It’s the middle of the night and my body has decided to wake up. It has also decided that while it is very tired it won’t go back to sleep. It’s almost as if it has a mind of its own – that I am simply a passenger.

Except that once my body has come out of sleep mode my brain has decided to start processing loads of thoughts. Presumably it has been doing some filing overnight and now it has processed stuff it thinks is important it wants me to deal with it: NOW!

I guess we can all assume that other people want the same things we want: that we share priorities, preferences and plans. Conflict can come when we either work on that assumption without checking if it’s correct; we fail to appreciate that other people will respond to the same circumstances in different ways; and/or we act unilaterally on the basis of our priorities, preferences and plans without helping others to understand, appreciate, shape and own them.

Perhaps soon my body, brain and consciousness will have a conference and decide that I work best rested. I think this is a Zebedee moment: time for bed!