7 Rules to Live By

Spotted this pic earlier :

Some good rules right ?

First up - make peace with your past. Very important. I know someone who is struggling desperately with Stuff. I've been there too but in my case, Stuff was concluded quite quickly. Ravenwolf walked out and then strife happened over the next few months as we sorted out House Things. You know, the cutting her name off the deeds to a house she wouldn't be contributing on the mortgage for. Cost me ... £lots of k.

And some sanity as we had trouble with a solicitor who a) delayed and b) attempted to take us with him as he departed the practice we (well, I because Ravenwolf just basically went - "give me money") chose to a new one. That caused unnecessary delay but ... the people who stayed at the practice were totally pro and we got a settlement sorted quick which actually was good for me. (An incorrect, low, valuation was given by Ravenwolf).

Looking back, I'm glad my particular dose of Stuff was over very quickly although it affected me for many years after. Ok, I was also affected by being rebuffed by a succession of ladies who I thought "This is the one !". Yep. Bad for the confidence ... but that confidence is coming back again thanks to the people around me now.

Lesson :

Yep. Don't let your past own you. It's behind you. Look forward to what you can achieve now or later. Me ? I want that boat to live on. It would be made much better than I hear new houses are and there would be lots of techie/mechie stuff for me to fiddle with. And there's a bit of independence that I think would come in too.

2 - What other people think of you is none of your business

Up to a point yes. You do need people's respect to have credibility in their eyes and you can rarely get stuff done without credibility. And in the world we live in, if people hate you for your actions then that can lead to nastiness like having your car keyed. And ... looking around me ... I am houseproud to some degree and I wouldn't want to have anyone seeing the house as it is now. The condition of my place transfers to their opinion of how I keep it and that isn't great right now. House needs sorting out.

And I do like a bit of feedback too. It encourages me, I gain strength from it, my confidence depends on it. Both from the ups and the downs.

3 - Time heals almost everything

Again, up to a point. I'm thinking of one special little lady who is really struggling. Time is just making it worse. I hope she remembers who she was soon. She was the Heart of our team. The one who always smiled at people. The one with energy. The one who laughed at the jokes. The one who made the jokes. The naughty mischievous one who knew everything that was going on but never got caught. The bringer of Fun.

I hope she remembers that. But I can only do that from afar. Because it confused both of us, throwing our hearts into a mess, when I tried to do that from much closer.

Back to me - time won't heal my hips or shoulder, that's likely to need a surgeon's knife. But I hope that time will eventually heal my outsides to the point where I can confidently wake in the morning and know I could freely go out in public with shorts and t-shirt and not have people going "Eeeoo" at my broken bits.

4 - No one is in charge of your happiness except you

A year ago I was trying to get the attention of Kim. That cost me hugely in terms of my sanity as I was getting very little in return for those attempts. And she was just one of a series of ladies who I was attempting to get attention from. I had put them in charge of my happiness. My emotional state depending on their feedback, their approval and when they went silent, you can imagine the dark pit that my psyche descended into.

Again there, there's a few very special people who I know keep an eye on me, give me that feedback, make me smile. Smiles are awesome.

5 - Don't compare your life to others

We all have different influences. Different beginnings. Different upbringings. Different circumstances that change our fate.

What's important is how we play the cards we are dealt. Me ? I enjoyed the cricket, even after gaining a shoulder injury that should have ended my playing days. I just found different ways to be useful to the team and accepted the pain. I could have had a different job, or job hopped like half the people in my organisation (these people cause no end of trouble) but the job I've done has delivered something pretty awesome.

My life is way better than probably 90% of the people on this Earth (partly cos all the wealth is concentrated in much less than 0.1% of the people ?). Yep. I have it better than many and I appreciate people like Cupid's Gift, LTK, Snow Queen, CK, the Finance Angels, Family, Pixie who help make my life better.

Something important though - I try not to gloat by comparing my life to those less fortunate. It's terrible what's happening at Calais with the immigrants. I can't do much about it though. And that's just one group who have been told things which is causing them more misery now.

(Enough about immigrants, I only know third hand and what I do know is subject to slanted news)

6 - Stop thinking too much

Like this post ! I've been struggling for ideas lately and then another Swedish Sandra (I know two) posts a pic that ... erm ... has made a bit of a Wall Of Text. Oops.

I overthink things. I like stuff to be properly polished before I call it Job Done. That of course makes the product far too late to be useful. But I think I'm doing better there and I have that balance between saying what I know and declaring when I need to go away and find something out.

7 - Smile

Oh yes. Definitely. Smile and the world will smile back at you and give you bigger portions when you raid the canteen.

Looks down ...

Maybe that isn't such a good thing. Need to go on a diet again.

I think I get more cooperation from people by bringing that smile out. Also from giving that smile when admitting I could have done stuff better. Like upsetting one of our senior people when I said I'd got his approval for something. I did ! Honest. I had it verbally but not in writing. It then took another week for the written approval to come through and I think that was partly due to a phone conversation with someone else which ended pretty much in "UNLEASH THE K!" (different words, same meaning), K being one of the Finance Angels who has a Sleepy-Mind-Blank inducing smile.

We'll do stuff for Finance Angel K (and the original Finance Angel E) to see that smile. It would break our hearts to be the reason for that smile not being there.

Smiles are awesome. And I'm now picturing a bubbly chuckle going along with someone's smile. And a haha from another special person who's given me lots of encouragement lately.

Be good, be kind, enjoy yourself and others.