Category Archives: Better as a Husband

when things happen with me a Jo

Better Happy Posts

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I like lots of things about Facebook.  I like the way you can connect with old friends that without Facebook you would never have been able to find.  That you can share your holidays and family photographs with each other.  That you can even have a whinge and on occasions share a pointless post (usually in my case because I have had a few too many wines) or a picture of your dinner!

I like the occasional stalking of a friend, or a friend of a friend – and the obligatory stalking of my children (and their friends who are leading them astray!).Screen Shot 2014-07-31 at 3.22.20 pm

I think Facebook does connect us.

But, I think it also lures us into the perfect world of meaningful social contribution on Facebook that we are unable to translate into the connections we are supposed to be having in the real world.

I think this is most obvious in the heartfelt sayings, insightful interpretations of life, or the sage like advice that are shared, reshared, tweeted and plastered all over our daily Facebook walls.  I find it hard to accept that I need to share a post to show I love my children, country, mother, brother etc etc.  In addition I find it hard to accept that Facebook is like a warm electronic hug from the enlightened social media set, yet my most meaningful interactions I have outside Facebook with people under 20 other than my kids, is when I asked  ‘would you like fries with that!”

Again, I love Facebook as a new way that it lets us find each other, stay in touch and share our lives.  But, I love it as an enhancement to my life not a substitute

2014-07-31 Facebook Mum SayingHow about my ‘happy post’ for today?

It is just that we are a long time dead yet we go about our lives as if we are immortal, or more to the point, those that we are not spending our time with, will have time enough tomorrow for us to catch with at our leisure (when all the other really important stuff in life is done!)

I made a photo book after my Dad died and in the back I put the following caption.

The other day I was trying to explain to the kids what were the important things in life and knowing the ‘value’ of something.  I said I would be happy to have no job, no house, no possessions except the clothes I was wearing and perhaps a tooth brush in my back pocket. I would give it all away, all my ‘things’ to spend 1 minute with my Dad.  I told then if I could do this, I would, with no regrets.  I miss him as much today as I did all those years ago.  I now attempt to honour him by living a life that would make him proud…. and sometimes when I falter, I know he would understand, forgive me and know (which is all he ever expected on any of us) I am doing my best.  I love my Dad and I miss him.

I was chatting today with a friend who’s Mother recently died and we had the conversation that only we could have.  It is the one that tells us that we now know that the finite life is finite and when it ends, it just does.  No profound long goodbyes or settlement of lifes questions.  It is just the end which you measure not mostly on the last day but on all the other days.

I think a ‘happy post’ should be said out loud and it should start something like this:

“Hi, I just thought I’d ring to say hello”

“Hi, just thought I’d drop in for a visit to see how you’re going”

“Sure I’ve got time for a chat, lets get a coffee right now”

One of my ‘better man’ mantra’s is to write about my life.  Perhaps in addition to that I should be writing a few more letters, a few more cards and to steal a famous quote from the movie Avatar, say to my friend and family “I see you” and for it to be literally.

 

 

 

 

Better (Still) Stop Smoking

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Well today at 3.00 pm it was three (3) months since I stopped smoking. And, that is not having one single puff.

This is the best I can ever remember doing.

I have done it pretty good most of the time, but, there have been bad days, minutes, hours and times when I was just going to have one….. but the trick is I didn’t. I am proud of myself, but also still nervous that the smoking beast could get me at any time. I will just have to remain vigilant.

I am enjoying not smelling of smoke, being socially isolated and of course having all that extra cash (I think is adds up to about $2,000+ at this stage – that is a lot of money!).

I think I am better for it.

Better at Connections

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Recently we had a dinner party and our friends came over and my wonderful wife cooked a wonderful meal – a culinary delight.

I felt connected and I don’t even know what that means. The company wasn’t hard. It wasn’t boring as our friends are smart and engage in witty and intellectually conversation. There was no competition or jealously, not spike or venom. Sarcasm was clever and reciprocated.

Conversations weren’t all safe and debates from different standpoints were flashed across the table.  Just to clarify, debates aren’t arguments – and there is nothing more enlightening than watching people ponder the comments of their foe and seeing that cock of the head when listening, and answering with the hesitation of an new understanding that perhaps they never had before.  During this evening this occurred sometimes, but if not, the opinions were thoughtful, unspiteful and genuine.

I sat at the head of the table and listen to more stories than I told (well I think I did) and if this is true it is a first.

Our friends left in a single wave and good buys had genuine hugs and firm handshakes – it was all punctuated with enthusiasm and firm arrangements for the future.

It was a good time and I felt connected. And I still don’t know what that means.

Maybe it is that friends are not about winning, losing, power or position; well not true friends anyway. Maybe it is that I didn’t have to try to feel as if I belonged. Maybe it is because friends come to a home, not a house or a restaurant, and they feel at home. Maybe it is because friends at dinner parties ask questions because they are interested in hearing the answers, because they are interested in you. Maybe it is because connection is about food and fellowship and laughter and friends and family and home.

Maybe it is about noticing the love of other couples, that makes you happy, because you know the love in your life makes you happy.

Maybe connection is about wanting to be with people because you want to know more about them; how they think; how they feel; how they see the world; and perhaps, having a little better understanding of yourself by accepting that others may thing differently to you; and that’s okay.

I felt connected because I felt safe;

Safe to be me
(I love, I hurt, I want to make a difference, I want to do the right thing, I fail, I don’t understand, I am interested, I feel okay to laugh)
Safe to talk
(Safe to tell my stories, use my language, also okay not to talk, silences that are okay, taking time to listen – really listen – and wanting to listen more than talk, time to understand, time to think before I speak)
Safe to be liked
(Not to prove, not to justify, not to be judged)
Safe to love
(Expressing love for wife, life and family, seeing how love lives in their lives – and accepting)

Tonight was interesting because it was with a group of relatively new friends. Considering my age anyone I have known for less that 10 years is a relatively new friend. So why is this a moment where I notice connection.

I don’t think it is something I noticed. I think it is something I felt.

I didn’t have to think about being a better man because I was in the company of better men and women.  Maybe I often don’t feel connected because there is nothing to be connected with.  Maybe tonight, in our home, we didn’t necessarily connect but found ourselves, in others; and perhaps we also found some of the things that we don’t have in ourselves, in them – and they gave it to us willingly and without obligation.

Connection is sometimes about friendship, lives shared and experienced together.

Connection is also sometimes about discovering the values and ideals that are important to you in new friends, or even old friends or even in people I have not yet met.  I look forward to those days, as even now the glow of our friends at our home, for a ‘normal’ dinner party, will remain as a made memory where due to everything, and perhaps nothing, I was a better man, and a lot of it lingers.

Better with the Black Dog

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I wrote a post not too long ago about being naked – naked to the world by writing this blog, that is.

Well today I thought it was about time to get naked, climb on a pedestal and slam cymbals together over my head.

Let me tell you about the Black Dog.  First of all I got the phrase from a friend of mine who went on the Black Dog Ride (click here to go to their web site).  The Back Dog is depression.

I feel like I am really standing on the pedestal now….

Some time ago I wrote a letter to my family (although it was only for my wife as the kids already know I am not all there – all our kids think that about us! …. my kids know that Dad sometimes goes to a place that it is not a good idea to follow him too) trying to tell them what it was like.  Here it is again.  Let me tell you writing this feels a bit like tearng off a band-aid…. really slowly, plus it’s a bit scary:

“I am writing this because I am just feeling so bad, no worse than I have for the last 5 days, just more of the same worse.  Imagine you fill a glass with black water and then you keep pouring more, blacker water into the glass; but it never overflows; it just gets fuller, denser, deeper, heavier; more black than black.  This is what it feels like when the Black Dog arrives.  There is no joy in anything.  Even as I sit here and think about all the things that are good in my life (I can intellectualise it every time), and there are many.  There is no joy in it, there is nothing in it.  When the Black Dog comes he takes over your life, it’s dark, it’s black, it’s heavy and it’s overwhelming.  Although it always seems the worst when it is happening, it is always the worse at that time, and only that time, at the time that matters.  I can’t explain how it feels to feel so rotten.  I withdraw from you guys because I don’t want to hurt you, I don’t want to say the things I have said before, but I have to live with you all, and you have to survive me. I have been horrible to myself and to all those around me in the past when I have gotten in this hole.  I try to stay away, physically and emotionally because I know I will hurt you.  Hurting you makes me feel worse and I get further and go longer into the hole.  I know it is horrible and perhaps even scary and inflicts long lasting pain to everyone when I am like this.  But, when I am like this, I don’t care…. and you all rightfully stay away from me to protect yourselves, and I feel so lonely, and alone; me and the Black Dog.  I fail at all the mindfulness that has been guiding me, and get more into the hole.  My brain doesn’t work properly.  I spend most of the day in confused thinking, walking through noise and things I can’t quite grasp.  I shake without shaking, I can feel it but not see it.  I ruminate about every bad thing I have done from yesterday to 40 years ago.  Waves of regret, after regret, after regret, smashes into my mind and stabs my heart (sometimes it is so bad it actually feels like it is a real physical hurt).  The Woulda, Shoulda, Coulda witches haunt my every waking moment, and often the not waking moments.  I get to relive every bad moment in my life over and over again with increasing pain, regret, sadness and shame.  When the Black Dog arrives, I can feel him in the pit of my stomach, he doesn’t just ride on my back, he becomes an actual part of me, on a cellular level, he taints all the things that should be good, he makes everything so…. not good.”

So there is the Black Dog for me… and a lot of the above is probably on a good day.

Somedays I see the Black Dog hanging around in the back paddock and can scare him off.  Other days he attacks unexpectedly from my blind side with such ferocity and viciousness that there is not escape.  Some days getting out of bed in not an option.

I’ve slammed the cymbals together now and everyone is looking.  I don’t know if the noise of those cymbals scares off the Black Dog, but I know sometimes, banging a couple of things together just makes you feel better for not reason.

Maybe, being a better man, is sometimes, just about being able to tolerate yourself, so that later, you get to like yourself, then learn to love yourself..  and, that’s probably okay.

Better on the Riverbank

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I am really good at revenge. I suppose what I am saying is that revenge is really good at wrecking my life!!! I can consume myself in the company of the three Evil Witches – ‘Woulda’, ‘Shoulda’ and ‘Coulda’. But, they are just the ruminations of the past; the future is where real feelings of revenge can be placed with the Evil Warlock “Gunna’. My greatest gunna, is revenge.

But, I noticed a while back (before I became the all knowing mindful sea of tranquility I am today….?) that pursuing the future with Warlock Gunna was perhaps making me a little bitter. It is when I changed my mantra to:

“If you sit on the riverbank long enough, eventually the bodies of your enemies will come floating by” (Sorry, the closest citation I can get for this is an ‘ancient Japanese proverb’)

I decided that this was a good course of action and it actually involved doing nothing with a potentially vicious outcome. Historically the doing nothing part of revenge had not been my strong point and I had destroyed work environments, relationships and even a family (my own) in the activity of revenge and vengeance (well I thought at the time there was a degree of vengeance but most times it was revenge and it involved all consuming anger – and fuck the consequences… sad thinking about it now?).

So, I began to sit on the riverbank and wait. I was vigilant. What if someone missed something – it wasn’t going to be me. I was also pretty obsessed and imaginative about how my enemies would eventually end up in the river. Imagining the demise of my enemies was a good way to fill a few minutes of my day, or hours, or the entire day, or a week, month, year, or come to think of it, a life…….

Then something happened during my all consuming ruminating (which of course was better than the actual pursuit of my revenge because not doing anything and just waiting of course, was making me such a better man – outwardly anyway.)

… a friend came by and gave me a fishing rod.

I thought this was a good idea as I could use it to pull the bodies of my enemies over to the side of the riverbank so that I could see what their final agony was – which I hoped was prolonged and painful.

I didn’t do anything with the fishing rod at first, it just lay next to me all day. I couldn’t fish at that time, I was too busy; I had to be vigilant and watch for those bodies. Be under no misapprehension I was dedicated to this. I knew happiness would come from their pain (this never really quite sat right with me, but I had to put any thoughts of leniency out of my head, no weakness here! They had to pay, I had been wronged by them, I can’t remember all the specifics, but, that didn’t matter, whatever happened to them they deserved and I was going to be there to watch!)

Sometimes you do something for no reason, sometimes it is because you have to, sometimes it is because you need to, and sometimes it is just because now, in this place, at this time, it is the right time to do it. One day, I thought, for no reason, i would give the fishing rod a go. I picked that fishing rod up… and used it to just fish.

I did this a couple of times. Then I did it a lot. Then I found myself at the riverbank with the primary aim of fishing. I don’t think I actually caught very much, I don’t think that in the end I was even baiting the hooks; I just liked sitting on the riverbank. There was no purpose to it. I would sometimes think of my enemies, but they weren’t there, then, and I was fishing. I wasn’t even really waiting for my enemies anymore, as a matter of fact I started to notice that my friends used the river quite a bit and when they went past I would often wave to them; I also noticed all the other things around me on the riverbank, the birds, the small lizards, which would pop out, spy me and run away again. I noticed the movement of the sun during the day and how the wonderful river gum I sat under, cast a majestic shadow throughout the day that up until now, I had not notice, canopied the place I had been sitting for so long.

The other day, I went down to the riverbank. I didn’t go for any reason, I just went. And I sat there for a while. I didn’t think about too much. I didn’t think about my enemies, they weren’t there, and may possibly never be there. I did notice, that I was at the riverbank. I did notice what it really felt like to be at the riverbank.

And then I went home, I think, a better man.

I suppose the above should have been the end of this post.  But, I just have one more moment to write about.  It is the moment in the picture above.  It is actually the moment, my wife took me to the riverbank (both figuratively and literally), it was the moment in my real life that I picked up the fishing rod, and, can I say, it helps if you have a glass of wine in your hand, you’re with the one you love and one of the most beautiful sunsets you have ever seen is in the background.

Every time I think about that moment, I get that, NOW, all over again.  I made a new memory and feelings for my home (see Better Homes).

I think, sitting on the riverbank, can just be about, sitting on the riverbank.

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 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 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.