Some opportunities are obvious. We spot them the moment we see them. We seize them swiftly in the knowledge that, even if they don't benefit us immediately, we are sure to profit from them in the long run. The potential advantages in other situations are harder to identify. They may even appear, at first, to be disadvantages. But the gain conferred by a 'hidden advantage', can vastly outweigh any bonus that a more obvious sign of hope can provide. It isn't always easy to tell who our friends are. Or our enemies! Our closest companions can sometimes surprise us by the way they work against us. Our fiercest opponents can occasionally make decisions that benefit us. And if all that applies when dealing with other people, it becomes twice as relevant when dealing with ourselves. You and I have both the capacity to be our own worst enemy and our own best friend.
Most citizens are law-abiding. Most laws therefore are self-enforcing. The police need not ensure compliance. As long as they make just the occasional example of a rare transgressor, the rest of us are reminded of our own desire to stay out of trouble, so we take care to adhere to the rules. Sometimes, we take too much care. We honour imaginary restrictions and requirements. In the process, we deprive ourselves of chances that we are perfectly entitled to take.. You already know what it must contain. You have a long list of things to do, tasks to complete and projects to push on at. What could be more important than taking care of all these outstanding issues? Well, perhaps just one thing. There is a simple, single, priority that needs to rise to the top of the agenda. Your sanity! For the sake of that, you must relax In a competition where there can be only one winner, there is no difference between missing by a mile and being pipped at the post. But a close runner-up remains in a good position to succeed if the contest is ever held again. They have only to work on improving their form by some tiny margin. They may not even need to do that. If the previous victor is too flushed with success, they may now start to lose a little of their momentum. This weekend shows you where there's a chance to turn a past defeat into a future triumph.What is the name of the game? What is the object of the exercise? What's the purpose of the project? If we don't properly understand what we are supposed to be doing, how can we ever hope to achieve anything worthwhile? Yet, we must be careful. If we jump too quickly to the wrong conclusion, we may end up in a state of delusion. This weekend, what counts is not your ability to fulfil a quota or meet a target. It is your ability to accurately identify the only goal that truly needs to be attained. n almost every market place, there are brand leaders and generics. What's the difference between them? They all serve much the same function to much the same standard. So why do some people pay so much more for the famous names? It has something to do with the perception of status. By selecting the most highly advertised option, we are subtly making a statement about who we believe ourselves to be. Is the best is really the best?Have you ever had one of those dreams where you find yourself shouting loudly to no avail? You don't have to be a Jungian analyst to see what this might symbolise. By any interpretation this implies that there is an area of your life in which you feel you are being ignored. Now, here's a question to contemplate this weekend. Might there be someone, somewhere in your world, who is having such an experience at the moment? At an impressionable age, we are all sent to school. There they teach us many things that we need to learn and one or two more things that they need us to learn. It suits the schools to have students who sit quietly, line up in an orderly fashion and follow all the rules. But how does this really benefit the children? Don't they just grow up with too much fear of authority and a debilitating willingness to accept instructions that really ought to be questioned? Your key to success this weekend is your inner rebel.There is a wonderful passage in one of the Dirk Gently novels where Douglas Adams has his hero explain how, if you ever find yourself lost somewhere, the simplest and quickest way out will be to follow the first person you see who looks like they know where they are going. Is that applicable advice to you this weekend? Well, Dirk Gently was a psychic detective, whereas you are a ... well, can't we call you a psychic detective too? You are certainly very good at finding and solving clues and your intuition is spookily good.In many places during certain seasons, it is possible to forage for food. Nature is so abundant she causes fruits, plants and herbs to grow freely in public spaces. The earth brings forth its blessings regardless of whether or not we receive them gratefully. But as these do not appear in the fields stamped with barcodes or marked by sell-by dates, many of us are too suspicious these days to accept them. The universe now offers you a very practical and helpful form of support. To see this you may have to look beyond the obvious.How do stage illusionists change silk handkerchiefs into doves and bring forth rabbits from top hats? Through techniques of diversion and distraction. Subtly, they cause us all to look to the left and thus fail to see what they are doing over on the right. That's how they deceive us. So how do we sometimes deceive ourselves? Through a very similar process! How, this weekend, might you be looking so intently in one direction that you are missing something important that is happening in another part of your world?