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 (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 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 Blogging Two/Too

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Well the blogging challenge was a complete failure, so I thought I would have a trendy heading working on the two/ too confusion to make it all sound like it was part of the plan….

No, it wasn’t.  I just now have to think about what it is that this is really all about. I make the commitment to write, and don’t.  I want to write and don’t.  So should I write?

I’ll let you know……

Easter Friday …. Where faith meets the knowledge that we can do really bad things to each other for no other reason than, we can, and we choose too…

Better at Blogging

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I have come straight to my blog without reading back anything I might have written recently, working on the fact that I haven’t written anything recently.

I was thinking that my blog was supposed to be my ‘writing experience’ on the internet.  A place where I could put down my thoughts and ideas and be considered a great sage… or something similar!  But, I suppose I have to actually write something now and again for that to even be a remote possibility.

So, the BETTER BLOGGING CHALLENGE.

I will trying being a better blogger by being a prolific blogger, well, for a week anyway.  I think most habits can be broken (just for information today is 7 weeks since I STOPPED smoking – I have not had one puff, and I think that is a record!!!!) and I also think good habits, practiced, can be instilled in life.

This is the first entry in the BETTER BLOGGING CHALLENGE.

 

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.

IMG_5407

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!

Better 2014

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It is the beginning of the new year and is seems a time for New Years Resolutions to be made.  I decided that the most important thing is that I live my mantras as on the Home Page of my blog:

  • BE PEACEFUL
  • BE MINDFUL
  • POSITIVE IMPRESSIONS
  • PEACEFUL
  • NOT TO COMPLICATED
  • MOMENTS OF JOY

and I think I have to reinforce to myself that I think the most important and the one that covers everything is:

I WILL BE A BETTER MAN

The better man thing is taking a whole lot longer and more effort than I had planned.  There has unfortunately been no flash of enlightenment and the better man imerging from the transforming cocoon (preferably overnight) has not happened.

It has more been like a trudge through ankle to knee deep shit, with the occasional dry spot where you get to rinse out your socks and wash down your boots before you continue the slog.  Not how I had planned it, but probably what I had expected.

A lot of the time I have been on AUTOPILOT and the BLACK DOG has come to visit more times than I would have liked.

But this is a NEW YEAR.

I know New Years resolutions are mostly destined to fail (from my extensive Google research only 46% last longer that 6 months!).  So is it really worth making them?  Well I am choosing to look at it this way – ALMOST HALF SUCCEED!

I think I am writing more than necessary at the moment because that way I can continue to avoid actually writing down my resolutions (which unfortunately I have written down before and have ended up in the 54% who don’t make it!), so here they are:

  • I WILL STOP SMOKING
  • I WILL GET TO 78 kgs 
  • I WILL MEDITATE DAILY

So there they are.  New Years are not always new beginnings, but why not draw a line somewhere that is easy to remember where the line is and have a go.  I am hoping to be in the minority this year and succeed!

Better with Bob

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Bob is a bloke who changed my life.

He was the mentor I had without having a mentor and the bloke who changed just about everything about the way I looked at the world.

Bob is a well know character in South Australia, being a Vietnam Veteran, Screw (prison officer) and a leading member of the Country Fire Service.P1020315

I first met Bob when he gave a lecture on Leadership at a work conference. I latter invited him to be a guest speaker on a training courses I was running; and after that I invited him to every training course I ever ran.

I think I did this because each time he spoke (and I heard him over 20 times), I learned something new.

Bob would mainly talk about life, how he saw it, how he saw the people in it and to a certain extent, what it all possibly meant.

Bob is the kind of bloke who believes the world needs more warriors and less victims. He often says, people walk around going poor me, poor me and finishes off by saying “Pour me, another scotch.”

Bob has given me a lot of information which I hope I am transcribing into wisdom.

I will hopefully be able to share some of Bobs wisdom (perhaps more often that I practice it in my life!) but if you are interested in a few of the things Bob is involved in, follow the below links:

Trojans Trek

Bob has also written a few books including his experiences in Vietnam and history on World War 2:

Crossfire
Silent Voices
Flashback

I hope in future posts I will be able to do justice to what Bob, often unknowingly, has said which has guided me, made me think, made me evaluate and sometimes helped me get rid of things in my life – I know one thing, he has made me a better man.