Go hard

Today is Australia Day and across the country people are celebrating the country, the people and the culture. As a migrant and now naturalised Australian I can appreciate the diversity that is Australia, which was very nicely demonstrated this morning at the Great Australia Day Breakfast put on by The City of Gosnells and helped by the Rotary Club and several Scout troops.

As we wandered through the massive crowd several things occurred to me. People have gladly given up their day off to help others have a good time. It takes huge amounts of planning and preparation to cook for hundreds (if not thousands) of people....to give you an idea they brought with them 1700 sausages and cooked 1625 of them... and apparently they ran out of eggs. These people had jobs assigned to them and boy were they doing them. Can you imagine spending 3 and a half hours cooking toast? How about buttering it or cooking hundreds of sausages? Each individual performed their own small but significant job - so they performed as a cohesive team. Consequently they were able to serve the hundreds of people who patiently lined up. We may think our jobs are insignificant - but together our small jobs can make a huge difference.

But it wasn't just about food. We were able to watch several very different cultural groups perform. We saw a young group of Serbian dancers and we were presented to (and apologies if I spell this incorrectly) Wudunga - A group of Aboriginal dancers who helped tell the story of Australia through the dream time. One of the dancers explained their philosophy when learning the dances and performing them in front of the thousands of people who have experienced this first hand - he said

"Go hard or don't bother at all"

Which is wonderful philosophy to have. so whatever path you have chosen to travel, whatever goals you have decided to pursue - "Go hard"