It's funny how some of the big events in life sometimes don't inspire you very much to write about them. It's almost as if they drain you of energy and enthusiasm for thinking about them any more. Our recent benefit gig for Ollie feels like that.. by our own measures it was a success. We packed the hall with nearly 150 people. We raised £2300 for the two cancer charities we were supporting and the feedback we received was very positive and sometimes highly complementary and people genuinely seemed to be having a good time. Our music was some of the best we have achieved and we combined really well with two other musicians, and we sold over 40 CDs. The effort was considerable from everyone involved - the band worked hard and we were all wiped out by the end. All my family helped with the organisation and sales of drinks and making sure that things ran smoothly. I was very proud of them.  Furthermore we had good publicity on local radio and at least two more gigs on the back of it as well as a new working relationship with the musicians that we worked with. I thought I would find writing about it a joyful experience but for some unexplained reason I can't muster the energy. This lethargy is also affecting other things I'm doing. It's a strange experience for me and I can't explain it. 

To rekindle my energy and enthusiasm for writing something I thought I'd look again at Ollie's unfolding story on his website, Facebook page (which has 149 friends) and the YouCaring webpage hosting 410 donations given by friends and people who don't know Ollie or his family. I found the messages of support, love and friendship, and the stories of things that people had done to raise money truly inspiring. Many people had not just given but organised or hosted some sort of event like raffles, auctions, pub quizzes, table top sales, coffee mornings. One person had run a marathon and a group of office workers had donated their lottery winnings foregoing the pleasure of a fun night out. Ollie's illness and the journey his family are making have touched many people and made them want to give and in some cases create events that encourage others to give. So that one little boy's fight against cancer has spawned a whole ecology of action aimed at raising money both directly for the Lovis family and more generally for charities that are helping other children with cancer. This is a wonderful story and it shows how a horrible situation can inspire many people to do something positive and good. And it made me feel good that I and my band have been a part of this ecology of love and support to achieve something worthwhile on behalf of friends in need.

The band was happy to keep going with the fund raising using the Song for Ollie as a way of focusing attention on the issue of children with cancer. I set up our own YouCaring webpage and linked this to the Freeworld's website which now hosts 8 tracks of our CD which can be downloaded free with encouragement to donate. I set ourselves (myself) the target of raising £1000 for Children with Cancer and my sister was brilliant in kick starting the campaign with a £100 donation. 

So on reflection all sorts of actions, new ideas, new products, new relationships and friendships have grown out of this ecological process. Ollie has inspired many people to do many new things. He is the inspiration for much human enterprise and creativity and has enabled many people to feel better about themselves because they have connected in some small but deeply human way to his life story. 

This story has given me another perspective on the idea of ecologies for learning and achieving something we value so I wrote a piece for the next issue of Lifewide Magazine

This week as preparation for a meeting with students enrolled on the Lifewide Development Award I invited them to complete a 10min a day diary during the week and at the end of the week reflect on various dimensions of their experience. I felt obliged to do the same and in doing so the words of Kielsgauard Sorenson came to mind - 'we live our life forwards but we make sense of it backwards'.

It's not been a typical week as last weekend we journeyed to see family in Norfolk - grandma, aunts/uncles/inlaws, and cousins/nephews/nieces. My wife's first husband's family is large but fortunately many of them live in the same place. I have been accepted into the family as if I was one of their own and I'm very grateful for this. So my learning log reflected three days of travelling and being with family - which was fundamentally about renewing our bonds and reaffirming our relationships as members of the same family. It was great listening to grandma talk about her childhood growing up in London in the 1920's-30's and outlining the background to the families fruit and veg business and then tracing the family roots through the west country and the channel islands to Normandy. The older I get the more I appreciate our ancestry and this connects to my research into my own families history. In fact when I got back waiting for me in the post was my own grandfather's marriage certificate which someone helping me at UKinfo helped me locate. It proved his father's name was Tom which until now I had only been able to infer from my searches on Ancestry.com. It gave me confidence in the other inferences I have made about my grandfather's ancestors.

My activity log this week also reflects the time I spent with my own daughter's children. Its half term so I looked after all three grandchildren on my child care day. I don't mind admitting that it is hard work to have sole responsibility for them between 8am to 5pm but it's also a great joy. I also had my older grandson for a sleepover, swimming and generally being together. It's rare that we spend 1:1 time together so for me it's a real treat to do so.

I did other things this week but looking back these acts of being a member of the families to which I belong and acting as father, step-father, grandfather, brother in law and uncle was by far the most important thing I did. It seemed to me that this was another manifestation of commitment drawn from long lasting relationships with people I care about and love who I want to influence and be influenced by. Who are willing to involve me in their lives.

Through commitment we do things for each other. We stay connected and we listen and appreciate each other's stories of how our lives are unfolding and how our past histories contribute to who we are and to the existence of our offspring. The commitment to family means that we can stay connected to our children and help them in the caring and development of their own children. And it is deeply satisfying to see our children learn the value of extended family and continue this process of commitment that binds us all together. Family is an important dimension of our wellbeing and the cause of unhappiness when there is discord or conflict. Family This is one of the important ways we grow into our village and help our children and grandchildren  grow into their village.

Returning to my visit to Southampton, I was pleased with the way the simple aid to recording and reflecting on the way a week of life unfolds provided the basis for a good conversation about what was important and meaningful in the students' lives. Interestingly, they also extracted far more meaning and personal significance in the things they had done, than the learning they had gained from their activities. Perhaps that is a fair reflection of their relative importance in everyday life.

I suppose it's inevitable as we come to the end of year that we look back on the year. It sort of emerges through the process of receiving Christmas cards as friends and family send their circular newsletters recounting the significant events in their life. We never produce a letter but we do have family conversations looking back over the year, and the same thing happens when you meet up with friends who you haven't seen for a while. This year has been particularly eventful with a wedding, serious illnesses, visits to family in Australia and visits from family in Iran and many other smaller events and achievements that connect us as a family in interesting and unpredictable ways.

This reflective mood is also triggered when I make myself take stock of the progress we have made with Lifewide Education. A year in the life of a project is a significant chunk of time to think about and evaluate the effects of trying to turn ideas into reality.

During the year our community of interest grew steadily and we currently have around 320 registered members. We maintained our existing websites and our presence on Facebook, Linked-in and Twitter and we added our Values Exchange website which enables us to be part of a global network of Vx sites concerned with values and ethics in education. It also gives us new capacity to undertake on-line surveys.  Since April we have undertaken four surveys. It has proved to be particularly useful in engaging people before an event so that the results of the survey can be utilised in the presentations - for example a keynote presentation at the annual SEDA conference was formed around the results of a survey into creativity in educational development.

Under the editorial stewardship of Jenny Willis, we produced four issues of LIfewide Magazine each dedicated to a theme that enabled us to add new knowledge and understanding to our lifewide concept. Brian Cooper's diligent editing enabled us to publish  eleven chapters in our Lifewide Education E-Book - including conceptual reviews and syntheses on wellbeing and learning ecologies, moving biographical accounts of lifewide learning, research into wellbeing and learning ecologies and overviews of lifewide learning in universities and colleges. Our research and scholarship has focused primarily on examining the idea and perceptions of wellbeing and developing and applying the concept of learning ecologies to individuals' learning and development processes, work that will continue through the coming year.

We also developed further our tools for supporting lifewide learning and my daughter (one of our student volunteers) helped us pilot our approach and successfully completed the Lifewide Development Award (LDA) providing future learners with an example of an on-line portfolio of recorded learning and development. We also explored the idea of Open Badges and we are now introducing them in the current stage of piloting. We are working with Christine Fountain at Southampton Solent University's Business School with students on the HR Management masters course to examine the ways in which the LDA might be incorporated into the learning experiences of students.

Members of the team contributed to, and or participated in a total of ten conferences in the UK and overseas. In June, after submitting a paper outlining the idea of an EU-wide Lifewide Development Award I was invited to participate in an EU Foresight workshop by the research group who support development of EU educational policy. This was the first time that LWE has been invited to share our views in a close to policy forum. Through our involvement in conferences we have formed new relationships have with people who are sympathetic to lifewide learning in Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, China and Argentina.  Ultimately, our future lies in the relationships we form with the people who want to promote and implement lifewide learning in their own educational and learning contexts.

Periodically taking stock of where you have got to in any project is a necessary and important aspect of the development process. It helps you maintain that sense of wellbeing knowing that you have tried to fulfil your purposes. Looking back enables you to take pride in achievements and develop a better and more realistic perspective on what has been accomplished so that questions of what to do next become clearer. 

Documenting achievements makes public the ways in which you have lived your life according to the purposes and goals you have established. Publishing our annual review so that the community can appreciate the hard work and contributions that many individuals have made enables the members of the team to gain the credit they deserve. None of the things we have achieved in 2013 would have been possible without the help, support and encouragement of a wonderful group of volunteers and the generous financial support of our corporate sponsor Chalk Mountain Education and Media Services. 

Kiboko's latest illustration sums conveys well the way in which the achievements and experiences of the past year provides the launchpad for the future.The coming year will inevitably bring with it new challenges and opportunities which we can face with confidence.  In March we will achieve another of our ambitions - to host our first national conference on lifewide learning and education in universities and colleges and publish a new E-book on lifewide learning and education in universities and colleges.

I am writing an essay on the ecology of learning for a seminar next week so the idea of ecologies has been very much in my mind.  The basic ideas underlying the ecology of family(1)  is that a family is a distinct closely related social group that interacts with their environment to form an ecosystem. Families carry out the following for the good of itself as well as the good of society: biological sustenance (have children and look after each other), economic maintenance (share resources), psychosocial nurturing (provide empathy and emotional support). Families and the environment are interdependent and they interact with multiple environments - typically each adult member inhabits a different physical/social environment. Adaptation is a continuing process in families.  They can “respond, change, develop, and act on and modify their environment.” Interactions between families and environments are guided by two sets of rules: Physical and biological laws of nature and human-derived rules (e.g., social /cultural norms). Our physical environments do not determine our behavior but pose limitations and constraints as well as possibilities and opportunities. Decision making is the central control process that directs our actions for attaining individual and family goals. Families are underlain and held together through shared values including its survival: maintenance and sustainability are important features of life and the “four great virtues that contribute to the ‘ultimate good’”: economic adequacy, justice, freedom and peacefulness. Other virtues that contribute to the quality of family life include: health, education and learning, loving and nurturing relationships, productive work and work environments, experiences and symbolic systems that sustain meaning and a sense of community, beauty and trustworthiness.

From an ecological perspective we might reflect on how our family functions and adapts to assure survival, how we collectively try to improve the quality of our lives, and how we contribute to sustaining natural resources. We might also consider how we allocate and manage resources over time to meet the changing needs of individuals and the family as a group. And how the environment (the meso-, exo-, and macrosystems of which we are apart impact on us.

Scanning  my blog I can see many references to our family and the ecology that sustains it and how the members of my immediate and the greater family impact on my life. For example, in my last blog I talked about my step nephew's search amongst family members for resources to enable him to finance some training to help him become a missionary both my wife and I have responded to him with financial and emotional help and he in return is coming to visit us in a couple of weeks.

This week has also been half term so I had the pleasure of looking after my six year old grandson for 24 hours. I have been very conscious since the twins have been born that I have spent less time with him and this sleepover, and the things we did together, were an important way in which we renewed our bonds. As we parted he said (as he so often does) 'I love you ganddad', which gets right to the point of good family relationships. 

Last Tuesday I, and my wife helped my daughter with childcare looking after all three of her children so that she could go to work. I suppose this is an example of family ecology in action to help sustain the family and enable resources to be brought into the family.

During the week my wife and I chatted at length to our two children at university listening to their problems (prep for exams and an important piece of coursework). They discussed their ideas for their future and we provided encouragement and practical suggestions where we could. Thanks to technology and mobile phones even when we are not physically together as a family we can remain in touch and have valuable conversations that sustain our family ecology.

Making full use of our physical environment, yesterday my wife took me and our daughter out for a light and chilly (we sat outside) lunch and after cleaning the house and working in the garden (maintaining our physical environment) we had some fun and went to the cinema to see The Great Gatsby. This morning I was made to jump on the scales to see how much I weighed fortunately I hadn't had any breakfast. I then proceeded to set the scales to give me my BMI. She had been reading a book about fasting and she passed on the science she had learnt on to me. The experience of public weighing and telling me that I was nearly obese was also intended to convince me that I needed to do something about it - the family ecology of nurturing our health and educating me was clearly in evidence.

On Sunday we celebrated the twins first birthday with a small family gathering for two of my children and their families including all four of my grandchildren. I guess that birthdays are symbolic in families when we pay attention to the particular member of the family whose birthday it is and the celebrations and gifts are tokens of valuing them as members of our family.

And as I complete this piece my daughter who is over from Dubai for a few days is staying with us. Last night we spent  time catching up and talking a lot about a particular matter involving another member of the family. I was struck by her deep concern and her willingness to provide both practical help and emotional support.

These simple stories of family life in the past week reflect the everyday functionings of our family. A family I am very proud of.  Each example illustrates the ecology that binds us together and gives us an important part of our identity and our sense of individual and social wellbeing. But these sorts of ecologies are learned. The values, attitudes and behaviours that underpin such ecologies are passed on from generation to generation propagated by parents who teach their children the importance of these things. I know that I and both of my wives learnt the meanings of family from growing up in our respective families and we have simply tried to practice the values and practices that were passed on to us through these lived experiences. I can no see the same patterns emerging as my children and step children find their own independent way in the world.

1) I found this powerpoint presentation which provided the core ideas for the ecology of family  www.public.iastate.edu/~hd_fs.511/lecture/Sourcebook17.ppt‎
Bubolz, M. M., & Sontag, M. S. (1993).  Human ecology theory.  In P. G. Boss, W. J. Doherty, R. LaRossa, W. R. Schumm, & S. K. Steinmetz (Eds.), Sourcebook of family theories and methods: A contextual approach (pp. 419-448).  New York: Plenum Press.

Once in a while we have experiences that are so different from our normal day to day routines because we have inhabited a very different sort of cultural space. This was one of those experiences when I visited the Education Faculty of Beijing Normal University - the leading institution of education in China. Thanks to the generosity of Professor Hong and the university my wife and daughter were able to come with me. 

I gave two talks to postgraduate students at the Faculty's International Workshop on Large Scale Assessment and Institutional Evaluation. It gave me the chance to talk to students about lifewide learning and education and to gain their perspectives on what it meant to them in their lives and to its relevance for China. Through my conversations with students and faculty I formed a view that there is a lot of pressure on young people in China to perform well throughout their schooling, college and university and the style of teaching, learning and assessment demands a lot of discipline and compliance. Students have huge respect for their teachers but they are also taught to be dependent rather than independent learners. They seem to have little time for activities outside of the formal curriculum although undergraduate degrees have embraced the US liberal arts education model and include general education as well as their major subject.

I interviewed several students and although they recognised the relevance and importance of lifewide learning in their own lives they doubted whether lifewide education would be possible in Chinese universities. Firstly they thought that parents wanted their children to concentrate on getting good grades and notheing else mattered. Secondly they felt that faculty would resist and not want to put the effort in to change. They felt that pressure would have to come from employers saying that they wanted employees with the sorts of capabilities that require development through lifewide experiences.

Turning to my own lifewide learning this week was very special. We were shown the meaning of hospitality. Our host Professor Hong Chegwen was so friendly, kind and generous with his words and his time. We dined with him almost every night. He is a most entertaining and funny host and we were introduced to the most amazing dishes. I can't remember experiencing so many different dishes in such a short space of time and the Chinese dining culture of continuously toasting each other and the wisdom gained through life. It is a very nice custom and toasting life and the people in our lives seems to fit very well with lifewide learning. 

Throughout the week our wellbeing was cared for by two students - Li Xianoyan and Zheng Lingyu. We will never forget their friendliness and kindness and their generous gifts of their time and help in enabling us to see some of the many attractions of Beijing including the Forbidden City, Great Wall, Tian an Men Square and some of the  Ho Hoi hutongs and markets. They guided and advised us with great care and attention always smiling and never tiring of answering our questions so that we could grow better meanings from our experiences. They acted as cultural interpreters and I could see how such people are essential to lifewide learning when you move into such unfamiliar cultural contexts. We are indebted to them for their help and we hope to be able to repay them in the future when they come to England.

Sometimes you know when you have a made a relationship from which new things will grow and I sense that my relationship with BNU, thanks to Professor Hong and the students I met, will continue to grow.

During this week I began to develop a better understanding of the concept of wellbeing by reading reports and articles I found through google searches as I began to find information for the next issue of Lifewide Magazine. Four incidents triggered emotional and empathetic responses and helped me develop a deeper understanding. The first involved my daughter.. I suddenly got a call saying my grandson had suddenly developed acute stomach ache at school and she had to take him (and the twins) to A&E. I immediately dropped everything and rushed over to A&E where I found my daughter trying to cope with two screaming babies and a sick child. I took the twins back home and looked after them for the next five hours while she stayed with my grandson at hospital. It turned out to be constipation but what I experienced was a good example of my own wellbeing connected in a deep way with the difficult experiences of my daughter and her family. The second incident was watching a news report on the troubles in Syria and seeing the children victims of the civil war. It made me think of the comfortable and secure life I and my family were living and what a different meaning wellbeing had in such circumstances. In my searches on wellbeing I found an excellent article written by the International Medical Core called a Improving the Wellbeing of Syrians in Za'arari refugee camp. How different their sense of wellbeing was to mine many having experienced and witnessed terrible violence including the loss of relatives and friends.

The assessment showed that people in the camp were suffering from the camp environment (e.g. heat, dust, no electricity, unclean toilets), worry about friends and family in Syria, having nothing to do in the camp, safety concerns, and not being able to take care of their appearance (e.g. getting a haircut, clothes). The most common activities that helped men deal with stress were praying, seeking out time alone, talking and spending time with family and friends, going out, walking, and working. Most men were doing these activities in the camp except for talking with family and friends (due to being separated) and working. Activities that usually helped women were household chores, talking to family and friends, praying, walking, going to work, going out, sleeping, crying and smoking.  However, none of the women reported being able to do chores, walk, go out, or work in the camp. Suggestions from people to improve the camp included electricity and lights, play areas and activities for children, having more and clean bathrooms and showers, fans, better medical care, distribution of items closer to tents, paving roads, changing tents to cara vans, being able to work, education for children, better food and cold water, clothes, small stoves to make tea and coffee, hats/sunblock, financial help, moving the camp and meeting spaces for camp residents. The report came up with a series of practical recommendations to improve the wellbeing and comfort of these refugees.

The third incident involved bereavement in the family. My wife's auntie died in Iran and she made time to go and comfort another auntie before she flew to be with her family in Iran. It seemed to me that this was another example of how our individual wellbeing  is intermingled with other family members and how we give each other support in times of need. Such acts give meaning to our sense of wellbeing by giving something (time, empathy, practical support) to others and enable the receivers to maintain their sense of being through the love and support being given.

The fourth incident was also triggered by TV, this time the annual Comic Relief event which we watch as a family. There were many heart rending film clips of children in Africa starving or suffering from illnesses that are curable with the right medical treatment. Of course they are designed to disturb us, to shake us out of our comfort zone with the aim of making us give - and they do. This event raised over £70 million. But one clip brought home to me again that wellbeing was simply a matter of context.. being born to parents who were drug addicts meant that one man grew up without any sense of love, comfort and security in his life. And this was only a few miles away in London. How fortunate I was to be born into a family that loved and cared for me, and how fortunate my children and their children are to experience the same. We could all assume that our basic needs for security, food, comfortable home, love and affection, and a good education would be met and allow us to aspire to making the most of the opportunities we have in our fortunate circumstances with the support of family around us.

It's been a very enjoyable and emotional weekend as our son and daughter came home from university to celebrate their mum's big birthday and Mothers Day. Having all the family together these days is a rarity so we all savoured it and had a lot of fun and lots of catch up conversations.. We were a complete family again each fulfilling our role within it and it felt good.

It was fascinating to see how our son and daughter are growing up and becoming/being independent and this manifested itself on numerous occasions. In one conversation my daughter was discussing the possibility of travelling to Cambodia to work with an NGO.. her mum was not too keen but she suddenly said..'look you can advise me but I'm going to make the final decision on whether I go', I'd never heard that sort of thing before. 

I am just starting to think of wellbeing as a dimension of lifewide learning. My daughter has just started writing for her university newspaper so I have commissioned her to write an article for Lifewide Magazine (which she can also use for her newspaper) on how students understand their own wellbeing. I developed a simple questionnaire and interviewed her and her brother to pilot it. It worked a treat and we had good meaningful conversations. Both, in their individual ways, made the point that their wellbeing was not just about happiness or feeling good, but was much more about discovering, pursuing and achieving your purposes. Both indicated that trying to find your purpose and that they try to do this by taking on new things.. not at random, but guided by their interests, values and relationships.  

When I added my tags to the post I realised that this was the first time I'd had categorised a post using 'wellbeing' so it not a concept that comes in to my head very much. Perhaps the things I do and the relationships I have are so integrated into my wellbeing that I take it for granted. As a generalisation I do feel fulfilled and happy with my life. I am a valued member of a family that I am supporting and gaining much love in return. I enjoy my work which gives me challenge, interest and opportunity and a belief that  what I'm doing is worthwhile.

I latter completed the questionnaire myself and realised in doing so how much of my own sense of wellbeing was bound up with my family. Seeing them find and achieve their purposes, and playing a part in helping them do this, was perhaps the main source of my wellbeing.

WELLBEING QUESTIONNAIRE

1 What does 'wellbeing' mean to you?
I am very fortunate to have more than the basics in life including a lovely home and income to support my needs, time to do things I want to do and I am reasonably healthy and fit. These things all contribute to my sense of wellbeing. But ultimately wellbeing is about understanding and fulfilling my purposes - or at least the ones that I think are most important in my life.

My wellbeing is founded on the relationships I have with the people who matter most to me. My immediate family which includes my three children by my first marriage and my wife and three children and grandchildren from my second marriage. My greatest sense of achievement and fulfillment comes from the love and attention they give me and my involvement in their lives. Seeing and helping them grow up and find their own ways in life has given me my main purpose in life. A second set of purposes which cause me to get up in the morning is my work in promoting lifewide education. Here fulfillment comes from a sense of making progress in achieving the educational goals I believe in.

2 Is wellbeing linked to happiness? Are they the same thing?
Yes. I believe I am contented and happy with my circumstances and although things do crop up in life that make me anxious, sad and unhappy -  the big picture is one of happiness. But wellbeing is not only about happiness it is much more about discovering and pursuing purposes and doing things that you believe are worthwhile, meaningful and valuable and deep and meaningful forming relationships.

3 Which aspects of you does your wellbeing involve or affect?
Given what I have said it must affect me physically. Although I can no longer run because of my knee I am generally in good health and physically I can do most things that I need or want to do day to day. It affects me psychologically and emotionally - I generally feel positive and rarely suffer from negative feelings, and sadness can usually be offset with joy. Aspects of my daily life keep my mind active so it affects me intellectually. And spiritually, I am comfortable with my understanding of who I am, why I am here and what will happen to me when I die.

4  What sorts of things do you do that enable you to cultivate a sense of wellbeing?
I am surrounded by my family and I am involved in their lives, some more than others. At the moment I am helping my daughter a couple of days a week with childcare - looking after her 8 month old twins. Its hard work but very rewarding and it gives me a lot of pleasure to feel I am giving her practical help and time to do other things in her life. Beyond this my wife and I do lots of things with and for the family both immediate and more extended and these experiences ground me in the life of others.

I enjoy my work, and my writing it stimulates me intellectually and gives me the satisfaction of creating new things. I play in a band and  have weekly rehearsals and that also gives me enjoyment and challenge. When time and weather permit I like to get out into my garden and do things in it.

5 Is your sense of wellbeing something that comes from doing one thing or many things?
It comes from different things in different parts of my life - indeed having things happen and making things happen in different parts of my life enriches my sense of fulfillment and achievement.

 6  What sort of things erode your sense of wellbeing? Please give examples
Concerns and anxieties within the family have a big impact on my sense of wellbeing. For the most part these are small things that are all part and parcel of family living. But sometimes they are big. We have concerns that one of my daughter's premature twins might have brain damage because he stopped breathing when he was in the incubator. We watch intently for any developmental signs and it remains a concern that affects me emotionally. I also know that illness or injury has a negative impact. I damaged my knee playing badminton and discovered I also had arthritis and this has been painful, slows me down and inhibits me from doing anything really active like playing sport, jogging or long walks. Feeling overweight and slothful also makes me feel less good about myself. In the working side of my life feelings of not making progress or not achieving anything worthwhile erode my sense of wellbeing.

7 If you are unhappy about your state of wellbeing how do you change it? Can you give an example to illustrate?
Improving wellbeing always involves recognising what is causing the problem and doing something about it. A few months ago I felt overweight and this combined with my knee problem was making me feel not so good. I found a diet and stuck to it and began to lose my bulging stomach. But some of the really big things in life.. like the loss of a partner.. are hard to do much about.. grief and sadness are always with you no matter what you do. In my case I found someone else to share my life with her and her family, and my children,  helped me enormously to rebuild my life.

8  Is there a relationship between learning and developing and your sense of well being? Can you give an example to illustrate

Yes. I am conscious that so much of day to day living involves learning and developing in order to accomplish something or help someone else. This LWE project aimed at exploring the idea of wellbeing and how it relates to lifewide learning is involving me in finding out what others think wellbeing involves through on-line searches, in devising an interview protocol (this set of questions) and using it to have structured conversations with people (beginning with family). I will also use the opportunity to develop new relationships with people. I am learning through this process, and this is one example of a continuous process of learning and developing.

 9 Is there a relationship between wellbeing and achieving things that matter to you? If yes can you give an example?
Yes. Trying to achieve something I have decided to do becomes a significant focus for me and engages me on all fronts. If I do not make progress or the outcomes from what I am doing are not so good it makes me dissatisfied and that usually involves me in trying harder or trying something else. 

In the context of trying to help members of my family - just getting feedback that shows that what I have done has been valued is sufficient to make me feel that what I have done has been useful and worthwhile. Example - it was my wife's big birthday recently and she did not want any fuss being made. My wife is Iranian and in her culture birthdays are not celebrated as an adult and she is quite anti-birthdays. But I thought it was important to mark the occasion and planned/plotted a family celebration with the children and the two older ones came home from university for the weekend. I searched for and found a Persian restaurant with music and dancing and invited other close members of the family. We had a lovely evening and my wife really enjoyed it and the whole weekend. The best moment was when she said she would have to revise her view of birthdays! On such occasions you can tell when what you have tried to do has proved worthwhile.

10 On a scale of 1-10 where 1 is least and 10 is most important.. How important are these things in creating your sense of wellbeing.

1 Connecting with and having good relationships with people I come into contact with everyday 10
2 Being healthy and fit....physically active - walking, sport, dancing etc   9
3 Being involved in the world - being curious and aware of the world around me - looking and finding new opportunities 9
4 Feeling creative - doing things that give me a chance to be creative, inventive or resourceful 8
5 Continually learning and developing myself 9
6 Doing new things that interest me 9
7 Making progress in the things I am doing  10
8 Doing things with and for other people 10
9 Having a close relationship with someone I trust and can discuss anything with 10
10 Feeling that I am valued by the people that matter to me 10
11 Being able to do the things I want or need to do 10
12 Achieving something that I think is worthwhile 10

11 Why are the things that you rate most highly very important to your wellbeing?
All these things are important to my sense of wellbeing. Most of the things I rate highly are to do with relationships and affiliations. Perhaps I would add feeling loved as well as valued as being important, and feeling I am acting responsibly in fulfilling my role as a parent or friend.

Perhaps implicit, but could be made explicit, is the need to belong to something - to be part of a family and by extension to be part of a community (lifewide education).

The other feature about my sense of wellbeing is my need to achieve the things I value - the purposes that I have defined for myself. In this way it is intimately related to my lifewide learning and ongoing development as a person.

12 Is there anything that is important to you missing from the list?
My sense of wellbeing is an integral to the way I feel about myself and the life I live. It is not a static thing.. It is continuously evolving and has to be sustained through the things I chose to do and the way I try to do them. Because it is influenced by many things it has to be viewed holistically and evolving. I did not mention spirituality but perhaps our sense of wellbeing is what nurtures our spirit that carries and sustains us on our journey through life.