This is a true story – unfortunately

A couple of months ago I received a phone call from a nice sounding lady who introduced herself nicely to me. I thought she might be selling something but instead she asked me if I knew Mike Smith. I said I wasn’t sure and suggested she give me a bit more info as I knew quite a few. (Don’t you also know someone called Mike Smith?)

She asked me if I was from Zimbabwe, rattled off my funny nickname and told me where I lived…and then horrors of horrors told me that as I was having an affair with her husband – yes, Mike Smith – and, lucky me, I could keep him. Speechless I was, boy was I speechless. She was clearly very distressed so I set about convincing her that I wasn’t having an affair with her husband…and she kept quizzing me and it appeared that this person knew a hell of a lot about me!

Anyway, to cut a very long story short it turned out that I did know her husband; but I also worked out that the last time I saw him was probably when I was about 18. But here’s the thing: It also turned out that he had lunch with my brother before Christmas and naturally in the catch up (my brother hadn’t seen him for donkeys years either) he asked after me and my brother gave him some info – really basic stuff – which looks quite incriminating when told to a wife along with the confession that I was the love of his life and that we were having an affair!

So I did the only thing I could. I told her that this was all very creepy, that it was quite obvious that her husband had some serious problems and suggested she quickly take him to the nearest shrink. And that perhaps she should also get some counselling. I thought that was that and we said our goodbyes…very amicably by the way.

But that was not that and I received a couple more phone calls and then nothing until the other day. She, the wife, asked me if I knew someone called Sandra (I have a cousin called Sandra but was not going down that route again!) and it now turns out that her husband finds that Sandra is the love of his life and he is going to join her in Portugal….hmm. So I asked if he had seen the shrink, had counselling or, my first choice, if she had chucked him out the house yet. She answered no to all the above and proceeded to tell me that he has a drinking problem, treats her like a dog (always has I think), hasn’t worked for many years and she supports him, flattened the savings account for an expensive overseas trip for himself over Christmas and the cherry on the top is that he has bashed her a number of times, so much so that she had to get medical treatment.

So I did the only thing I could. I said “and you are still with this creep because..” . She said…wait for it….. “I love him….”

So I did the only thing I could. I said “and which part of him do you love: let me repeat what you have just told me: he treats you like a dog, he abuses alcohol, he beats you so you have to get medical attention, he doesn’t contribute to your household and in fact has just spent all your hard earned savings, he lies (ie. the affair with me and Sandra), he deceives and you say that his family also treat you badly…. This isn’t rocket science babe.”

Now this is the funny thing about Happiness folks: Happiness doesn’t land in your lap. You don’t win happiness. You have to actually work at happiness. You actually have to, at some point, make the right choices. You have to, at some time, face the fact that some things just don’t get better. You have to decide what your position is and what you want your position to be. The health of our relationships contributes the most points to how happy we are – like 99% of the points. If you buy a lovely new sofa you feel nice and happy for how long? Not that long I think… “Stuff” doesn’t make you happy…But…the people we live with day in and day out, the people we work with day in and day out, contribute hugely to how we feel.

So, with tears in my little eyes I have to ask: “If someone treats you like a dog, does not respect you, abuses you physically and/or mentally, undermines your well being and self worth, causes you untold grief and pain, what on earth are you still doing there? And please, please don’t say you love him/her….this sure as hell ain’t love.

It doesn't always have to be fixed

Talking to some friends the other day we all remarked that we have noticed of late, and with increasing frustration, that people appear to have an overwhelming desire to “fix” whatever might be bothering one.

What do I mean by this: Have you had a conversation wherein you begin to express your concerns/thoughts about the weather, state of the nation, the youth of today, abysmal customer service, road rage, global warming and so on, only to be interrupted with “Well, what you should do is……” and the person to whom you are talking to proceeds to tell you what you should do/should have done, what to think, what to read, that it also happens in other countries, that everyone is like that etc etc. And as much as you try interjecting or even to get to the end of your story, it has been blown out of the water before you had even warmed up. The other person flashes a self satisfied smile and feels amazingly chuffed with themselves for “fixing it”.

Suggestion: If you are being a “fixer” just watch the face of the person being “fixed” to know exactly how they feel, especially if the person is a child.

Being a good communicator is about being able to really listen, being present, understanding (yes, understanding) what is being said and then knowing how to respond. Conversation is about allowing ideas/thoughts to be processed, allowing a person or child to actually finish processing and verbalising their thoughts and ideas and then, dare I say it, contributing to those thoughts and ideas and being part of growing this into a memorable conversation.

A person who tells you something might just want to share an experience, that is all; and more importantly, might just want to be listened to.

Thoughtful Quotes

"When others asked the truth of me, I was convinced it was not the truth they wanted, but an illusion they could bear to live with." -Anais Nin, writer (1903-1977)

“Let the world feel the weight of you, and let them deal with it.” John Eldredge's Wild at heart

"We meet at very short intervals, not having had time to acquire any new value for each other. We meet at meals three times a day, and give each other a new taste of that old musty cheese that we are. We have had to agree on a certain set of rules, called etiquette and politeness, to make this frequent meeting tolerable and that we need not come to open war." - Henry David Thoreau's Walden

The Sweet Smell of Rotting Garbage

This morning I woke to the sweet smell of rotting garbage wafting into my bedroom. It hasn’t quite turned yet to an awful klunk but if the municipal strike goes on for another day, there will be an overpowering haze of fly infested decay on my pavement.

So with this in mind I brightened up considerably when I saw a link on Gretchen Ruben’s Happiness blog to a site called 1000 Awesome Things (http://1000awesomethings.com/) and a link to this little Utube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_HkH8huuzA .

The video was put together by a youngish student and it is charming. It is a tribute to his girlfriend. He covers things like the smell of rain, absolute perfect silence, bakery smells, high fives with babies and so on. And he says this about his girlfriend that made me pause the video and write it down:

“I know there are specific major things I want in a girlfriend. I have my perfect girl figured out in my head. But Abigail has all these other qualities I never even knew I wanted.” (my italics and underlining)

Why did this hit me right between the eyes? I was reminded of a conversation I had the other day about a young man and his rather strained and not so happy relationship with his girlfriend. As I just love matchmaking I suggested we introduce him to Girl X and was told that she would not be his “type”.

His type indeed…. What the heck do we know …..Hmmm “all the other qualities he doesn’t even know he wants”….

Needless to say, often our preconceived ideas about relationships, our own and others, romantic or otherwise, can cripple what may turn out to be something wonderful.

Just do it right

I spent the Easter weekend with a whole bunch of people in a very beautiful bushveld setting about an hour north of Hartbeespoort. A few of us were in the kitchen, I was unpacking groceries and as I finished the first bag I flattened it out, rolled it up and whipped it into a nifty little slip knot – just like I always do at home. Keeps them neat and they take up less space then just being scrunched up.

I quickly moved onto the next full bag when I heard a voice saying “do it properly” which I took no notice of and carried on unpacking the bag. Only to hear again “do it properly”. I looked around to check out who was not doing something properly only to find that I was one of 2 people in the kitchen. The other person, a youngish person who seemed to have taken on the role of supervisor, looked me in the eye and said again “do it properly” and pulled my plastic bag apart (the slip knot works really well).

Me: Huh..

Her: That’s not the way you do it…

Me: Huh…what???

Her: You don’t fold plastic bags like that..

Me: Huh….. Oh…. Well that’s how I do it…

Her: That’s wrong..

Me: Huh… what????? (she was checking me out as if I was very IQ challenged at this stage)

Her: Do it properly..

Me: Well how the hell do you do it “properly”, I didn’t know there was a course called Folding Plastic Bags 101..(Me: very restrained language and sarcastic)

She refolded the plastic bag into a little samoosa shaped goodie which I must confess was pretty cool. I asked her to show me, again, how to do it…which she did. And then she said “now do it right” with about a ton of steel in her voice.

I had a couple of choices at that stage: I could have had a hissy fit and thrown the little samoosa goodie in the rubbish bin, pulled it apart and folded it my way, told her to get a life (probably the best option), meekly folded all the plastic bags into little samooses….or told her to do it herself….. Choices, choices, choices.

Instead I opted for a little life lesson and a little lecture (Silly me - I never learn). I told her that there are very few things in life that are so black and white…sure, 2 + 2 will always equal 4 and some people might argue that one….but I didn’t actually see that the way I folded the bag was wrong or not proper. I said it was just a different way of doing it so therefore whilst her way of doing this task was pretty sharp it was neither the proper way nor the right way – it was just another way of doing it. She stomped out of the kitchen and as I had to spend the rest of the weekend there, I bit my tongue and decided to forget about it…..

But: I brought this incident away with me and it has really been nagging at me. Isn’t this inflexible black/white attitude the cause of so many arguments and unhappiness? The “my way is the only way” doesn’t take into account any of the shades of gray in between: good/bad, hot/cold, pretty/ugly, rich/poor and all the other combos you can think of. I am sure you’ve hear things like “you’re either with me or against me”, “you’re on board or not”, “it’s a simple yes or no….”, “either you can or cant..” and so on – there is no room here for a “yes, but….”. This type of conversation/confrontation can leave you reeling and simmering with frustration and resentment.

I recently read something about the art of good communication. Communication is not just about talking: It is about compromise and constructive negotiation.

Lipstick on a Bulldog and other things

Lipstick on a Bulldog

I am so well and truly bonded to my new Croc slops that I have been considering sticking sequins on them to make them look a bit more eveningish. I am going to a birthday party tonight (friend Kevin turns 60) and the thought of putting my tender little feet into proper shoes is causing anxiety. The Croc slops makes you believe you are walking on marshmallows. They are so, so comfortable. Could someone out there invent something for all shoes that makes you feel like you are walking in Crocs…. And just a bit more glam please.

The Long Walk to Beit Bridge

On the subject of walking….. our friend Ray Chaplin has just completed a walk from Cape Town to Beit Bridge. And you may very well ask “Why?” (He tells me that just about everyone asks him that.) Why did he do it? Well, why not….. Ray is one of those people who just does extreme physical things. This is the sort of thing that keeps Ray alive and well. He just has to do it. He has also pulled a little Zozo hut thing from Cape Town to Johannesburg. This Sunday, after a week in Johannesburg, Ray sets off for Cape Town on a bicycle.

Ray is a big strong lad so I am don’t even ask about his fitness or ability to complete such a feat – it is a given for Ray and I never for a moment doubted that he could do this walk. I must confess to wondering about his state of mind though: did he get scared, did he get depressed, despondent, did he think of packing it in? Firstly Ray says (to quote Alex Harris) that once you reach the halfway mark there’s no point in turning back – you might just as well carry on. He doesn’t get scared but does get anxious sometimes – like meeting groups of aggressive locals on the road, cars that try to run him off the road – going so far as to chase him into the bush, the first few minutes camping out the bush with absolutely nothing around you. But, on the whole, he says it is a wonderful experience and he meets some very friendly people along the way. By the way, he pulls/pushes a little cart that holds all his goodies – tent, lap top, food etc. Does he get despondent? No – he says though, that he has some wild mood swings. He says he feels so damn happy at times he wants to cry and then sometimes he feels so damn down that he does cry – he walks along with tears running down his face. But, he says, he just lets these feelings run their course – he expects them and knows they will go after a while so he doesn’t get in a great state over them. His website is: http://www.raychaplin.com/

The walk from Cape Town to Beit Bridge took about 70 days.

Bracken’s Birthday

15 years ago we went to the SPCA to get a kitten. Bracken literally grabbed us by climbing up the chicken wire and sticking her skinny little arm out into the passage way at our shoulder height, clawing at us and yelling her scraggy little head off. We took her home only to discover she was riddled with ringworm, wasn’t house trained and she immediately put our other cat in his place. She learnt, within days, that cats went outside for the toilet, to eat whatever was put in front of her, to suffer being bathed 3 times a week for about 2 months (the ringworm) and, how to rule the roost.

It her birthday on the 1^st April – well at least that is the date we guessed she was born on. She can be a real clown at times. And wow, she has been a treasure, a much loved, very beautiful and charming cat. Happy Birthday Brack.

A Few Things

The first quarter

We are nearly at the end of March – the first quarter of 2010. I am sure I am not the only one who thinks, feels, believes this year is flying by faster than ever. The Naked Scientist said on radio a few months back that one of the reasons we think time is “going faster” is probably because of things like email, mobile phones, e-newspapers, the internet and so on. No more waiting patiently for a letter or even a fax to arrive, no more ordering a book via your bookstore – now you just download it, everything is instant. If you don’t reply to an email or voice mail within minutes you a get message asking if you have received it…….. Now is the time that everything is immediate….

Happiness TED Talk by Daniel Kahneman

Daniel Kahneman is a psychology professor at Princeton University and a Nobel Prize winner. I “discovered” him when I first started looking into the wonderful world of Happiness.

This is a link to a TED talk he gave in February 2010 about Happiness http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/daniel_kahneman_the_riddle_of_experience_vs_memory.html It’s really interesting, lasts for about 20 minutes and he explains some of the everyday confusions about happiness, our experience and the memory of our stories. In a nutshell he says that it is true that money does not bring you happiness but the lack of money does buy you misery. And one of the dominant bringers of happiness is being satisfied with the people you like and spending time with those people.

Get at least one hymn under your belt

I went to a memorial service on Saturday for our friend Leila who died suddenly last week. There were heaps of people at the church and the minister conducted a lovely service. But as usual, when it came time for the congregation to stand up and sing, there was an almost deathly hush with a few little chirps and croaks emerging from the pews. Thank goodness the organist had a nice voice and microphone.

Now here’s the thing: At just about every memorial service or funeral service I have been to there is one hymn that is usually sung – the very beautiful Psalm 23…. I am sure we all know it almost by heart now. So the challenge is: practice it in the shower, the car, and the wide open spaces. Get your voice oiled around this one hymn so the church can be filled with the sweet sound of singing voice – this particular hymn is easy to sing – no wildly high or low notes or trills…. And each verse is the same as the last. Give the person a good rousing send off.