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One source of my motivation : my children
In world, each one have his reasons to wake up the morning and to get out the bed. For some, it will be to earn money, for others, to seek success or change the world. There are many reasons to get up on the morning.
You sure will get up everyday, but the motivation to do it may vary according to what it is at skate.
The motivation can be either positive or negative. A positive motivation will fill you with energy and joy to give the necessary strength to pass the day. On the other side, a negative motivation will force you to get energy from yourself and on the long run it could become a nightmare and finish in depression for instance.
In my case, my children are powerful source of motivation for today, for a near future and for a distant future.
- I’m so happy to wake and go to their room to get them ready
- Happy to come back home at the end of the day to spend time after a day of work
- Happy to plan vacations with them and spend time with them
- Happy to se them grow and become real adults that can be responsible of their own life
Photo by Juan Pablo Serrano on Pexels.com To be by their side and show them one option of path to take for their life, I need, in my opinion, to give them a right example of how to behave, how to threat other and last but not least how to threat themselves. This is, for me, a simple and wonderful motivation for everyday fight !
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Dear self-esteem, nice to meet you.
This post is more about psychology and one aspect that I discovered couple years ago which is, in my opinion, really important. This aspect is self esteem.
We can see a lot of articles, documents, videos and other types of media talking about self esteem and telling how much it is important. But do we really understand what it is really.
I reached to the following understanding of the self-esteem
Self-esteem is my personal perception of my own worth, this include my beliefs about myself, my relative importance, my recognition of my own abilities and attributes.
My self-esteem is not static and vary overtime according to topics, sutuation or events of life.
My self-esteem, is crucial because it defined the way you see life, it determine the way you react to situations and how you consider the others
I’ve read that positive self-esteem is crucial for mental well-being and a healthy outlook on life.
I consider it as a super power in the current society
Photo by Helena Lopes on Pexels.com A super power
Since I have my children, this topic of self-esteem interested me more because I want to give to my children this super power !
- With these super power you have confidence in yourself and do not expect for the other to tell you what to think
- You can build your vision and decide what is best for you in the coming years
- When you have some sitbacks in your life, and trust me, it nevers ends, with this power, you can find the resources in yourself to bounce and change for the better
- You consider the other as your equal and not your superior, which helps a lot in conflicting discussion
I had the chance to have a really nice childhood with two great parents that tought us a lot and gave to me and my brothers and sisters this self-esteem and I think it is a priceless gift.
To finish, I’ll say it is not easy but we can always be actor in our life through the work on our self-esteem :
- Love yourself as you are with all your qualities and imperfections
- Love the other as they are for what you share and what they could give, teach you. Of course, they must understand and respect your limits.
- Love the world, our world. It is not perfect, may be is getting worse, but we still have a lot of things to discover, we just need to get out of our confort zone.
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Project management methodology – a tool for your life
The project management as a discipline is, for me, indispensable when you want to achieve the things that are important for you in your life.
Associated to the project management discipline, we can find the roles below:
- Project manager
- Project director
- Program manager
- And more …
To simplify for this article, I’ll speak only of the project manager role as I see it.
Most of the time we see project manager as a role in a company to support the others by remembering them when they must accomplish their tasks. the truth is, it is more complex than that.
The project manager must keep an eye on the scope, the planning and the costs and guarantee that these 3 dimensions stay within the limits defined at the start of the project.
To be able to do so, the project manager need a set of skills like coordination, anticipation, leadership, organisation, mental agility, hard skills related to the sector for the most important ones.
If we go back to the things that you want to accomplish in your life, you need to be able to handle them as a project to progress on them. As my old father was used to say to me, the life is a sum of many little projects that you can achieve.
The secret of project management, what ever the methodology behind, is your ability to frame it. Basically you need to breakdown a complex problem to solve in small problem that are at your reach and plan them in the time. With that no difficulty will surpass you.
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Cost of my annual trip to Cameroon
For about ten days I go back to my home country to see my family who live in Central Africa.
Each trip brings its share of surprises and I understand that not everyone can go back as often as they would like.
If you add everything up, a trip home can be quite expensive if you don’t plan it 6 months in advance… The price varies depending on the services you choose and the destination. The main items to consider are:
- Flight ticket: depending on the periods, prices can vary from simple to double. If you can afford it, avoid school holidays.
- Visa: if you need a visa, you have to anticipate its recovery and the cost which in some countries can be prohibitive…
- Accommodation: if you don’t have family or acquaintance on site who can receive you, accommodation becomes necessary. The price here varies from all to nothing. This will depend mainly on the services you are looking for.
- Transportation: depending on your movements and also how you are going to move, this item can become significant. You can move like the locals or hire a driver.
- Food: like the previous item, everything will depend on how you are going to do it: local solution, cook for yourself or eat out every day.
- Gifts: as a good African who respects himself, in my opinion it is difficult to return without having some gifts requested by the family or friends. Depending on how you want to please, the item will be more or less important.
Added up, all these items represent a considerable sum that many people cannot afford every year.
If you add to this your children, you have to add a factor on each of the items.
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What is happiness?
Today I woke up thinking that I am happy. But have I achieved happiness?
Let’s take a definition of happiness
Happiness is a positive and satisfying state of mind, often associated with feelings of contentment and achievement. It is considered the ultimate goal of life by many people.
What is being happy?
Happy is often used to describe a temporary feeling of joy or pleasure, while happiness is a more lasting and deep state of satisfaction. While happy can be influenced by external events, happiness is generally considered to come from within and is related to our perception and interpretation of our life.
Considering the descriptions above, I can say that that morning when I woke up I was happy. Can I say that I have reached the fullness of happiness? I don’t think so yet, but just writing these lines, I tell myself that it’s up to me to go and find it.
Happiness comes only from oneself and each individual carries the responsibility for their happiness. Every day, each individual can add a small part to their edifice.
And you? Have you achieved happiness?
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Plastic waste – a real health scourge
During my stay, I was shocked by the amount of plastic waste found in the streets. I am mainly talking about my home country and I do not wish to generalize all African countries.
My observation
In every corner of the street, there are plastic wastes thrown away by the population. On the roads, in the gutters (causing blockages of pipes), in administrative areas, …
If we look closer, we can see that industries and merchants use a lot of plastic-based products and the population does not hesitate to use them.
So we end up with a lot of plastic waste that takes between 100 and 1000 years to completely decompose. So in the meantime, they are moved by the wind and gradually shred. This makes picking up and cleaning more complicated.
Why does the population react this way?
I think the population does not realize it. They are completely unaware of the damage this can cause to the environment.
On a daily basis, a good part of the population is often worried about how to make money, find what they are going to eat, have acceptable living conditions.
In a short-term vision, I can understand that daily life takes over what could happen in the next 10, 20 or 30 years.
What can be done to remedy this?
Raising awareness will take time and I think it needs to be the politicians who take charge of the situation and start working on solutions with companies to produce less plastic.
Another line of work would also be to work on educating the population: knowing how to put waste in a bin and not on the ground, not systematically asking for bags when not needed, …
My conclusion
In sum, it is a situation that is not simple and will surely take years to be better managed. To preserve our soils and our environment at a minimum, we must quickly start addressing the issue of plastics with appropriate policies.
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Voyage annuel en Afrique
Pendant une dizaine de jours je rentre au pays pour voir ma famille qui se trouve en Afrique Centrale.
Chaque voyage apporte son lot de surprises et je comprends que tout le monde ne puisse pas y rentrer aussi souvent qu’il le souhaiterait.
Si on met tout bout à bout, un voyage au pays peut revenir assez cher si on ne s’y prend pas 6 mois à l’avance… Le prix varie en fonction des prestations que vous choisissez et de la destination. Les principaux postes à considérer sont les suivants :
- Billet d’avion : en fonction des périodes, les prix peuvent varier du simple au double. Si vous pouvez vous le permettre, éviter les vacances scolaires.
- Visa : si vous avez besoin d’un visa, il faut anticiper sa récupération et le coût qui dans certains pays peut être prohibitif…
- Hébergement : si vous n’avez pas de famille ou de connaissance sur place qui puisse vous recevoir un hébergement devient nécessaire. Le prix ici varie du tout au tout. Cela va dépendre de principalement des prestations que vous recherchez.
- Transports : en fonction de vos déplacements et aussi de la manière dont vous allez déplacer, ce poste peut devenir conséquent. Vous pouvez vous déplacer comme les locaux ou bien faire appel à un chauffeur.
- Alimentation : comme le poste précédent, tout va dépendre de comment vous allez faire : solution locale, vous faire à manger ou bien manger tous les jours au restaurant.
- Les cadeaux : en tout bon africain qui se respecte, à mon sens il est difficile de rentrer sans avoir quelques cadeaux demandés par la famille ou les amis. En fonction de comment vous souhaitez faire plaisir, le poste sera plus ou moins important
Mis bout à bout, tous ces postes représentent une somme non négligeable que de nombreuses personnes ne peuvent pas se permettre chaque année.
Si vous rajouter à cela vos enfants, il faut rajouter un facteur sur chacun des postes.
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Surprise #2 – Un oubli dans le devis – Ragréage du sol des combles
Pour choisir notre entreprise, nous avons fait une consultation. Pour nous aider, nos architectes nous ont fourni un fichier Excel complet. Il contenait l’intégralité des travaux et descriptifs précis qui devaient être réalisés.
Le fichier étant le même pour toutes les entreprises consultées, il permettait de comparer rapidement tous candidats en utilisant le même référentiel.
Seulement dans ce fichier, nous avons oublié de mentionner le ragréage des combles sur une surface de 100m². Ce n’est pas une petite somme et ça fait mal au budget. Nous avons discuté avec l’entrepreneur qui a ajusté un petit peu son prix pour que l’on puisse continuer sur les travaux sans trop impacter notre budget global.
Comment savoir que le prix est acceptable ?
Grâce au fichier Excel et les détails s’y trouvant, nous pouvions retrouver le prix au mètre carré déjà pratiqué sur le ragréage du sous-sol. Étant une surprise durant le chantier et le chantier de la maison conséquent, l’entreprise a fait un effort sur son prix.
En somme, il est important de vérifier la complétude des devis que vous recevez. Cela permet de s’assurer que tous les travaux que vous souhaitez réaliser sont bien inclus. Résultat : vous aurez plus de chance de maîtriser votre budget.
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Surprise #1 – On perd le plafond du salon
Lors d’une visite de chantier avec l’entrepreneur qui devait être une visite de routine, nous avons constaté que le tout le faux plafond du salon était en train de craqueler.
Après avoir regardé de plus près, nous observons que le plafond se compose d’une couche d’isolant et d’une fine couche de plâtre. Avec les années, 50 ans depuis la construction de la maison, il est normal que cela commence à bouger.
Nous avons deux options :
- Décoller entièrement le faux plafond pour accéder à la dalle béton et refaire entièrement l’enduit du plafond et peindre ensuite.
- Avantage : Pas de perte de la hauteur sous plafond
- Inconvénient : Coût de la main-d’œuvre élevée pour réaliser les différentes actions et cela demande du temps
- Poser un faux plafond avec une hauteur minimale sur toute la surface du salon
- Avantage : Rapide à mettre en place, coût faible en main-d’œuvre.
- Inconvénient : Un peu de perte de la hauteur sous plafond de 7 cm.
Autant vous dire que nous avons sélectionné l’option 2. Nous avons demandé un devis et nous l’avons validé.
- Décoller entièrement le faux plafond pour accéder à la dalle béton et refaire entièrement l’enduit du plafond et peindre ensuite.
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Lot #2 – Démolition
La démolition est, je trouve, la partie du chantier la plus impressionnante et car elle peut aller très vite. C’est en effet rapide de tout détruire mais il faut le faire avec soin sinon la reconstruction peut s’avérer bien plus compliquée.
Dnas le cadre de notre maison, nous avons plusieurs éléments à démolir:
- Mare dans le jardin en béton armé
- Déposer tous les sols de la maison
- Déposer tous les papier peints
- Déposer la salle de bain et les toilettes
- Déposer la cuisine
- Supprimer des cloisons
- Supprimer la chaudière au fuel au sous-sol
- Supprimer tout ce qui est
La démolition devrait prendre 2 à 3 semaines avant de continuer sur les prochaines étapes.