Today, my friend, Michelle Woods, speaks out:

Just today I was struck with the thought that so many teachers in the school system are boring, bored, boring! They go by the book and that's all that they want to do. It's like living your life without the colour red!!!! Their lives are just neutrals, with perhaps a bit of blue....

Well, I see lots of red, and in different hues, and I like it!

I moved to Atlantic Canada from the west coast. The hardest part about moving was, and continues to be, the long winters. It isn't the cold. It isn't driving in the snow. And it isn't the lack of birds singing in the morning. What bothers me more than anything is the lack of colour for nine months of the year! Even the sky clouds over to match the dreary grey, brown, white and dirty white of the snow covered hills and roads. Any life that was in the landscape is washed out, lifeless.

Thinking about this, I'm struck that many people are stuck in jobs that wash all the colour out of their lives. They can't speak their mind - or else they will be fired or never get a promotion. People might start saying, "They aren't positive, not a team player!" They can't have an original idea - or they'll get branded as one of those crazy and impractical creative people. They daren't wear anything but the boring blue business suit. All because they have to "fit" the corporate culture.

And brick by brick they wall their emotions, creativity, and uniqueness up, slowly letting them die behind a wall called playing-it-safe and conformity.

God save me from this colourless corporate landscape.