Category Archives: Better Ideas

Better thank Mrs Nesmith

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Bette Nesmith was Michael Nesmith’s mum. Michael Nesmith was ‘Mike’ in the 1960’s TV Show and the band The Monkies.2473674_orig

Mrs Nesmith invented ‘Liquid Paper’ or Tipex, or White Out or whatever you want to call typing correction fluid…. If you don’t know what typing is I’m in big trouble!

So why do I want to thank Mrs Nesmith.  It is a bit to do with the same reason we have rubbers on the ends of pencils….. We all make mistakes.

Neither the rubber nor Liquid Paper are time machines, they just let us rub out, or paint over our mistakes. Sometimes, though, mistakes are a bit more permanent. However considering that the Liquid Paper company sold for over $45 million and we still have rubbers (erasers!) on the ends of pencils, it appears that we all make enough little mistakes that warrant providing us with an ability to fix them and move on. As a matter of fact, it would appear that mistakes are pretty much at epidemic terms as now we have the ‘back space’ and ‘delete’ keys which are probably hit just as many times as the letters on a keyboard.

So we all make mistakes. I think I have established that.

So, what is my point?

I think it is that we accept that mistakes happen and that it is okay to fix them. I also think it is more important that we are a little more forgiving about those mistakes; both to others and especially to ourselves.

It may be said a thousand times that it is okay to make mistakes, or that we learn from our mistakes, but, when they happen do we actually think that way. Do we blame ourselves too much for stumbling a bit as we go through our day, our job, or our entire life. Does society really say it is okay to make mistakes, do we? As important is not perhaps the mistake, but how we react to it.

Okay, me of all people do not suffer fools lightly, but do I really think people start their day with the express purpose of going around fucking up, just to annoy me. Although some days it seems like it, I am sure this is not true.

Having the rubber on the end of my pencil, looking at the bottle of white-out or pressing that delete/back space key needs to be a different experience. It needs to be about how I accept that the world is pretty imperfect and mistakes do happen, most can be fixed or forgiven. If I manage to remind myself of it every now and again, I am sure it will help to make me a better man.

Thank you Mrs Nesmith.

 

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 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!