My dealings with a builder

I am in the process of getting a laundry renovated. To be more accurate, my landlord's have talked with their managing agent to source a builder to renovate my laundry.

This started when one of my laundry doors fell off, and I asked to get it fixed. Three months later somehow this has translated to a laundry renovation.

The renovation is now into its fourth week. It has been frustrating. I have not been contacted by the managing agent. The builder keeps saying one thing and doing another. In trying to do some washing I have managed to cause a minor flood. I am frustrated and annoyed, and am starting to wonder about the role I have played in all this.

A couple of things stand out. The first is that I have become too friendly with the builder rather than keeping a professional relationship. The second is that I have not kept him focused on the job at hand, distracting him with requests for other things that need repairing in the apartment. The third is that I have assumed too much responsibility when it was not mine to assume.

Currently I am just hanging for this to be over, but in the mean time I have some learnings in advance for when I come to renovating my own house.

Creation of memories

Today I will be creating some significant memories for my sons. Of course every day I am creating memories for them, but today will probably stick in their minds during their life.

I thank my dad for reminding me of this. We haven't actually talked about some of the memories the he has left me with, mostly great, some challenging. But having dinner with him last night he reminded me about what I have the ability to leave my boys with at significant moments in their lives.

So as much as I would love a moment like this to be about me and letting them know how I feel, I put that aside and focus on them, and how they feel, and what legacy I am leaving within them.

Leaps in understanding

There are moments when my mind gets opened to a whole new quadrant of possibilities and realities. Its like I am wondering along, everything is normal, and then I stumble across something that makes something go 'pop', and the world is not quite the same any more. It has become richer, deeper and more mysterious.

I had two of these moments yesterday. One was about sexuality, it what was probably the easiest flowing podcast interview I have done, but also the most uncomfortable for me personally. I am still in two minds as to whether to actually release it to the public.

The second was about the nature of our origins, what we are actually here to do. This was an unusual conversation with my personal trainer, and had me both chuckling and speculating about how we actually evolved on this planet, about a higher calling of letting go of all jealousy, hate, control, fear, and embracing love, peace and connection.

Although both are not out of alignment with my values and the direction of exploration I have been pursuing, they took me a leap forward in my thinking to a place where I feel uncomfortable and uncertain. I like this place. My nervousness about being here in this case tells me to keep leaning in.

Is it me or them?

I write an email asking a not-quite-yet friend for some assistance. I wait a week after getting no reply, and wondering if I have written something that offended or annoyed them.

I am at a cocktail party, and somebody who I thought I was pretty friendly with doesn't talk to me for much of the night. I wonder if I they have heard something about me that has put them off me.

In cases like this my immediate reaction is to think that I am the problem; I have done something, said something, thought something that has caused them to not want to respond to me.

What usually happens is that they do end up writing back, even if it is after another prompt from me. They do end up talking with me, even it is at another social occasion. It wasn't actually something I had done - it was actually about them, all that was going on in their world, which has drowned out what I was looking for from them.

As a rule of thumb I would say that in 95% of cases if I get a sense that I have wronged somebody simply because they have not got back to me in a timely manner, it is because of all that they have going on - not about my offensive behaviour.

Therefore it is much more productive to make this assumption, and be right 95% of the time, then the opposite, and be stressed and wrong 95% of the time.

And as for the the 5% when it is me...well, I'm pretty sure I will find out soon enough.

I'll show them...

When I feel aggrieved, when I have been let down by somebody, when somebody doubts my ability, I find myself thinking, 'I'll show them. One day they will be envious, wish they had never doubted me. I'm going to do something amazing.'

Three thoughts come to my mind soon after this:

1) By the time I do get to wherever I am going, they are probably not going to care or even know who I am

2) By the time I get to where I am going, I am not going to care or know who they are

3) If I start doing things just to prove people wrong, I am in all likelihood going to start working on things that are not quite right for me

So I let those who doubt me, give up on me, move on from me do so as their decision. It has no bearing on me and what I am doing. What I am doing comes from a place within, and I do it to meet a deep desire from that place; to bring into the world that thing which only I can bring; to experience that moment of bliss that only comes when I know I have followed my path.

People I fear meeting on the street

There is a small list of people that, when I think of bumping into them on the street, I feel a sense of dread.

This is usually based on some kind of unresolved conflict; some break in the relationship that was left unresolved for a number of years.

Recently this list decreased by two. Last year I reached out to a former business partner with whom I had fallen out (yes, over our business). It was something that happened over three years prior, and every time I thought of seeing him my body would tighten up. 

Last year I realised that I could get on the front foot and evaporate the tension between us, simply by giving him a call. I felt afraid, but when we spoke all was good and time had helped make our difference irrelevant.

This year an old friend reached out to me. We had not spoken to each other for about 6 years after a moment of tension was too much for either of us to handle. He messaged me via Facebook, we caught up, and once again it was good. We had both changed and experienced a lot in those 6 years, more than enough to put our previous tensions to rest.

There remain a couple of people with whom I still have this sense of dread, and I think the time may be too soon to rectify and reconcile them. I will not leave them too long, because I know how good it feels to not have any concerns about who I meet when I walk down the street.

Memories washed away

I open the dishwasher as the kids are eating breakfast. We had people over for dinner the night before, and it is filled with dishes that are now clean. I start to unpack, first the bowls, and then the plates.

I pick up one of the plates and notice that it is a different shape to the others. I look at it, and a moment of familiarity rushes back to me. I have pulled this plate out of the dishwasher before. I have had this feeling of confusion and dread before. This plate was not always blank.

My son had once drawn a picture on this plate. Twice now. And twice it has been efficiently washed off by the dishwasher. It was the plate he drew on as one of the last things he did at kindergarten. Both times he drew a picture of all four members of his family, who now live across two houses.

I am devastated. The first time it was me that put the plate in the dishwasher. The second it was a well-meaning guest who somehow used the plate and put it into the dishwasher without me being aware.

I am devastated because today is mother's day, and day of remembering the family. I am devastated because the plate represented a memory my son has of a family together, a picture he said he would like us to put on the wall when we are all living together again.

I shed some tears, and wonder whether to tell him about it. I decided that it is better that he knows. Even if he is deeply disappointed, it is a good thing for him to feel, and I can apologise for my carelessness. 

I tell him. He seems to only vaguely remember it, and to care that it is gone even less.

I wonder then about losing that picture, and why it affected my so much and him so little. Perhaps it is because he is able to feel what he feels in the moment, and then move on to deal with the next moment without nostalgia. I seem to be still processing my grief, and my son's picture a trigger for nostalgia and a reminder of what is lost.

The first moment the hardest moment

I had coffee with a friend recently and we were talking about a camp we were both at, and the difficulty in walking up to a group of people we don't know.

He offered this little pearl that he tells himself whenever walking up to a new group: The first moment will be the hardest moment, and then every moment after that will be a little bit easier.

While this is probably not always true, it is true often enough to be useful. And the use of it is this: in those seconds where I internally debate whether to walk up to a group of people, where I experience a flinch that would have me walk they other way, I can remind myself of this truth that it will be difficult for a second, and then it will start to get easier.

Here is to meeting more new people.

Single benefits

There are certainly positives to being a single, part-time parent. Although I consider myself a full-time dad, having my kids with me for one week, and then away the next week, means that I am not parenting all the time. And while I miss them terribly when they are not with me, it does open up opportunities for other things.

The things I am referring to are extended periods of time to do what I want to do, hang out with the people I want to hang out with, and generally use my time on understanding and expressing myself however I feel without anybody commenting or influencing me.

I see this as a contrast to when I was married and living with my wife and kids all the time. It was as if we felt we had to do everything together. I can't really remember doing many things by myself during that period, apart from going to work. I don't think I gave my wife the freedom to explore and express herself; I am not sure I could have handled it. And I did not take that on for myself either.

Now that I have been forced into it, I can see that I am able to handle being a solo parent for extended periods of time. It is difficult for sure, but it is possible.

The question that comes to my mind then, is whether this is possible for people who are still in a relationship? Can they give the other parent extended periods of time to explore projects, hang out with friends, go on holidays, while they look after the kids by themselves?

I think it is possible, and could even be better. My retrospective guess at why this is not commonly practised is that there is a fear of losing the other person; that in giving them room and space to be explore themselves, it could mean the end of the relationship. They might discover they want even more freedom, or we might find out we don't like who they truely are.

In having a week to myself every second week I have found great freedom in following my curiosities without constraint. I can imagine that this would be even more exciting and fulfilling (and risky and scary?) if conducted within a relationship.

Subtracting to create more

My first ever disclaimer: I am not a medical practitioner. The opinions expressed below are entirely my own.

Another thought that circulates in Taleb's Antifragile is that if smoking were removed from our society, ever other current medical intervention and action would be a footnote in describing improvement in the health of humans across our planet. His point is that the human body is very good at sorting itself out - it has been refining its defences and health over a very long time, and anything that we choose to add to it (like smoking, like unnecessary surgery) is probably going to be worse overall than better. Removing unnecessary interventions into our system can only be good for our health.

Intervention needs to be saved for the situation when there is a massive upside, and a small downside (for example if somebody has cancer and only surgery/chemo will prolong their life). When there is a small upside, it is highly likely that there is the potential for a massive downside (for example elective plastic surgery that provides a small improvement to the nose, but could introduce and fatal infection into the body).

This has got me thinking about my own life and also that of my kids, and the number of interventions I think are necessary, and whether they actually are. Here are a couple I am thinking about:

- when my kids have a mild temperate: I often think they need Panadol or Nurofen to help them feel better. Is this the case? Could the temperature actually be good for them, helping their body recover, and allowing them to flow with their lethargy and rest?

- prescribing antibiotics to speed up the rectification of infections: Could this mask the cause of infections, rob my body's ability to learn how to fight infections, and also kill the necessary good bacteria of my gut?

I leave these as questions because I am not qualified to know the answers. And that is Taleb's point. Actually none of us really know the answer to these questions; we can't predict all the short and long term consequences of medical intervention. He advocates not trying to work them out but to use a heuristic to help guide us (not just for medical instances but for many of life's decisions): Big upside and small downside? Intervene. Small upside and unknown downside? Leave it be.

Limited love language

I am aware that what I am about to write could be a cop out....I hope it is something more than that.

I have been talking with a friend recently about the word love. He has a podcast called 'I Love You Man', which explores ideas about male vulnerability, the feminine side of being a man, and of men expressing their non-sexual love for their male and female friends.

I actually find the idea of telling another male friend that I love him to be confronting and difficult. In spite of this there are a few men who I have told that I love them, and they have returned the phrase to me. 

I find the idea of telling a female friend that I love her with that same kind of love to be currently beyond my capability. The English word does not actually seem to allow for the simple expression of connection without the connotation of something more.

As I ponder this I start to wonder if at least part of the problem is to do with the fact we only have one word for love in our language. Many people would be aware that the ancient Greeks, for example, had six words for love, all with very specific meanings, conveying many of the different elements contained in our single word:

• Sexual love (eros)
• Deep friendship (philia)
• Playful love (ludus)
• Love for all (agape)
• Longstanding love (pragma)
• Self-love (philautia)

The words I want to use to express the love I feel towards my male and female friends are Philia and Pragma love - long-standing, deep friendship love.

If I had more specific words for the feelings I wanted to convey, would I be more willing to tell those I loved that I loved them; to let them know the kind of love I had for them?

For me, they boil down to this

When I think about intimate relationships, for me the crux of it all boils down to this:

1) Am I willing to allow the other person to be exactly as they are, to accept and love them for their whole person, over the course of this relationship?

2) Am I willing to explore and express my whole person, to be true to myself over the course of this relationship?

3) Am I fully accepted and loved by the other person as I reveal more of who I am over the course of this relationship?

In the early days of a relationship it is very easy to naively say 'Yes' to these three questions. And it doesn't matter if the relationship started in your 20s, or 70s, or whether it is your 1st of 10th. It is always the same feeling of elation and optimism, and perhaps without it no relationship would ever start.

As time rolls on there will inevitably come more than one moment when your partner shows you part of who they are, and you don't like it. In fact you are repulsed by it. And correspondingly there will come a moment when you want to reveal part of who you are, and there is a risk that your partner will not accept it because it is not who they think you are or want you to be.

For me that is the true test of a relationship: that moment of seeing and accepting the other, and seeing and revealing ourselves.

Adjusting expectations for increased happiness

I am in the middle of an experiment where I noticed something that is not going according to the way I want it to go, and then I adjust my expectation to expect it to go the way it normally goes and observe the impact.

Observation: I often make faux pas on social occasions. I usually feel pretty embarrassed about these and it wrecks the rest of my night as I expect to be smooth and silky with everyone I meet.

Adjustment: I expect that I will make at least one faux pas each time I am out and about - it is just the way I roll.

Observation: my son is having tantrums every day, and I fight him all the way and expect him to be cruisey and happy all the time.

Adjustment: I expect that each day my son will have a least one melt down. It is a sign that he is growing and working through some bigger kid stuff. 

Initial results are that I seem to be able to roll with social mishaps and tantrums more easily than I previously could.

What I am trying to say.....is thank you

Thank you for taking my call when I was at my lowest.

Thank you for giving me space to cry.

Thank you for hugging me.

Thank you for sending me a book.

Thank you for allowing me to feel my grief and sadness.

Thank you for having me over for pizza and TV on a Friday night.

Thank you for showing me how things are in your home, without filters.

Thank you for helping me to laugh.

Thank you for listening to my stranger than fiction stories, and being engrossed in my telling them.

Thank you for reassuring me that I would be okay.

Thank you for making me breakfast when I was not able to do so for myself.

Thank you for moving towards me when you saw my open heart.

Thank you for supporting me as a father.

Thank you for giving of yourself, even though I hurt you in return.

Thank you for being my father, my mother, my brother, my sister, my friend.

Thank you for loving me and helping me re-understand what friendship is.

Thank you for reminding me of all that is good inside me, and that I will grow and be stronger.

Not one of you could have been this for me alone. But all of you together have been more than enough. 

50% of marriages?

There is a common stat bandied around is that 50% of marriages end in divorce. 

I got thinking about this recently, because most of the parents I come across at school actually seem to be living together. So I did some research.

It turns out that according to the ABS, the probability that a marriage beginning between 2000 and 2002 will end in divorce is 33%.

Not all of these marriages will have kids which means that my suspicion was right - most of the parents at the school my kids go to will have their parents together. ABS stats say that the percentage of single-parent families with kids under 15 is around 22% of all families with kids under 15.

So it seems that divorce is not as prevalent as I suspected; neither are the number of kids living in a home without both their parents.

I write this because this is my reality - I am a separated Father of two kids, and I think my initial thought was that half the kids at their school would be in a separated family. The truth is that they are in the minority, as am I.

This is neither good or bad in itself. It may be that many of the kids living with their original family would be better off if they were living with both parents separately. 

The take away for me is that because what I thought was common, is not actually as common as I thought, I need to ensure that my kids get what they need despite their different living arrangements.

The last times

I wonder how often we aware of the last time we do a particular thing, at the time we are doing it. Like the last time we talk to somebody. The last time we change a nappy. The last time we kiss a lover. The last time we hold hands with our dad.  

I was thinking about that tonight after getting frustrated with my kids for not getting out of the bath exactly when I wanted them to; for not being quiet at the moment I asked them to as they went to bed; for asking me to lay down with them until they fell asleep. 

As I was laying next to them as they fell asleep, my three year old was asking me to tell him about memories I had of his life. thinking about all that has passed in his three years reminded me that having the magic of my kids wanting me to hold their hand as they fall asleep will also pass. 

How to embody the magic of each moment when so much conspires to rob away the joy?

The generosity of taking care of yourself first

I was talking to a friend recently who was struggling with finding time for himself in the midst of a hectic job and young family. It was an interesting time for him to be pondering this as he was coming to the end of a six week stint when his family was overseas, and he was able to rediscover what it was that helped him to feel energised and vital.

As we were talking we started to wonder about the extremes of the scenario where you were not looking after yourself for the supposed good of those whom you love. Would we be willing to neglect ourselves so much, and give so much of ourselves to others, that we would die for those we are closest to? No, definitely not a sensible approach. 

What about a level of neglect and giving where we made ourselves sick for our most loved ones? Probably not, but that definitely seems to happen.

What about a level of neglect and giving where we were sluggish most of the time, sometimes grumpy, and deprived of feeling our best, all for the good of those we spend most of our time with? Well, yes actually. That is exactly what we are willing and actively do most of the time.

We then speculated about turning this around and instead thinking, what do I need to give myself in order to ensure that I am present and energised with those closest to me as often as possible? Do I need to get away by myself once a year for two weeks of hanging out with my friends? Do I need an hour each day to sit and think, to exercise, to write, without any distractions? Do I need one night per week where I don't have any responsibilities at home, to go to a meet-up, a film, out for dinner, or play with my friends?

I think this is something we can all give ourselves. In many ways it seems selfish, but I think that in taking care of ourselves as best we can, we actually have more to give those we love the most. And this includes offering the same opportunities to our significant other to take care of themselves.

The selfishness of the wellbing of others

It is actually in my interest that other people in my life are well and safe and secure. Whether this be family members, friends, people I know and have every right to despise, or people who I don't even know but make up this human race I am part of.

Because when people are well, there is less for me to be concerned about. I do not have to be concerned with the negative influence they will have on my life. I do not have to be concerned about materially supporting them. I do not have to be concerned with the impact they will have on those I care about.

And from a positive point of view, when people are well they bring so much goodness to the local and global cultures I am part of. They enhance my life by brining new thinking, new histories and learnings, new ways of being.

There are two specific circumstances I am thinking of in writing this. One is when we have a person in our life whom we are angry with, whom we do not want to see succeed. It feels that their success is our diminishment, and there is no way we can see that their success actually enhances us as well.

The second is when there are groups of people who are part of our global community and whom some people want to see stay undernourished, sick, struggling and second class members of this community. Our liberation can only come when we see the global system we are part of, and see that when one part of this system is sick or hurting, the entire system is sick or hurting.

Judge not, lest ye be judged

On Sunday night I was at an Italian restaurant for my mum's birthday. There were about eleven of us there, including my two young boys are their cousin of a similar age. The three boys love hanging out together, which is great for them and often difficult for the parents, especially at a restaurant.

We were surviving pretty well thanks to a early order and delivery of pizza and chips. The adults had ordered their pizza, and just as they were being placed on our table I noticed a couple of lemon lime and bitters drinks sitting in front of the boys. I was commenting on this being strange as I did not remember ordering them, when all of a sudden my eldest son reached out to get some chips and knocked the full glass over on one of the freshly placed pizzas.

I was just about to launch into a lesson and lecture for my son on being aware of oneself at the table when I caught myself - perhaps 2 days of silence helped me to be aware of the situation. People were laughing, and there was no real harm done. I was probably the one who was most embarrassed, and even the pizza ended up being salvageable. 

One day later, yesterday, I had made my way into the city for a job interview. After taking a year off work and only now just getting back into interviewing, what is usually a nervous situation was even more so for me.

I was sitting down with one of the two people who was going to interview me, waiting for the second person to arrive. When she did arrive she reached out to shake my hand - I never know in these moments whether to stay seated and shake hands, or to stand. It always feels better to have stood up, but it also seems overly formal. With this running through my head, I managed a half sitting half standing hybrid approach to shaking hands, and in the process managed to forget that I had a full glass of water right in front of me. Not even making it to the handshake, I managed to knock the entire full glass all over the table. 

Somewhere in the background I faintly heard a rooster crow three times.

A place to ungracefully plop

My parents house has become a place for me where I can just come and dump myself. I feel like I don't need to talk, to pretend to be happy. I can sit on the couch and do nothing, have the kids be entertained, and be cared for myself. What a privilege.

It has taken me a while to understand my need for this place, and to be okay with asking for it when I need it.

While not having an abundance in any of these areas, thankfully my parents are emotionally, compassionately, financially, and logistically in a situation where they are able to offer this assistance.