monday afternoon and never stopped until two days later. We haven’t seen any in 22 years of living in South Africa and for us it’s magic, even though it caused havoc for motorists. Ski resorts up in the mountains are relieved, too : winter has come very late this year.

As planned, we arrived in Austria just before New Years Eve in pursuit of our new home : having spent a month in Germany and Christmas with family and friends, we drove south to Bavaria and then through the Alps to Carinthia in Austria in the most miserable conditions imaginable.

If you are used to the N1 in the Karoo and traffic in the southern suburbs of Cape Town, driving rain and near-freezing temperatures are treacherous on the road. Little did we know that a full-blown blizzard was waiting for us three weeks later, when we had to drive the 30 km from Spittal to Villach and back. We made it, but that’s another story.

We are in Spittal an der Drau at the moment, our base to look for a new home in Carinthia – a quaint little town as picturesque as you can imagine Austria, with medieval facades and cobble-stoned squares inviting you to wander and wonder about cultures and people.

Carinthia is the southernmost area in German-speaking Europe you will find. It is on the southern side of the Alps and there, amongst beautiful lakes like Lake Millstatt and Lake Wörth, only a few minutes by car from the Italian border, is Villach – that’s where we’ll be living.

We’ve found a very nice, brandnew flat to rent from where we can walk to Villach’s historical inner city in 15 minutes along the Drau river – you can find a lot more about Villach on Wikipedia in German or Villach on Wikipedia in English. With almost 60.000 inhabitants it is not too big, offers everything we need and distances are very manageable.

It wasn’t easy to choose where exactly we want to live, but we had a list of criteria and they match Villach. One of them was infrastructure, climate another one : when hurricane winds caused widespread damage and flooding in Europe north of the Alps last week, we never saw any of it, except on TV.

We are now tackling part two of our mission to live in Europe again : organise a new household to move in to by 1 March. It takes a surprising amount of running around to find out what, where and how – we thought we would know, but a lot of things have changed in 22 years, and Austria is not quite the same as Germany, after all.

A popular saying here states that ‘Austria is the better Germany’, and in many respects it seems to be true, at least for us : life is well structured, but less frenetic than in Germany. People are generally cheerful, we see a lot of smiling faces – many shops off the mainstream close for a very civilized lunch-break from 12:30 to 14:30 which reminds us of the ‘Siesta’ in Mediterranean countries.

After two months on he road, living out of suitcases gets a bit tiring and we are looking forward to having a familiar habitat again. On the other hand, there is so much new waiting to be discovered by us…

In the meantime, best to enjoy one day at a time – the snowball-fight was fun today!

More soon from : Berend

“Half a meter of Bratwurst for 3 Euro!” The signboard at the foodstall on this German Christmas market refuses to be ignored. The delicious smells of food, Glühwein and sweets mix with seasonal music : sausages are a part of German culture – and I love them, too.

After 22 years in South Africa, we’ve been back home in Europe for almost a month now – for good, not just visiting. Christmas markets are everywhere, and we’ve seen quite a few already. If there was one thing we could never get used to, it was Christmas in summer in the southern hemisphere. It’s just not the same.

Everyone keeps telling us that it’s mild for this time of the year, but they are all lying : it’s cold! And dark – if the sun shows up at all, it is very low on the horizon. Days are short, but that’s when the Glühwein kicks in.

OK, there’s no snow yet; that makes it easier to practice driving on the other side of the road again. Traffic is crowded, roads are narrow and the highways have no speed limit. Germans are busy, they don’t waste time – until they look for parking space.

We had forgotten how pleasant it is to live in a really efficient society : things work here. Plenty of rules and regulations, but bureaucracy is nowhere near as bad as we remember it – we had compulsory registration, new ID docs and drivers licences out of the way in no time. If you stick to the rules they work for, not against you.

For us, keeping an open mind is important at the moment – we have new eyes and still see Germany from an outside perspective, consciously approach situations and people in a friendly and unbiased way.

And the Law of Attraction never fails to produce the desired results : we found the car we wanted at the first dealer we approached, for example; other things we need fall into our laps without effort.

Not without cost, mind you : Europe is expensive if you compare it to living in South Africa, but you get what you pay for – the choices of products and services are absolutely overwhelming! Everything is available in many different varieties, so it takes time to sort the wheat from the chaff and find what you want at a discount.

Everybody is chasing that ‘Schnäppchen’ – finding the lowest price is a national pastime, especially at this time of the year. Most towns have turned their main shopping districts into pedestrian zones and the crowds shuffle all over the place, interrupted only by foodstalls, beautifully decorated Christmas trees and travelling musicians.

It is Christmas in Germany, we recognize the spirit – and it feels good. We remember our roots – reconnecting with friends and family is a joyful experience, we treasure the kinship that has survived the separation of life on different continents for such a long time.

People, not things define what you call ‘home’ but the culture we grow up in provides the common background that remains a special bond for life. As much as we love the people and the country, we have known for a long time that we would never be South African.

Is it the language? Our mother tongue is an important part of our culture, but I write and even dream in English these days – hearing the latest German idioms is a lot of fun but takes some adjusting on our part.

We’ll find out soon enough : before this year ends we’ll be in Austria where they speak a very different dialect to our northern German accent. We have our eyes on settling there for the next chapter in our lives and hope that we can ring in the new year with a lot of snow.

Until then, may I sincerely wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year 2007 – may it bring all you expect and dream of for your life :

Berend

Finally, the Sahara. We’ve been roughed up a bit over the steaming jungles of the equator, but now the towering clouds have disappeared and 10 kilometers below us, a giant sandbox slowly passes by.

I can’t help but think how enormously big this continent of Africa is. We had taken off at the southern tip of it in Cape Town early in the morning for a non-stop flight that would take us to Germany almost 12 hours later.

All our friends think that it takes a lot of courage to uproot our lives of almost 23 years in South Africa and return to Europe. Maybe that’s true, but we are so absolutely sure that this is what we want to do : go back to our own culture.

We’re excited, looking forward to the future, not scared – just creating the environment we want for ourselves. Leaving our comfort zone, yes. We are happy to have that freedom, it’s no big deal really, we’ve done it before; but real courage is something else, and we found a lot of it in Africa.

I’ll never forget our first Christmas office party in Johannesburg, back in 1984 : just the five of us with spouses, but one of us was black – Peter, our driver. We struggled to find a restaurant that would serve black people in those Apartheid years and it took a lot of persistence to succeed; not a nice memory.

We considered leaving the country only once, in 1987 when sanctions had isolated South Africa really badly and we had no hope that the situation would improve. But the job in Australia didn’t work out and we made some other changes instead.

That’s all different now, of course. The dramatic years of transition to democracy were interesting, to say the least – in hindsight I realize how easily things could have ended tragically. A lot of friends had bought one-way tickets just in case when the first democratic elections were held in 1994, on my birthday : 27 April.

Today, we are on a one-way ticket. Still desert sand down there, the picture-book-dunes-variety we always see on the Discovery Channel now. Then, abruptly, the incredibly blue Mediterranean at the coast of Algeria in the late afternoon sun. Some white clouds, Europe is almost in sight.

We look at each other and smile : this is an exciting adventure for me and my wife and we can’t wait to land in about two hours. The Cote d’Azure in the south of France now, then the snow-capped mountains of the Alps. This is familiar; we have been homesick – more than we realize, judging by all the joy we feel.

We’re so lucky : we stayed with good friends in Cape Town until they took us to the airport, and good friends will pick us up in Germany – everyone we know offered unconditional hospitality and helped with all they’ve got when we sold our house and dismantled most of our infrastructure in South Africa; this means a lot to us, and we are very grateful. Thanks to all of you!

Big Hallos at the airport when we arrive – genuine friendship cannot hide. But it’s cold when we haul our luggage to the cars, and dark : a reminder that we’ve travelled from summer straight into winter. No problem, a good Schnaps will warm us up again later.

That’s all I wanted when I was younger : live in a world where it was warm and sunny, experience different cultures on an incredibly interesting planet. South Africa was good for us, this vibrant rainbow nation has so much to offer; we’ll be back to visit, stay in touch a lot, but we’ll live in Europe now.

I’ll be back with more soon : Berend

We are moving. No kidding. After almost 23 years of being expatriates in South Africa, particularly enjoying the last 10 here at the beautiful Cape of Good Hope, my wife and I are relocating to Europe. We are homesick – if you have ever been away from home for any extended period of time, I am sure you know what that feels like.

True to our belief that we can create any type of life we want, we are taking charge and doing it. We’ll miss a lot of people and things in this country, but when one door closes, another opens and we know that there are even better things waiting for us.

How often have we looked out over False Bay from our house in Simon’s Town in the morning ? With a cup of tea in our hands, we marvel at the sunrise over the Hottentot Holland Mountains 40 kilometers across the sea to the east almost every day.

I never started counting. It wasn’t important because we were enjoying the moment, and we knew there would be many mornings like this.

Sometimes in season, there are whales or dolphins to watch, but most of the time it is just the magnificent sunrise at the southern tip of Africa. And some birds chirping in our Fynbos garden, unless the guinea-fowl kick up a racket.

Apart from that – peace and quiet. The comfortable stillness that only nature provides. The content impression that this is how everything is meant to be.

These lines are from the introduction to my eBook ‘Moving Horizons’ and they still ring very true. But we have now dissolved our household, given most of our furniture to friends who need them more than we do, sold the cars, parted with our two cats yesterday – and are ready to move.

On Monday everything will be packed and we’re taking a flight the following Monday. We’ll be back regularly, for holidays and I have work here, but we are moving our base back to Europe – modern technology enables me to work from anywhere in the world, as long as I have a telephone and an Internet connection.

BLUE CRANE and COMPASS will carry on as usual, of course – but for the next few weeks I expect to spend less time with the laptop so I might not be able to write as many articles as usual.

What I WILL do, though is keep an online HORIZONS JOURNAL with shorter messages here at the COMPASS blog to trail my next leap in personal growth in Europe – if you want to be kept informed, please subscribe to the COMPASS RSS feed here or get it delivered by eMail.

I found an excellent article on taking charge of your life this week, by the way : ‘What It Means to Wake Up and Take Charge of Your Life’ by Matt Inglot. Really very interesting, here is a short clip :

‘I was exposed there to a strange freedom that was offered nowhere else. I read some extremely positive literature from people that seemed … happy. This was a world that my programming books had never exposed me to. Never before had I seriously read about ideas like goals, personal development, financial planning, and the idea that becoming truly successfully was something other than luck or born talent.’

What else is new? Steve Pavlina’s forum on personal growth is up and running! It is very exciting and growing rapidly, with anything you can imagine being discussed – I am contributing actively (e.g. please see the thread for South Africa) and if there is one thing you don’t want to miss, it is this forum. Do yourself a favour and register there, it works well and is hugely informative.

OK, here I go – you’ll hear from me soon if you put your eMail address in the box, don’t forget – best do it now.

Until next time, all the best from : Berend

Have you ever been feeling out of place occasionally? Sure you have, me too – I had a pretty good idea why, but now I can put a finger on it.

Let me point the way to two very powerful contributions from Steve and Erin Pavlina again today which will help you clarify some mysterious sentiments you may have had about what’s happening in your life. Then I’ll close with a bit of humour.

Steve writes about “The Consciousness Revolution” and feels that something is happening to a lot of people behind the scenes.

“One day you’re tooling along, working your normal job, living your normal life, and everything seems OK. But something happens that triggers a sudden expansion of your awareness, and for that brief moment of perfect clarity, you know what it’s like to be fully awake. You’re struck by the terrifying realization that your life has gotten way off course, and that you’re really meant to be doing something entirely different.”

This is what happened to me some time ago and from the comments to Steve’s blog post I can tell that it is far more common than I thought. I urge you to read the whole article – you won’t regret it, a real mind-opener.

Just a few days earlier, Steve published his podcast #17 “Placing Your Order With the Universe” in which his wife Erin offers a parable that helped her understand the Law of Attraction and the intention-manifestation model of reality. It’s very well done, listen in!

At just over nine minutes, it’s short and you’ll enjoy it if you’ve been looking for a simpler way to understand the Law of Attraction. Erin compares getting what you want from life with ordering a meal at a fast-food outlet, and what happens when you do it the wrong way.

Finally, before we get too serious here, I picked up some quotes looking at the lighter side of life from John and Patrice Robson’s eNewsletter ‘The Inner Journey’ – you can subscribe directly at Higher Awareness :

• “Inside every older person is a younger person, wondering what the hell happened.”
  (Cora Harvey Armstrong)
• “The hardest years in life are those between 10 and 70.”
  (Helen Hayes at 73)
• “Old age ain’t no place for sissies.”
  (Bette Davis)
• “Thirty-five is when you finally get your head together and your body starts falling apart.”
  (Caryn Leschen)
• “If you can find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn’t lead anywhere.”
  (Frank A. Clark)
• “I’m looking forward to looking back on all this.”
  (Sandra Knell)

Until next time, all the best from : Berend

Many times, we look at high achievers and assume they had a string of lucky breaks, or made it without much effort. Usually, the opposite is true, and the so-called superstar had an incredibly rough time before he or she attained any lasting success.

It may motivate you more toward your own goals to know that some of the most famous and well-known people in modern times had to overcome as difficult obstacles as anyone before they finally reached the top It takes persistence and total commitment to your goals, but it’s possible!

You may not know the background of a certain laundry worker who earned sixty dollars a week at his job but had the burning desire to be a writer. His wife worked nights, and he spent nights and weekends typing manuscripts to send to publishers and agents. Each one was rejected with a form letter that gave him no assurance that his manuscripts had even been read. I’ve received a few of those special valentines myself through the years, and I can tell you first hand that they’re not the greatest self-esteem builders.

But finally, a warm, more personal rejection letter came in the mail to the laundry worker, stating that although his work was not good enough at this point to warrant publishing, he had promise as a writer and he should keep trying.

He forwarded two more manuscripts to the same friendly-yet-rejecting publisher over the next eighteen months, and as before, he struck out with both of them too. Finances got so tight for the young couple that they had to disconnect their telephone to pay for medicine for their baby.

Feeling totally discouraged, he threw his latest manuscript into the garbage. His wife, totally committed to his life goals and believing in his talent, took the manuscript out of the trash and sent it back to Doubleday, the publisher who had sent the friendly rejections. The book, titled ‘Carrie’, sold over five million copies, and as a movie, became one of the top-grossing films in 1976. The laundry worker, of course, was Stephen King.

The main message – believe in your ability to turn obstacles into opportunities. Too often people try to storm their obstacles as if they’re forts that need to be taken. It’s better to step back and ask yourself: “Did I cause this obstacle by my own actions or lack of them? Did someone else cause this obstacle? Is this obstacle one that grew out of the natural progression of circumstances?”

This last question may seem complex, but it holds a secret to the way you can set and reach your goals and achieve your destiny!

Reproduced with permission from the Denis Waitley Ezine. To subscribe to Denis Waitley’s Ezine, go to www.deniswaitley.com or send an email with Join in the subject to subscribe@deniswaitley.com Copyright 2006 Denis Waitley International. All rights reserved worldwide.

Until next time, all the best from : Berend

P.S. : I’d love to hear what you think of COMPASS! Do you find it helpful? Do you enjoy reading it? Please send me your comments, questions, and ideas for future issues – your feedback matters to me, just hit Comments below!

P.P.S. : Do you want to find out why you can live in paradise and fulfill any of your dreams if you want to? On my homepage you can read all about the principles on how to create the life you want, in English or in German.