Ganesh

We all have icons in our lives, representations of an idea that moves or inspires us.

I have Ganesh. He's an elephant headed god and he's beautiful - as you can see from the stylized version of him on this post - but that's not what he means to me.

Ganesh both creates problems and solves them - and that's exactly how our lives are. We often create our own problems but we mostly get ourselves out of them as well.

So Ganesh sits in my living room to remind me of that - to remind me to be careful NOT to create my own problems. Of course, this seldom works. But when I have created a problem for myself, I look at Ganesh and remind myself that I can solve that problem.

This is an icon who works all the time for me. He works if - and that's a big if - I'm paying attention ahead of time and able to stop myself from getting into trouble. Now, I don't know about you, but I'm not often able to anticipate trouble. So, mostly, for me Ganesh works in the aftermath of trouble - he says you created the problem, you have the skills to solve it.

And that's often all I need, that reminder that I'm perfectly capable of getting myself out of almost every trouble I've got myself into.

What icon works for you?

Kate