Author Archives: Ian

Better Tempered

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Apologies for the heading of this post but it is not about the angry type of tempered, although maybe it is.

I like (love actually) to write in my Journal.  some of the ‘greatest’ entries are late at night in a fit of fatigue, or returning home after a few – nothing like the actual musings of a drunk who thinks he’s being profound.

I have stopped drinking and texting, and most definitely drinking and Facebooking (the last time I did that I woke up the next morning with only 25 of my 200+ friends still on the list – embarrassing recollecting them… what reason do you give… I dropped you when I was drunk and I had a moment of clarity – great!)

I love to get on a roll when I am writing.  Sometimes if flows and sometimes it just stalls on page one – even line one….

Its like the metal sometimes cools before I get to shape it…  the moment is there and then it fades away.

Letting the metal cool…
Things remain the same when this happens
Even when the metal is hot, unless force is applied, nothing changes
It just remains the same
Apply heat, or cold and there may be the expansion or contraction
But when the heat or cold is gone, it is just the same as before
You have to keep on the heat, or keep on the cold,
Or, apply that force, for the change to remain the same
You have to decide if the change is what will become normal
Is it the temperature, or the force
And in the end is it just a change, is it just a bend
Are you stronger than before, or just different
Is the metal tempered

I wrote the above in one of those ‘profound’ moments late at night and resurrected it today.  Sometimes I am not sure if I am writing a poem, a verse or a muse – and I am not too sure if I actually know the difference (No, I am pretty sure I don’t.)

Maybe the changes we go through have to be a combination of the hot and cold and the bends in our lives.  I think that we also get a few dents along the way that it doesn’t hurt to repair when we get the opportunity – maybe in one of those hot or cold moments.

Maybe the tempering in the metal of our lives is really not about the end result, but about the way in which we change and how we deal with that change….. of course, that is for those who even notice.

I suppose being a better man is sometimes about being a different man, or is it about being the same man better.

 

Better Write a Note

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I was having a ‘discussion’ with my wife the other day and we started to stray into the zone of recrimination, accusation and allegation (plus a few good ones from the past).

We actually caught ourselves and stopped.

My wife actually presents a course called ‘Say it Safely’ and I was using my invented behavioural modification method (self taught of course) called ‘A Dangerous Dialogue” which is my anti ‘Say it Safely’ strategy.

I realised that I had a lot of tools I could have used (including ‘Say it Safely’) but they just don’t seem handy enough…. They weren’t around.

The funny part about this story is that after thinking about keeping my tools handy I wrote a note to myself which said “Note to Self – have a note to self”

There is no use having tools, ideas, plans, sayings, quotes etc etc unless they are where you can get at them, when you need them.  I have my Journal, but only after I write pages of ramblings as a madman and occasionally read back over the months, do I find the gem that is worth either keeping or thinking about more.

Yes, I know My Religion is just waiting to present me with the ‘heads up display’ of the right answer at the right time…. but, just in case, I think it pays to sometimes write a few things down.

I have my journal, but now days it can be Facebook, Twitter, whatever. You can even start a blog, like me!

I just think it pays to work on the fact that on some days your heads up display is more like be heads up your arse and there are no answers handy and no index to all the good shit you’ve been learning.

Note to Self – Write note to self….. And keep it handy.

 

Better Insanity

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I love the directness of ‘Fear is not Real” and have thought about it a lot.

I think that the ultimate position of mindfulness, is living in the now, it is to live without fear, without regret.

You have to keep asking that question “am I in danger right now” and if the answer is no, then there is no action needed, there can be no fear, as there is no danger and not even a reason for you to imagine things that cause fear.

Children live without fear,
Children live without regret (until we teach them),
Children live without worry for the future,
Children live now.

So I ask myself is experience really the best teacher?

Do we learn from experience.  Am I happier, that I now react to the world because of the experiences I have had, or am I like most and living in a fantasy that I am doing things differently and in actual fact I am doing them the same.

My favourite quote from Einstein: “Insanity: doing the same things over and over again and expecting a different result.”

Doing the same things and expecting a different results – is insane
Fear of things that are not happening now and may never happen – is insane
Regret and worry – are insane

I will not be insane anymore.

Better Homes – Make Yourself a Memory

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I was sitting at the computer, which is in our family room, and I could hear my wife in kitchen which is basically part of the same room.  She was cooking and filling the house with those warm smells of baking.  I am the luckiest man in the world as my wife cooks to relax (she also enjoys grocery shopping! – and alone!!!!).

It was raining outside and the gas central heating that we had saved for (no really, we didn’t buy it on credit and froze for 4 winters!) made the house a warm cocoon.

All I can advise is remember all the rainy Sundays that you spend at home with the one(s) you love.  It may be watching a movie, or doing your own thing.

Talking to each other or not talking to each other.

Remember these days, because they are special; they are the days that linger longest in your heart; if you let yourself they are easy to remember – to feel.

Remember the home that was there – not the house, but the home.

If you are sitting there right now, you have to be there right now.  Take a moment and make yourself a memory and a feeling for a lifetime.

I just did.

Better Stop Smoking

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What a fitting heading for my big plunge into actually recording that I am giving up smoking.  Well in fact I have been giving up now for 8 weeks and 2 days and about 20 hours and have been doing a really bad job of it.

I want to stop.  I read Allen Carr’s “Easy Way to Stop Smoking”, then I took Zyban, then Champix (like I am taking now) and I have done all these things several times.  The most important thing is that it is stopping, not giving up.  I am not giving up anything.  I suppose that is why I have not used patches because then I would not be giving up anything, I would just be replacing the induction method.  However, Allen Carr has said the thing that I can’t get out of my head….

“Smoking is like beating your head up against a wall so that when you stop it feels good”

I wrote in my journal on 14/6/2013 (which interestingly enough has an entry that says I’ve just smoked the last one!!) the reasons why I was STOPPING:

  • I hate smelling like cigarettes
  • I can’t get fit
  • I cough as the last thing every night when I get into bed
  • It is costing a fortune
  • It will make me an invalid
  • It socially isolates me
  • It will make me happier
  • It will make my wife and my kids happy
  • I wont feel sick from smoking
  • I will stop doing something which doesn’t add to my life

This is a good list that I should read each day.  I really want to STOP SMOKING.

It comes down to something else I wrote in my journal and it applies to a lot of the things that I write:  “Stop doing things that do not add to your life.”

I will not give up giving up…

 

Better at Work – Life

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I was getting pretty sick of hearing about work life balance a few years ago, mainly by people who were afraid to work and their balance was how much life I can fit into all the time I was supposed to be working.

I also thought the saying “I work to live, not live to work” was degrading to whatever work that person was attempting to avoid that day – they always appeared to me to be the people in my work who were striving for mediocrity.

So I thought about it and decided that work life balance is actually bullshit – it’s just called LIFE.

Apparently work is not a new thing!  The only difference is that historically work was what gave you life – you didn’t work in planting your crops and harvesting them, you didn’t eat and then you died.  Work then was not about ‘my leisure time’ but about my survival.

The reason that I am writing this today is I was in the car today listening to the radio and I suddenly hear some professor talking about “Work Life Integration”.  Apparently our executives of today are finding that they are becoming disconnected with their families and that a balance doesn’t exist because work and life take up too much time.  Apparently they need to be integrated so they get the right amount of attention.

This may not be the answer but maybe it clarifies the idea that you don’t have to work to live but you have to live to work.

 

Mindfulness

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Well I suppose I had to get to this.

This is really where things started for me… or is it better to say this is where I suddenly realised where I was, when I was.  I didn’t get a profound meaning of life revelation, or suddenly have some awakening.

One day I just understood.  I think it actually snuck up on me.

I tell a story, that eventually we all end up sitting in a chair, watching days of our lives, pissing our pants and waiting for the fortnightly (sometimes) reluctant visits from your family.  But that is the future and this is now.

So I’ve started to build my mindfulness pages and hope I can actually write with some sense of order and explanation… and dare I say it insight….

 

Better People

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I spent most of the week thinking I can’t work out why people do things;  why is there so much confrontation, bitterness and such a toxic environment in my work.   I have never been able to work out what motivates people to strive for more, when they have everything; to suppress people they already have power over;  and what motivates people to have more and more of something they could never possibly use (power or money).

I am writing this post after a particularly hard week which changed in the blink of an eye.

I was driving along gripping the steering wheel a bit too hard, in heavy traffic in the city, ruminating about something that I now can’t remember – but I can tell you I was right about my ruminating, I knew I was right because I was angry about it!  Every wrong that had happened to me in the past was flashing into my head in the stop-go traffic.  I was the only decent driver on the road at the time and all the pedestrians should have been driving because their presence on the road was shitting me.  I was profiling and judging everyone, past, present and future – all bad.

I noticed a very well built middle eastern man walking along the street (muscles from steroids I surmised) wearing a tight T-shirt (which was too tight and just his way of being a complete poser).  He stopped at a sausage sizzle (I remembered, I hate sausage sizzles as the sausages are always cold and overcooked and the onions aren’t cooked enough) and bourght a sausage in bread (so much for the healthy body builder diet) and walked off down the footpath.

I was just about to lose interest (he had shit me enough already) when he hesitated as he passed a homeless guy who was sitting on the footpath.  The homeless guy had a small sign which they guy stopped to read.  He then took half a pace to walk away and stopped again.  He then turned back and handed the homeless guy the sausage in bread he had just bought.  The homeless guy smiled and nodded and the meat headed body builder in the tight T-shirt who seconds before I had hated for no reason, became a Saint.  I didn’t see the face of the bodybuilder guy as he walked off, but I am sure it was a whole lot better than the face I had looked at him with.

I didn’t see the lights change a first as I must have got something in my eye as they were a bit watery.

Just when I am not being the better man, I see the better man walking down the street.

Maybe looking for the better man is not always about looking inwards and making it all about me.  My bad week, just became a good day.

 

Better Perspective

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I had a hard weekend where I wasn’t a better man.

I was feeling sorry for myself, regretful and as per usual mainly angry.

When my friend called.

His mother was in ICU and had a massive heart attack and needed open heart surgery for a by pass but wasn’t strong enough to be transferred.  He was upset.  He is the anchor in his family and was holding it up for everybody.  I was proud that he called me.  Today his Mum had the surgery and it was not really looking too good.  I went down to the hospital, I hugged my friend and he cried on my shoulder.

I got my perspective back.

He called me tonight and said his Mum was still in ICU but serious but stable and things were looking up.  He thanked me again for being his mate: LYLAB he said.

Love You Like a Brother

Better at Karaoke

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To get this post into perspective you have to understand that it is my wife who loves Karaoke.  (I mean loves!!)

When we first got together she sat me down and with grave conviction and great seriousness told me she loved Karaoke and would not give it up for anything.  I accepted this as a part of her  – only if I’d known!

My wife sang me a song for our wedding as her speech.  Don’t get me wrong she is a great singer, but Karaoke is not all about singing for my wife; it is about parties, socialising and involvement, no matter what you skill level.

My wife has an annual Karaoke Birthday Party (one of many excuse parties to sing Karaoke) and through this has her own Karaoke set up, including PA, speakers (the speakers are my fault I bought them in a moment of weakness one christmas – she loves them!) and a library of over 600 songs which is growing constantly.

To my wonderful wife this is not just a hobby it’s a passion and a true part of her life.

I remember when she told me that she would not give it up at the start of our relationship and my naive reply of “No problems, I would never make you give up something you love”

Well over the years the sounds in our lounge room masquerading as singing has taken it’s toll.  Most parties now I have what my wife calls the ‘anti-Karaoke movement’ of displaced husbands, wife’s, friends and children who sit out the back with me during the parties in an attempt to avoid the worst of it.  It is a happy balance.

My wife’s Karaoke reputation is far and wide.  Recently she was invited by a friend to run a Karaoke evening a a local football club – she jumped at the chance; but there was a catch.  It was the first ‘public’ one my wife had done and she needed my ‘technical support’ in case something went wrong.

So……

I started to write this post a few days after the Karaoke night.  I started it on my ipad but couldn’t get it all to work properly, so some further days on I am writing it on my computer. My first unfinished post about being better at Karaoke which I stopped mainly through technical issues, actually hit a bigger hurdle and that was, it is hard to write about being better when in actual fact I was not doing anything better.

In helping my wife in her first and somewhat nervous hosting of the football club Karaoke night I constantly let it known I was doing it under sufferance.  I went down to the football club in the days before for a test run and was snappy, begrudgingly helpful and constantly espoused my reluctant involvement in something I thought was stupid.  On the night I wasn’t much better until I found out me, as the ‘roadie’ got free beer all night.

Nothing went wrong and the night was a resounding success which I basked in.

It is pretty easy to write about being a better man.  It is a whole lot different looking at moments when there is no attempt in that goal, your mantras were songs of protest and a moment when you could have shined is another in a long list of stuff when you didn’t behave better, you just behaved the same.

But…..

This time you saw it,
This time you noticed it,
This time it was not just about regret,
It is about change,

It is about being a better man.