Category Archives: Better Up Against It

At times you just have to take the high road when you are up against it

Better Simple

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Yesterday I was commenting to a mate that sometimes it is all too hard and too complicated to bother doing half the stuff we have to do just to survive in modern society.

In my last job the boss said one of his things was, ‘don’t make it too complicated – keep in simple’.  Funnily enough in that job we did that and got the job done.  The down side was that because we didn’t create any fuss, demand additional money, people, resources, complain at every meeting and constantly bitch about how hard we were working…. no one noticed. In that job, what was a great strategy, faded into non-existence because it had actually got the job done, without fuss (oh the irony!)

I started to think about the complexity of things.

I know there are a lot of complex things in the world, and lots of complex things need to be done in life (bringing up kids is no walk in the park!), but…..

I am sure that most people don’t want it to be that hard, yet ‘those people’ are often the ones that are making it hard.  It is a bit like, it is only hard if I have to do it, but, it is not hard if you have to do it; do you know why? because you have to do it, it’s not me.

When a person is requiring you to do things a difficult way, they will justify this as reasonable because that is ‘the process’ (I’m sorry but you can’t have the refund etc etc etc, until you complete this form which of course requires information you don’t have with you – and a DNA sample – all of which you have to travel home to get, again…. you can of course fill out the form on line but that will require you sign up for a new account requiring the verification of identity which you can only do ‘in store’…. fucking kill me!)

Where was I….

…. this is the process or their job, or they don’t make the rules and they have been told it must be done that way (have you ever said these things and realised how stupid and obstructionary you sound – probably not).  In addition, when you explain the illogical nature of what they are asking, they mostly can not understand what you are talking about.  They don’t know why it is stupid, unnecessary. More often than not, they can not even explain what happens next and why you are doing it in the first place…. is this you, it has been me.

It is usually, if they can not explain why they want you do some obscure process usually for the age old reason of modern logic which is, because that is the way It has always been done.

Is the entire world going insane and not actually realising it, because insane (complicated) is the new NORMAL.

I think being a better man means I will be the one that doesn’t do this anymore. I don’t think I want to be ‘those people’ or the infamous ‘they’ (whoever ‘they’ are – perhaps I am they?). But, I suspect I will have to notice I am doing it first……

 

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 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 at Bad Weeks

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I had a bit of a bad week, that, didn’t turn out to be that bad.

At the moment by biggest worry is worrying about why I am not worrying.

I had to have a sit down and think about this a bit.  It came down to a number of things that I have had as my mantra for a while, the most important being:

BE PEACEFUL

It is pretty hard to be peaceful when shit is rolling down hill and you suddenly realise you live in a valley.  But peaceful is what I decided to be this week.  I say this at lot lately… “I decided” because I think this is the thing that we forget to do a lot.  I am pretty tired of thinking that other people are responsible for how I feel; because if you do that you lose control of your life.  It is my decision as to wether I am going to be peaceful or not.  This week that is what I decided, again and again, when the peace was slipping from me.

As a result I hit the weekend and looked back over my week.  I found that although the week was not a highlight in my year I was better in a bad week than sometime I am in good weeks.

I think it was all to do with how I looked at it; and more importantly how I decided to respond to it.

I think it’s am achievement to be a better man in bad weeks – and I’m going to take the credit.

 

Better at Adversity

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Adversity has the same effect on a man that severe training has on the pugilist: it reduces him to his fighting weight.  (Josh Billings,  1818 – 1885)

Some days when you are planning for the future, the past comes and slaps you in the face.  Often what you think you got over, to get to where you are now, just got piled up in front of you… but, much bigger, much steeper, full of barbs and traps.

Maybe though, the barbs are just regret and the traps are ones you set for yourself a long time again.

But, no matter what, adversity grinds you down.  It’s just a matter of how you look at it when you get to the last of your strength.  Has it reduced you to your real fighting weight or are you going to chuck in the towel.

…… and I think it comes down to one thing: character.