Category Archives: Better Mindfulness

Better Hatred or Hated

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I was watching the news today, well actually over the last couple of days and realised that most of it is about hatred.

I thought about all the things I hated… and the people.

I started getting a list, and checking it twice to see who has been naughty and must be hated.

I realised I hated:

  • My year 6 primary school teacher who I now realise was a bully and possibly a closet paedophile
  • The guy who dobbed me in at work to further his career
  • Bad drivers, even when it is a genuine accident.
  • Bad service in shops and restaurants.

This is short list as I realised as I started writing it that I hated more things than I liked.  Then I thought about what I was going to do about all this hatred.  I decided that I was NOT going to:

  • Bash anyone involved.
  • Tell them that I hated them.
  • Bomb them or try and kill their family.

I decided that all this hatred was all about nothing.  I watch the news and read the papers and they tell me about the people that hate me: and I hate them back.  I spoke to my wife tonight and said that the world would be a better replace if all these people that hated me were wiped from it… and when I said it, I meant it.  After I said it I got to thinking about why I said it and why I meant it when I said it.

I realised that I didn’t mean it.  I realise no matter how much they hated me I don’t want them to be dead: even if their only reason for living is to want me dead.

I have a great problem in understanding a lot about the world; lately I can not understand when you are the richest person in the world why you want more and don’t use all your money to make other peoples’ lives better; and, I cant understand when you have all the power why you want more; and why you don’t make the world a better place with all your power.

I genuinely believe that most people think this way, yet we let the people that don’t think this way rule our world.  We often pretend that we think like them: this pretending can actually fill an entire life.

I can’t waste my time on hating people.  I am sorry that people hate me, for whatever reason they may hate me.  I am sorry about things that happened in the past that they think makes them hate me and gives then a reason to hate me.  I am sorry for the people that have the power and the money that make other people hate me when I don’t have the power and the money.  Even if really I don’t want the power and the money because I suspect it will make me like them – I could actually lose myself.

I am sick of people hating each other for no reason, or even for a reason.

I ask myself the questions: are they hitting me, killing me, hurting me, hurting my family, making it that I cant live my life the way that I want  Are they in my home, are they stopping me from living my life the way I want to.  Isn’t it true that I actually want them to want all these things that make a good life. I want them to have food, shelter, clothes, a chance at an education, someone to love, something worthwhile to do and something to look forward too.  I critically think about wether I really want them to have those things, the things that I want, and the answer is yes.  So why would I hate them; it would be like hating myself.  So what happens when I think this way and they still hate me.  I don’t think there is a lot I can do about it.  I know hating them back is not the answer.

Hate is such a horrible word, and so over used.  The word hate has a best friend and it is anger.  Although these two words may be loosely thrown together in conversations and the media, I think the connection is always there; are we angry because we hate so much, or are we hateful because we are so angry.

What are we angry about?

Do we get our food, shelter, clothes, a chance at an education, someone to love, something worthwhile to do and something to look forward too….

If the answer is yes, or probably, or I hope so, or even maybe in the future, or perhaps, then that may be good enough.  Come to think of it, that is good enough.

It’s not about the right it’s about the opportunity.

What we have, or what we want is not a right, there really is no entitlement in this life, it is sometimes what we just make the best of.  If we are lucky continually good things splash our way, if we are unlucky, how deep is the shit we can stand – and how can we, if we want to, crawl out of it.  Bearing in mind wallowing and being a victim appear to be ways of life that people often choose when they don’t have to.

But like a lot of things I write about, mainly to myself, it is a matter of choice.  The difficulty is in making the choice.  The choice often doesn’t really matter, as we can justify it anyway, and live with it.  I think the trick is to know that your choice is not only about you.

Perhaps that really is the answer about hatred.  The fact that no matter how you try and hide it, or attribute blame, it really is about you. Anger is about you, hatred is about you, so therefore if you live those things you are just living for you, there really can’t be genuine joy in that life.

I figured it out.  It is not he who dies with the most toys who wins: but he who dies with the most joys.

So maybe being a better man is not all about me.

Better Patience – Part 2

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Okay the spelling of patience from my previous post Better with Patients – Part 1 has changed and that is mainly because I am running out of patience.

I have been home from my operation for a week or so and initially sitting around doing nothing seemed like a good thing.  Also I was taking pain killers so just about everything was fuzzy and funny.

Now, I am just sick and tired of being sick and tired.

I got to thinking about the little aches and pains that creep into your life as you get a little older; and the fact that you never appear to get enough sleep, even when you go to bed at times that in the past you were going out.   Of course these are aches and pains that are unfathomable to youth – as they were to me, until recently.  I now understand that part of being a patient is having patience.  Although I now understand that being patient is the same as being a patient.

I want to have a little whinge about a few things in the hospital but now I am home and the pain is fading, so are my motivations for complaining about people doing a hard job, in hard circumstances, often for hard to deal with people; I have decided that I don’t want to be one of those people, well, this time anyway.

I have remained a hermit during the initial part of my convalescence.  I understand that most times people really don’t want to hear about you being sick as they already have enough to deal with in their own lives.  Plus who needs further feelings of obligation slowing you down to your next planning meeting or Facebook update.  Also, it is like when you greet work colleagues or acquaintances and say “Hello, how are you?” and they actually tell you!

Anyway all this is part of my plan to retire the fittest I have ever been in my life – I think I have said before that I intend to retire to live, not die – bearing in mind there are many forms of dying in retirement, not just the physical type.  I just have to attend to a little ‘mono-ab’ problem and the monkey on my back called smoking.

So being a patient has taught me a little about patience.  It also taught me that no matter how much you may want to share your pain, in the end you have to decide if you are going to endure it until it gets better or make everyone else suffer along with you.

Irrespective of which one you choose, often getting better, or not getting better, is not so much about how sick you are, but how you look at it.

I think I am a little better now, not only physically, but as a man, and perhaps even as a patient.

 

 

 

 

Better in the morning

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This is just a quick post, because it is morning and we are all in a hurry…..

Well usually.

I am still in Bali and I captured my morning in the attached picture….

I was thinking how I usually spend my mornings rushing to go somewhere, usually late, kids and family also rushing, hurried breakfasts, mad drives to work with all the traffic working deliberately just against you (see my post on Bali driving)

So this morning it is a quick post to say, don’t miss the morning, don’t miss that moment when your day is just starting and might just be the best day of your life.

I have missed too many mornings, which led to bad days.

I am not always better in the mornings, but I think I will take a little more time to notice….. Wonder how I will go when I am back home….?

Have a better day, have a better morning.

Better being privileged

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Tonight I watched a segment on one of the news program’s about a young footballer who was supporting a fan (who was only 17) who was recovering from a stroke.  The footballer said he would kick a footy with the young lad when he could walk.  The segment showed when they were both at the oval and the young stroke suffer kicked a gaol.  The absolute joy on the young fellas face was only matched by the smile on the young footballers face.

I liked what I saw.  The young footballer didn’t have to be involved at all but he chose to.

Then the cynic in me kicked in……

I thought the the footballer was one of the football privileged who SHOULD be putting back into the community. He was one of the people that we look up too, gets the big bucks and leads a life of privilege. I know he has worked hard for it, and has to work hard each week to make the team. I know that he is also expected to be a role model and put himself up each week he walks out onto the field.

I started to think that my cynicism was levelled at the wrong person, the wrong group of people.

What about all the politicians who earn big buck yet only appear to do things for political gain not community well being: what about the multi million dollar earning CEO’s that live a life of luxury: what about all the celebrities that make a movie or two and live a life of excess and privilege?

Suddenly I started to count the imbalance of privelege in our society and what everyone else had and what they did with it incomprison to me.

I thought I was not a person of privelege: then I started to count the things I have and not the things I don’t have. It may be about the things I need and the things I want.

I have clean water to dring, in my house.
I have good food, whenever I want.
I have shelter and clothes.
I live in a great country.
I am free.

I started to think what I had done with my privileges.

If the news program came to my place and said we want to do a story on what you have done with your privelege, what would their story report on.

Probably some weak stuff I half volunteered for in the past and all the entrepreneurial things I am going to do in the future.

I realised that we wait for the celebrities, footballers and CEO’s to show us the way… Because they should, it is their responsibility!

Maybe I should be better with my privelege and stop worrying about everyone else and start worrying about everyone else.

I am sure there is a great deal of privelege in having the choice to be a better man.

Better at Changing Tires

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I was driving home the other day and saw a guy on the side of the road changing a flat tire.  I noticed as it appeared that it was an older bloke with the flat, but another car had stopped behind and it looked like he was helping change the tire.

It got me to thinking; (firstly, glad it’s wasn’t me with the flat) is it me, or don’t we get flat tires as much as what we used to.

I can remember as a kid with Mum and Dad, spending half of our family travelling life changing tires on the side of the road, or filling the boiling radiator with water out of a nearby dam, or fixing some other mechanical problem with a bit of fencing wire or a wedge of wood and/or a hammer.

Is it that things don’t break down as much now days?  Or, have we stopped fixing them and just throw them away.  Is it also that we don’t know how to fix them and just get someone else to do it.  And as it turns out when we get someone else to do it (an expert!) half the time they just throw it away and replace it on our behalf?

I love fixing things and working in my shed with the old tools that I have bought from the market or inherited from my Dad.  Often when I am buying or later looking at an old tool, I get to thinking who used it, what it was used for and how many times it fixed or made things.  I used to work on my cars when I was younger too, but when I lift up the bonnet on my modern car I feel like I am looking under the hood of the Space Shuttle; if there is a problem I usually just ring someone to fix it.

I suppose this rambling is all about accepting that in a complicated world, complicated things need experts to fix them (if I was quoting my Dad he would say an expert stands for an ‘ex’ which is a has been and a ‘spert’ which is a drip under pressure!)

But, does it have to be so complicated.  I understand that technology (which I love) and machines (which I love) are getting better and hopefully, most of the time, assisting us in leading a better life.  However, is this complication in ‘things’ something that has to be transcribed into how we live our lives.  Is the ‘can’t fix it throw it away and get a new one’ mentality something that we do in more parts of our lives than just our car and dishwashers.  Is it worth fixing something that isn’t fixed for free under warranty.

I don’t want to throw away my old tools and not only are most of them well made, but they can still do the job and I have that connection to them that sometimes is hard to explain.

Every now and again it is probably not a bad idea to get a flat tire.  Firstly, it might give you some time on the side of the road to just sit and do something with your hands (and remind you of the first time you watched your Dad do it on one of those epic family road trips!); you may meet someone who stops to help, who may change your life (or at the least confirm your faith in human nature); and when you take the tire in to get fixed you may just contemplate that life doesn’t have to be too complicated and that flat tires can be fixed, like lots of things.

Plus, next time you see someone with a flat tire on the side of the road (which as I started off this post, isn’t too often) you might want to stop and say, I reckon I can help you fix that; maybe you’ll change there life.

 

Better with Friends

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My wife wanted me to meet a friend of her’s from years ago who she admired as a craftsman and builder… he was coming from interstate and was just here for the night.

I said I didn’t want to.

There was a reason for this.

I have good friends, I love my friends.

I have a group of friends that at the end of phone calls, text messages and emails we say or write ‘LYLAB’ – which stands for “Love You Like a Brother” (Then again there was this great comment after one of those messages that instead of saying LYLAB what was written was LYMTMB – which stood for “love you more than my brother”….. hard to explain in some circumstances but understandable in others……)

I said to my wife (I regretted it a bit later) that I didnt want to meet her friend from years ago, as I didn’t want anymore friends, and for me to get a new friend someone would have to die.

I am pretty sure that the guy she wanted me to meet was a good bloke, my wife is a great judge of character, but, I didn’t have any history with him or any shared experiences and I was working on just geting my own experiences together at the time.

I got reminded….

I just have to talk briefly about reminded, because I am now getting to a point in my life when I am constantly reminded, well actually remembered if there is such a word, of things that have happened in the past.  The difference about these reminded rememberings is that they are usually memories of things that I have not thought of since they happened. It goes to show that my religion could possibly be correct, but it also goes to show that everything we do today has some thing to do with what has happened in the past.  This is not in a mystical sense, but in the sense that memories are not every really gone, but only come back into context, when they are actually in context. The thing is that these rememberings are usually not something I have thought about since it happened and for all intensive purposes was gone from my memory forever, and suddenly it is smashed into the now of my brain…… and it is like I am there again….. and it is sometimes an okay feeling to have…. sometimes a bad feeling.

Anyway.

I didn’t meet her friend, but, I did start to think about the friends who would have to die to be replaced.

Why were they in that group
Why couldn’t they be replaced
Why did I love them (and sometimes hate thm at the same time…)
Where did they live in my head…….
(and why did they live in my head?)

Well, you have to spend a bit of time thinking about why you think about the things that you do and where did or do those thoughts come from.

If this post sees the light of day, and it is the first one you have come across then some of these ruminations must be imaginations of the madness within me ….. Or, at least that is what I would be thinking if I was reading this (and I have read this a couple of times and made a few changes before I posted it, but each time I read it it seems like I can’t change it to not sound a bit crazy.)

Wow, the above was getting into the silly world of writing from my head to the keyboard with no filter…..’

so, onward…..

So were did the death of my friends requiring a replacement come from?
Nowhere and everywhere and the mentor (read the blog about Bob)

It is all about who you allow to live in your head….

First of all I have to tell you a story that Bob told me, and when he told me it, it was a story about me.  It was a story about the witches, Woulda, Shoulda, Coulda (the Worlock Gunna hadn’t yet been invented?)

I just changed my mind, I dont want to tell you a story, I want you to experience a story. The sad part of this story is that if you get into it, and let yourself experience it, then it will manafest the witches.

Think about your worst day at work, the last fight with a friend/wife/husband/workmate etc etc…. and as you were leaving that fight (either covered in blood or literal blood, or worse, damage, literal or actual, or emotional damage or some other damage, that even now leaves a scar that itches….)

Keep imagining.

It is your worse day and you are driving home….
The witches are in the car…..
You are gripping the wheel….
Driving home surrounded by the worst group of drivers on the planet….
Everyone is fucked except you…

You have a plan about the wrongs that have been avalanched upon you today, plus a few if not all the ones from the past…
You start the ruminating, then the plan for vengence, no not vengence you are way beyond that, this is outright revenge: there is no sitting on the riverbank today….. THEY WILL PAY……

Pay……
Pay What?
They will pay in that every minute that you let them live in your head they are stealing some of you from you…

Time you can never get back.

Well maybe it is time to reset the ledger.

They don’t pay rent so why do you let them live in your head!
I will say that again, because this is the most important part of this post “IF THEY DON’T PAY RENT THEY CAN’T LIVE IN YOUR HEAD”

Let me tell you about that! Let me tell you about the rental properties in my head that I manage.

My head has a a finite number of rooms.
The room with best View.
The room for my band of brothers.
The room for friends, family and close acquaintances, and
The room for people I have not yet met……

THE BEST VIEW
These are the people that love you and you love them. It might be your family it may not. They remember your birthday and hug you when you cry. They are your Mum, your Dad, your brother, your sister and those members of your family that make it a family. They get the best view and they get free rent for life (okay, sometimes they forget to pay the rent, but somtimes the rent is not necessary).

THE BAND OF BROTHERS
I got this from Bob and I can’t ever imagine making the sacrifice that he had to form his band. But, I have my band of brothers. They are the guys and girls that when you call, they come – anytime – anywhere – for any thing. They fight when you have to fight and they fight when you can’t fight. It’s a bond that is LYLAB – love you like a brother.  They start you on the right path and they stop you on the wrong path. But, not matter what path you are standing on, they stand shoulder to shoulder with you, they stand fast, unwavering, because they are your Band of Brothers.

FRIENDS, FAMILY AND close ACQUAINTANCES
Often these rooms are not visited often. The crowd is often a bit messy and is a bit on the transient nature. But, if you go to enough parties with the right people, then you only end up at parties with the right people. They are the peopel who pay rent, in your family (the annual, a bit awkward family BBQ  (but they are the host), the close aquaintances that live next dooor, offer to make you a coffee now and again at work, organise the secret Santa, or maybe are just the old odd bod that collects cans around your neighbourhood. they pay rent, they make your llife richer, more confortable and more than anything else…. connected.

PEOPLE I HAVE NOT MET YET….
Hey, the empty room. dont, dont ever, fill it with the ironing board, or the boxes that you haven’t unpacked from the last 3 moves. This may be an empty room, but a room that is prepared to to filled. The friend you have not yet met…..

So I am better with friends.  I am better because of my friends.  I am also better because of the friends I no longer have – they didn’t pay rent and they no longer live in my head.  I try to keep the Witches at bay and my friends in my head.

Next time I am driving home, every time that I am driving home, they will get the best view. I know through them I will be a better man.

Better Dead

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I have a current infatuation with death.

I do not think this is unhealthy as the condition is inevitable. I am just thinking how we go about our lives with this inevitability apparently not effecting the way we actually go about it. I am trying to put it in some sort of context with the rest of my life, but this is difficult. There are lots of things in life that are finite, but most of those we don’t really consider until they are over – including another persons life.

Just spend a minute thinking about someone that is not here anymore -that is dead. I know I often appreciate their life and them more, now. This is not a bad thing, but it is also a difficult thing to do with your own life. Hard to appreciate it when it is over.

It is also hard to measure a life, especially your own. The man adage of “he who dies with the most toys wins” is bullshit. It is bullshit mainly because not one of those things that you were infatuated with in life you can take with you (to where ever that is for you). Also in measuring that life it is hard to know the scale on which to make that measurement. Again, an adage, is it about the years of life or the life in the years.

As I said before in my post Mindfullness (and say often to my friends) “we all end up sitting in a chair, pissing our pants, watching days of our lives and waiting for our relatives to visit who never come”.

I think thinking about death makes you think about life. What if life ended now. It wouldn’t be enough, it never would, but would it any more years, anymore time, really make any difference. WE I be different. Could I let go of the regrets, hates, wants etc etc and live a life that is somehow significant – maybe not important, but at least somehow significant.

Define significant……

Better at Driving

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This post is actually about not being better a driving.

Traffic just sucks, all other drivers other than me suck.

A few years ago I used to drive around wondering at the phenomenon of ‘road rage’. I thought the entire process was pointless. And most of all I was proud of the fact that I was not a part of it. I was a calm driver. things just happen and if you keep driving then they are over, and most times they don’t matter.

Then something changed.

I can’t even put my finger on it (other than it being part of my overall distain at most of the rest of the world – on occasions…. this is not being a better man type commentary, but some days the world does nothing but suck – perhaps I need to write a lot more about what my friend Kate tells me about NOT JUDGING!)

I started to care about the driving of others. Not only at the time but seethingly afterwards. It has been getting worse and I don’t like it.

I bought a camera the other day. You know one of those constant record why you drive cameras. I realised that knowing I was being filmed all the time while driving would make me think about my decisions – especially as it also records sound (no swearing or abusing). Plus I knew then I (Me and Me alone) would be responsible for my actions and reactions.

It has been working, but I feel like it is a moral cheat.

I always say (and love to say) “Integrity is doing the right thing when nobody is watching” but “Integrity is NOT doing the right thing, because someone might be watching”. Maybe my driving does not have the integrity I like but sometimes our moral compasses needs a reminder that they are there and we need to follow them.

Better at the Pinch Point

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I had to start off by showing this photo which I took of a truck which was stopped just in front of me at the traffic lights.

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The funny thing is that I had seen this sign a number of times and thought what is the world coming too when we have to caution a truck driver not to get his fingers stuck in the tail gate of his truck.

Then I remembered all the other warnings I have seen on normal everyday stuff: my favourite being ‘contents is hot’ on a take away coffee cup!

I also started to realise, well I have realised for some time, that the end of Darwinian evolution has come, as natural selection in the human race is definitely a thing of the past (If you want to watch a really average- yet a little bit scary comedy movie about this have a look at the movie “Idiocracy“).

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So back to the pinch point.

Firstly I just like saying pinch point, it has a good ring about it.

But do we really need to be warned about every pinch point in our lives. Doesn’t it sometimes pay to get your fingers caught so that you won’t do it again.

Do all the pinch points in our lives need signs.  Are we really that dumb.

I suppose when you think about not only the signs in factories but that some of the machines are set up so that you have to press buttons with both hands to activate it, so that you wont cut your hands off!  (strange thing about that is I first saw those machine buttons in the Eminem movie * Mile…. go figure?)  Maybe we are that dumb.  Or maybe we just don’t notice.

Machine Guarding- Two hand control

And what good are the signs anyway, if we don’t read them and definitely don’t obey them!  I suppose the two buttons on the factory press had to be put there because people kept cutting their hands off.

So there might be a lot of signs in the world warning us of the bleeding obvious, but perhaps they are necessary when we are wandering around most of the time on auto-pilot.  However, one of the reasons we don’t put our hand into a flame is because at one time or another we go burnt.  Maybe the pinch points in our lives are not supposed to be avoided; well not all of them anyway.

I know one thing.  As I get older the memories of getting my fingers jammed in the car when I was a kid are a good lesson to watch out when I close the car door, and any other door come to think of it (real and metaphoric!).

I don’t mind the pinch points in life.  And I do genuinely believe that most things that don’t kill you make you stronger (except the ones of course that maim you for the rest of your life…).  Avoiding the pinch points shows that you may have learned something, become a little better and perhaps a little wiser.  Having signs everywhere, just makes us better at blaming others when mistakes are made because someone forgot to put up a sign.

Remember….. no running with scissors!

Better in March

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Well it has been a few months into the new year and time has passed (I think in a blog one should avoid the subject of the bleeding obvious… but then again if that was the case then most of the blogs in the world wouldn’t exist!)…. time has passed and I often wonder whether I have moved forward or I have just been treading water. I actually don’t think that you can tread water in life… I was once told that it feels like you are treading water, but you are actually on auto pilot (and suddenly the thought of the video “This is Water” comes into my head.)

So, it is March. Months have passed by and I am still here. I wrote I am still here in bold as it is becoming a famous catch phrase of a friend of mine, in relation to going to funerals. When we are at the funerals of friends – which seems to be more and more each day, week, month year, …. we all walk outside (it used to be to have a smoke) and talk about life  or our friend/relative/acquaintance/funeral of person I didn’t really know but thought I had to go to, that we are all at.  And, it as at this time that my friend, possibly semi-sage, says “Just remember, we are still here!”

That is it, we are still here.

I have decided that I need to write more in my blog and less in my Journal. Or at least write more of what is in my Journal in my blog. I spend so much of my time trying to be a sage (and not remembering that the most important thing is that we are still here!) and actually sharing and letting the experience be about the daily, hourly, minute by minute struggle that I have in being a better man. And let me tell you being a better man is all about being all the things a man should be…. husband, father, sibling, son…. and on and on and on……and, that each day, I have a plan to be a better many, but, then the day comes and plays out in its own ways, and steals the time I planned for being a better man,  and the day ends not where I thought it should.  I also realise that it ends in the NOW, in the space that I am not noticing, because I perhaps have been on autopilot all day.

From today, I will write in my blog daily. It will be a struggle just like each of my days are. But I want it to be about achieving and not struggling.

Also……..

Today is a notable day; It is 4 weeks, that is one month, since I gave up smoking. (I have not had a puff..)

Now just that little problem of being a slim better man!