Life is lived in moments. If you're not present in this moment, you're not living. You need to constantly keep reminding yourself that now is what is important. You can help yourself, in this regard, by taking a short breather, every hour or so, during the day. A short breather would be a minute or two where the sole focus of your attention is on your breathing, what it feels like to breathe - what it truly feels like to live this moment.

You simply couldn't make this stuff up. As if it isn't stressful enough (I know, OK, stress isn't real - but you know what I mean) looking for a job, one of the UK's leading retail chains has been making job applicants dance as part of the interview process. Applicants do have a choice, of course, but it's not to opt in or out - they can choose between rap-, break- or robotic-dance!!!! - see the BBC article here.

Now, you might think that's bad enough but, in a video clip accompanying that article is an interview with a Call Centre manager who makes his staff sing - and by "makes" I mean he fires them if they don't... he boasts about it.

In fairness (my tongue is firmly in my cheek) the above article points out that song and dance are sometimes used for team-building. Draw your own conclusions on that!!

Many leading psychologists warn against the use of psychometrics like Myers-Briggs in recruitment and evalutaion - I wonder what they'd make of this.

How many of us, on our death bed, will wish that we had spent more time in the office? How many of us will bemoan the important things - and the important people - that we let slip through our fingers? Steve Jobs, in his famous Stanford Commencement Address pointed out that, when you know you're going to die, you become fearless - you just do the things that most need to be done. But you and I already know that we are going to die - so, how come we're not brave, courageous, fearless and bold? How come, ordinarily, we are content to busy ourselves with the things that don't matter and, in the process, not have enough time to do the things that do?

This is not a rehearsal. This is not the X-Factor or America's Got Talent. You are not waiting to be discovered. You are not waiting for your life to begin. This is it. And this is all you have. This, right now, is all you're certain of. Are you fully doing the important? Are you even fully aware of what the important is? Are you overwhelmed by today's trials and tribulations or, even worse, are you overwhelmed with concern or worry about the things that might yet happen?

You and I have a choice. Unless we deliberatey decide to get involved in our own life, it's a choice that is made for us, automatically, by our automatic subcsoncious. The choice is a simple one: do I choose to be present, to be mindful, or not! That's how simple it is... it isn't even a multiple choice! The problem is that evolution has seen to it that we are hardwired to get through the day - to survive to tonight. Survival has got us to where we are - but that's no longer good enough. You must choose.

And, given the choice, I choose to do my very, very best to live each moment, like it matters.