Movie Idea : Plans don’t work out the way you thought they would, you don’t lose your job only to bounce back and become a overnight success, you just take any job that will pay the bills. If your car breaks down you’re on your own, and it’s going to cost you. Most people (supporting actors) look pretty average looking on the movie set and your partner loves you because she saw something in you that nobody was bothered to look for.
In the end you’re poor from tax, kids and bills, the kids have returned to the nest after you paid for a college degree and you’re going to end up baby sitting their kids.
The credits rolls with you sitting on a porch of a house you still dont own and not on the luxury cruise you were promised by your investment broker.
“It’s not too late to change your life and rewrite the ending” – Nicholas E
In every relationship there are special moments, moments that only two people who love each other would understand, a glance, footsie on the couch, a soft word blown in the ear while shaving. A connection that can only be explained as special, but we sometimes share too much with other people outside of our relationships which leads to influences who where not there when you met nor the first night you kissed, who don’t understand the feeling you felt the first time your eyes locked. Our friends should never be allowed to navigate our ship they should be there to support and listen.
Don’t erode that special connection between you and your partner, if your relationships trust has been eroded and other people are over staying their welcome, then stop and change, take a time out. I have found that on a few occasions my wife and I have just needed a weekend away to regenerate, to get away from all the static noise and sometimes to remember what we first saw in each other.
“Relationships dont always make sense. Especially from the outside”
― Sarah Dessen, Along for the Ride
The three most important words you will ever need in a relationship, in your religion, and in yourself is “I Trust You”
If you love her trust that she will always put you first and by doing this you will be caught when you fall, you will be cared for when you are sick, and when you and your partner are old fogeys sitting on the porch 50 years from now the foundational seeds of your love would have had their roots from seeds called TRUST.
Relationships start with two pods that float together and find a small sidewalk crack to call a home. Mathematically and through impossible odds they should never meet by chance, but they do, you do and when you do don’t let go hold on tight, it’s an amazing ride if you LOVE, TRUST and CATCH each other when you fall.
I really can’t tell you, the number of times my wife has told me a story or explained a shopping list, only to have me bring home the wrong groceries or embarrass her at diner parties when I retell a story that I was not suppose to or worse incorrectly.
Men generally need simple facts, a simple shopping list without the recipe and don’t send us shopping on an empty stomach (we tend to buy anything that looks appetising ), we also tend not to notice the subtle innuendoes or markers that you say you had incorporate into a story that we should have picked up on.
If you need a hug tell us, if you need to talk about a friend or work issue, don’t wait for us to read into your sighs and deep breaths. If you need space or don’t want to cuddle tell us, men have two settings when it comes to love on and off, we are only too happy to accomodate all your needs if you communicate them directly.
One of the saddest statements I ever heard as a teacher was “my parents don’t love me!”, if you think that being head of the house requires that your loyal subjects need to make an appointment to speak with you, you are very wrong.
If anything it means you need to kneel below your family and understand their needs and issues. How many men come from a file I like to call “Understanding of the Macho Male Image”, the days when children should be seen and not heard should be laid to rest like Communism. We need to grow-up start moulding your own home and stop all the negative influences.
It’s never too late to tell your kids that you love them, and show them respect provided they too undersand that this is very much a two way street.
Sometimes I feel like a still life picture amongst a movie being fast forwarded . I think we tend to hold onto stress like a victim caught in a river being pulled away from us but we clutch at it and keep it from floating away.
If you keep adding everyone of life’s little stresses onto your shoulders eventually you will be burdened and will not be able to cope.
Each week tackle a different stress start by talking to people, remember that machines don’t care they will switch the lights off, but behind the faceless bits and bytes are warm caring people who generally care about their customers.
Put your bills in order of importance – school fees, electricity bill ,a credit card bill. Now go and see don’t phone go and have a face to face explain your situation and organise a payment plan.
I sat outside last night, we got the deck chairs and downloaded star walk and there dad and kids sat gazing at the universe.
The first thing to remember is you going to get somethings wrong, the key to being a good parent is simple ,love your children, understand that they going to be disappointed but be there to hold them, listen when they don’t speak and pay attention when they do, cry together, laugh with your belly , wear a funny hat to dinner and sympathise as if you were 14 again.
Life is not easy for kids who are constantly bombarded by adult content, we ask them to understand divorce or moving house, changing schools to accomodate a parents job, but how times do we ask them how they feel ?
We need to cherish the gifts God has given us, take a walk, discuss the stars, play a game of catch, water the plants, choose a song to buy.
One of the most fascinating aspects of our lives is we work to provide for our kids and in return we never get to know our kids because of work. I sometimes feel like the song “We are running”
The funny thing about traffic jams, is they tend to be the great leveller in life, for no matter what type of car you drive, or how much you earn we are all in it together, and going to go through the same experience of stop start until the impasse. They also tend to bring out a persons true personality we get the impatient, angry and layback and then there is the majority the “us”, the poor sods who accept their fate in life, we sit in our cars worry about being late, how our teenage kids are doing in school, how to resolve the monday morning argument you had with your spouse over finance, the people who dont jump the queues, the moms and dads who save coupons and live for seventy odd years only to have a one liner chiselled onto our grave stones. “Here lies _____ they lived an unfulfilled life, month to month.”
It’s time to look around and squeeze a little more juice out of the lemon you’ve been given, book a holiday, save some money, take your children on a fishing trip, book a cruise with the family. First start the day by climbing out of bed on the other side. Make a conscious decision to change your life by first changing the small things, start by throwing away the bland coffee cup you take to work, buy some new shirts, get a haircut. Then begin to plan the larger changes, cut out some images of a new house, car, exotic holiday place them on your desktop and start to build your dream by investing in yourself.
Open a secret bank account, sell all the crap you have collected that collects dust and eBay it . Let you grave site rather say “Here lies _____ they died on a beach in the Maldives”
If you ever sat in a traffic jam and wondered that there has to be something more you’re right!
The other day I paused for a second to look at a old wedding photo, a time when the future had what seemed like infinite choices and adventures, when love was blind and most sentences end with “I love you cutie smoggy pie”, when my clothes hadn’t shrunk yet, when face and book had no reason to be in the same sentence, but alas time is a cruel mistress and the reflection in the mirrored frame seemed to have been give a beating by father time and all his homies.
Growing up is not for wimps, being tired should not be seen as a symptom of growing old, but rather a badge of honour, we should be proud that we as parents are raising children and getting it right most of the time (gold badges to single parents), for those of you that skip the midweek gym session and buy a slab of chocolate on the way home and snuggle up with your best friend on the couch and watch a good movie good for you, you deserve it.
The world is not going to honour the good mother or father with an award nor will there be any red carpet rolled out at the end of your performance, but the one thing you can count on is at the end of the day when the street lights switch on and the sun goes down, that every little success and failure, all the adventures have brought you together to this place, in your home with your family.
What does our partner see in us ? Using the bathroom scale and looking in the mirror is always a great reality check. The other day I watched a show with a guy who had changed his life through weight loss suplements and had made millions through mail orders not to mention the get rich quick schemes that investors stand to make 40% return on their money. CRAP all of it. We get old and if you have kids you get poor, stressed and overweight all at the same time.
I am sick to death of these quick fix programs from weight loss to financial freedom, not to mention the get rich bastards who prey on the desperate and vulnerable. I’ve decided that no goal is achieved without hard work, you have to walk and workout, save money to make money, but slowly and patiently.
Life is about quality, happiness and what ever you consider you need to be in your confort zone is what you need to achieve. The other day all I needed was some fish wrapped in newspaper and soft chips and sitting on the beach with my family. God could have taken me then. The lesson I think is one coffin does not fit all, when you get to the end of your life which just might be today how would you have lived today differently .