Back to the Way

Just got home after a three week holiday in Auckland and the Bay of Islands, New Zealand. Great country, great to spend some time with son David and his wife Anneke, and great to see the Auckland Blues (after a terrible season last year according to David) win the first game of the new season with an outstanding seven-try 56-18 victory over the Rebels in Melbourne. Meanwhile at home Topsham continued their battle for survival with a 36-28 win over Cornish Pirates Amateurs and Exeter Chiefs sit second in the Premiership after a draw with Wasps and wins over Worcester and Newcastle, but enough about rugby.

Earned Value Management

My publishers have been in touch to see if I could do a book on EVM so in the quiet moments away I've put together an outline synopsis for it. We will probably go for publishing it as a short e-book in the first instance as no-one is sure how big the market is for it. Then maybe expand it into a full book or shrink it into a chapter in the next revision of Effective Project Management in easy steps. Just when I thought things were getting quiet but then that is the Way.

The Way

Describing the Way is not easy as it is not a thing and it has no form or qualities. The way is simply the principle of how everything works. It is unity, it is universal and it determines everything.

The Tao  

Lao Tzu tells us:  

Something mysteriously formed.  

Born before heaven and earth.  

Standing solitary, alone and single.  

Constant and unchanging,  

Ever present and in motion,  

But it cannot be compromised.  

Perhaps it is the mother of the ten thousand things.  

I do not know its name,  

So I shall call it Tao.  

Trying to find a name for it,  

Invokes thoughts of greatness.  

Being great, it flows.  

Flowing it moves far away.  

Having gone far, it returns.  

Therefore Tao is great,  

Heaven is great,  

Earth is great,  

And the wise man is also great.  

These are the four great powers of the universe,  

Man follows the earth.  

Earth follows heaven.  

Heaven follows the Tao.  

Tao follows what is natural.