The gift of Failure….to wrestle with angels.

Jacob wrestles

  With Christmas just around the corner I thought it only befitting that I should write about gifts. Especially the ones we diminish when we scale life into what is good and what is bad. Good and bad are meaningless phrases that are more a about an archaic sense of morality then what may well be beneficial or unhealthy for us.  A couple of days ago I was starkly reminded of my failures during a heated discussion with my son.

The “revelation” was honest and direct and true. It made me stop and think about how I had arrived at the place I stand in today and what it has taken to get here and what that has meant for those around me Especially those that have journeyed with me with little choice as to whether they wanted to come along for the ride or not. 

  To live in a conscious world has been my mantra. To feel and explore all that I am and to be the man I want to be. The view from this lofty mountain top is one to be envied and I can see there is still a long way to go ahead of me. This however was one of those moments when I was brutally reminded of the valley that I had crawled out of and the people who came with me.

We are not islands in isolation. We cannot do what we do without that somehow affecting someone else. That someone is never the guy at the gas station pumping gas, or our work colleagues that may often see some of us but never all of who we are. 3 degrees (not 6 degrees, especially if you live in Auckland NZ.) of separation may well be true to total strangers and the intertwining wheels of inter relationship. But when it comes to personal growth some of that is always going to be at the cost of those we love the most. 

  It reminds me of a story of a time long ago, when a man named Jacob, wrestled with an angel..and in the course of this wrestling, his thigh was struck and from that point forward he walked with a limp. We all, at sometime wrestle with angels…though at the time it may seem like wrestling with Lucifer himself. One fight is set to destroy us, and the other to make us …though often we don’t see the difference. I  know I too walk with a limp and have wrestled with my Angels. That limp reminds me that I am human, that I am frail, that I am a work in progress and that my mountains are tempered by the valleys it took to get me there. 

  When you have wrestled with your Angel, and it has caused a limp in your walk, you begin to notice others that walk the same.You notice the language, tone and speech and intuitively understand without words spoken, the price they have also paid. Humility is a great and wondrous attribute and a great place to live and be. At the mountain top the air can be so thin, and we can become asphyxiated by the heights. That is of course until our journeymen; in ways that we never expect, remind us of the depth and darkness of the valley that we had come up from together. 

  I love to soar like an eagle, although on occasions I have crawled like a buzzard, feeding on the carcass of self-doubt and self loathing. I too am the product of someone else’s journey. I too am the journeyman of someone else’s walk through life and I too knew I had little choice in who those people were and how they walked the road that was laid out for them. Now as an adult I know better how difficult, and fraught with frustration that journey can be. In time my views have been tempered by the experience of “walking in those same shoes”. Humility comes from this and life gives it to us at every opportunity should we make the choice to accept and treasure this gift for what it is. Someone very dear to me reminds me often that it is not about outcomes. It is about the process and process is so important when understanding the gift of failure..  

So, this blog is dedicated to those who have long journeyed with me. To my ex-wife, I am glad we can now be friends and all the mistakes we made along the way have now become invaluable to who I am. To my 5 beautiful children who had little choice as to whether they wanted to come along for the ride or not. I am always and forever indebted to your love and forgiveness and for bearing with me through the valley years. You were the driving force for me to be a better man, a better dad and a better human being. Without your love now it would all have been in vain. I so value the times we have together and the fact that we can enjoy the view from the mountain…breathing in the clean air and enjoying just being there. Without you all that would have been impossible. 

  To my family, you each gave me a piece of the puzzle and made what seemed senseless make sense. You helped me shape what I have now because of your care ,courage and tenacity. My brother, my brother there is none like you, my older brother, you taught me that beauty is truly within and that my shame was exactly that. My shame. My sisters, I love you all so much for bringing balance into my life with your constant reminders of who I really am..and Mum and Dad the road has been long and hard but we have always managed to find a place to laugh along the way.. always giving people the benefit of a doubt. And not forgetting my new sister Erica..who taught me if you truely seek..then you will truely find. 

  There are others and you know who you are. And I love you for being you and for being there for me. 

  The gift of failure is exactly that; a gift. Though it maybe wrapped in a wrapping paper  or decorated with a ribbon not of our choice, if we embrace it, it can be a gift to treasure and one that can shape our future in ways we could never have imagined. We must move out of the valley of pain, disappointment, unforgiveness, blame and bitterness so as that valley becomes a path to the mountain top. Only we can do that for ourselves and only we can turn that around. This is our responsibility and our cup measured out. This was one of those moments when I just wanted to say thank you to those that came with me….and I thank you..from the bottom of my heart.

We are family..I got all my sisters and Me

.."we are family"...

I remember someone saying to me once “Friends are the family that we choose” and that’s so true. We have no choice in which we are born with and are born into. The family that we arrive in is given to us as a gift. Though I know for some that gift, was definitely a return to sender..address unknown..No such number no such phone (God I love Elvis songs!).

And just because we are born into a family, that doesn’t mean that we “choose” these people or individuals as people who we would love to be with because, there are a whole lot of people on this planet, that are “family”, but choose to remain strangers and distant for their own and some times very good reasons.

So what happens when, like friends that we choose, we also choose to have our family? Given that we don’t have a choice as to who they are, but we do have a choice as to whether we want to sustain a relationship with them. How powerful can that choice be, when not only are they biologically and relationally connected, you actually choose to also emotionally be connected to each other. That must be what Family really means. The overriding choice to be emotionally as well as biologically connected to other individuals in your world. Like I said some people and rightfully so choose not to have that emotional connection, despite the biological connection.

On Sunday night I had a phone call from a very nervous and anxious woman enquiring about the where a bouts of a gentleman who I call Father.. She had spent her whole life not knowing him and not knowing whether he had any other children. That was of course until last week when a comment in passing from her Mother, lead her on a 7 day whirlwind of discovery. Discovering that actually she did have three brothers from her Father to a different Mother yes, but brothers nonetheless. Diligently she garnished information and courageously she sent a message via my two sisters as to my where a bouts and my brothers.

After at first a little hesitation, I told my sister to get her to call me. My phone rang minutes later and unfortunately I missed the call as I was at work. So I took a little time and placed the call back. …Hello is (…………) there please……? What transpired for the next half hour is a phone call I will never forget. The voice at the other end proved to be a sister 4 months older than my older brother, and a woman who had grown up not knowing anything about us or our Father. We agreed to talk more the next day and in fact agreed to drive to where she was living and to meet up.

I packed the kids in the car after telling them this incredible story and spoke with my Sister and Mother about what had transpired. Everyone was a little nervous and anxious and so in the morning off we went. Despite a traffic ticket..thanks..guys..And continual road works, after a 2 and a half hour drive we were finally going to meet. She hoped out of her car and I saw her for the first time..God she looked liked my Father..I Jumped out of the car and hugged her and held her ..We stood there for a moment and I said. Hi Sis how are you? My heart was bursting…looking at her my eyes scanning this uncanny resemblance.

So off to her place we went and sat and talked and shared and laughed, and all the while inside me I couldn’t help but think of all the time that had already transpired and years we could never get back. 21st, weddings, births, and deaths, and just times and moments that we had missed out on.  How selfish it was of my father and her mother to conceal our identities for who knows what and what purpose this could have served. Regardless..We had now and would make up for times lost and be a part of each others family because that was clearly our choice.

How powerful that is. How deep and uncomplicated that choice can be. It just seemed so good to sit with each other. Afterwards we spoke and shared how we could just have sat on two chairs in the sun for hours and said very little..and just enjoy the being together. What a wonderful moment that was. A huge rush of emotion and connectivity. The day was great, and I got to meet, my niece and nephew and grand nieces and nephews.

The hardest part was leaving..after 40 years… It was hard to say the word goodbye. It just didnt seem right and the time had gone way too fast already. Plan as we did to meetup again and chat some more. We hugged in the drive and held each other for a while..Enjoying the time, the moment, that fact that we had both made a conscious choice to be “family” and to stay connected. To not only acknowledge the biological choice that we had no choice over, but to also acknowledge and foster an emotional connection and to build on that as often as we were able.

Family can be the source of much heart ache, and also much joy. I know that. A continual reminder of painful memories or those that we cherish and hold onto as taonga (treasure). When we take our first breath and come into this world, naked, vulnerable and without a sense of past and only present, we have little if any idea what it is that we have just dropped into. The people who were their already, the people who have gone, and those not too far in the distance. We have no choice around the parents that we are gifted and what they bring as children from there own families and with there own stories.

What we do have as Adults though, is the wonderful ability to choose. To choose whether we will be emotionally connected to these people we call family or not. Sometimes the choice to not connect is one we have to make and that’s the right decision for us at that time. We choose as to whether we spend time with them, give them our heart and space, and honor them in our thoughts and actions. Surely when the “Father of All” decided to create family this is what he had in mind. At its worst its the most destructive force known to mankind, a terror like no other that can leave scars that last a lifetime.. At its best something so strong, so rewarding, so nurturing and so wonderful..It is a small miracle that we could package that whole something into one word, and simply call it “family”. I always considered myself spolit with the three sisters I had already..now I have one more,all I can say is…Hey sis…welcome to the family!

The Devil Made me do it!

Why do they always blame ME?

The devil..is sitting by the side of the road..his cloven hoofed hands, pressed against his cheeks as he weeps tears..sobbing like a baby…In and amongst the sobbing I can hear him muttering to himself..”why me..Why me..it wasnt me..I ask him whats the matter?

With that he looks up with his sullen dark eyes and says..They blame me..for everything..like its my fault. Who I said alarmingly who’s blaming you? Humanity he exclaims!….everything is the devil made me do it , the devil made me do it…it was the devil..as he sobs again head down in his cloven hands..!!!

 Responsibility for the life we live and the decisions we make cannot be shifted off to someone or something else if we really are to know integrity and change for good. For r years the Devil and other entities like him have been the whipping post for our own lack of personal responsibility for the lives we live and ultimately end up with. It was the drugs, the alcohol, the wife, the kids, the mortgage, the …whatever it may be that made me do it.

 Not that anyone ever really believes you..as it is only yourself that you’re fooling , and there is no greater fool then the fool that deceives himself. With it being White Ribbon Day yesterday globally I guess it’s pertinent to discuss the issue of personal responsibility as often the excuse around this sort of violence is very much about putting the blame on someone or something else. Violence against Women is not OK. In fact violence against anyone isn’t that fantastic. And yes we live in a world stupefied with violence. Unbelievable the growth of cage fighting, UFC and MMA. The fact that these bare knuckle dust ups now have global cult followings is incredible to say the least. Our national sport is violent, we grow up playing a violent game, the Haka is violent, in its challenge and in essence what it is trying to provoke and what it precedes is 80 minutes of controlled violence between 30 men.

 I have played violent sport all my life and still do. The whole country came to a stand still when David Tua violently knocked the bejesus out of Shane Cameron and we all applauded and talked about his two rounds of ignominy for weeks afterwards. The world stage applauds and worships the likes of Muhammad Ali, Joe Frasier and in New Zealand Richie McCaw, Rodney So’ioalo’ and Maa Nonu. These men live and make their living being violent to other men. SO where do we draw the distinction between what is and isnt violence we find tolerable and acceptable.

 Obviously violence against the weak, the poor, the helpless, children and women. And Men? Well I’m not so sure about that. Maybe deep in our western psyche as we are bombarded with men committing acceptable violence on each other daily, through TV, sports and media. We have become so accustomed to violence against men, and maybe desensitized to its impact on the male species. Strange as it may seem, part of us doesn’t want men to be violent and yet there is a part that feeds of this diet of violence that men are capable of committing against one another. Working in security for a long time it’s not been unusual to be asked to be calm, cordial and friendly..but should merry hell brake loose to be able to beat the living daylights out of any would be attacker. This dichotomy of expectation almost seems to me an expedient view on violence. Where necessary and where practical do what I do, not want you to do…but should it require it do what you know you can do and with the greates efficiency.

 Is it that we don’t want the devil on our side, or that when push comes to shove and should we find our backs up against the wall we definitely want the devil in our corner. I know for a certainty that should I ever be in a position where I am about to be assaulted by a group of guys, I definitely want the kind of help that wont be sitting there telling me how violence is wrong and that I need to count to ten as I am getting my ass kicked. And I doubt that anyone else would want for the same.

 SO I guess it’s just a consideration, that yes, whether we want to accept it or not, violence and especially violence committed by men against other men is socially acceptable. In fact we flock to it, pay for it and as a country drown in a miserable heap when Frenchmen do violence against Kiwi men on the rugby field. Violence has a place in our western world. The devil didn’t make us do it because the reality is we as a society have been doing it since the Olympics. War is the ultimate violence whereby we have condoned mechanized and industrialized our ability to commit violence on a global scale like never seen before. How efficently violent we have become.

 White ribbon day says..It’s not OK to commit violence against women. And that’s true. Violence may well belong and be condoned on the rugby fields, in the boxing ring, and in the field of battle. But it is NOT Ok to commit violence in the home. It is never Ok to bring the battlefield into the home, or the boxing ring, or the rugby field. Violence may have its place..but its place is not with those we love the most.

LUV is more then a word..Its 4 WORDS

I eros you sooooo MUCH!

What have we done in this western world of ours. Sometimes I wonder whether we have fallen in love with love, and romanticized romance so much so that we have woven a web so deep and so thick …will we ever find our way out of it. Or do we want to. Love is a strange and funny word, and for us that speak english..or at least the Kiwi version of it mate! We are stuck with one word that encompasses so many people, situations and contexts it hardly does it service.

Have we cursed ourselves in the west by adding the “Romeo and juliet: effect to our view of love and being in love. The tragedy for us that do is Romeo and Juliet was exactly that..a tragedy…thyat ended in suicide and love lost. Yet their effect on the Western Psyche and William Shakespeare Pen with regard to our view of Love has definitely been and indelible one.

“My only love sprung from my only hate! Too early seen unknown, and known too late! Prodigious birth of love it is to me that I must love a loathed enemy” – Romeo et Juliet

How and why did we take from the Greeks most everything, Democracy, Olympics, Medicine, Philosophy, and yet when it came to translating one of the most powerful feelings in our capacity we choose or at least someone did to bundle it all up into one word…LOVE. Four nondescript letters that have caused more pain, suffering, wars heartache, joy and wonder then any other word given to us. The Greeks in all their wisdom had four distinct words for Love as they in all their wisdom knew it could not be constrained or expressed in one word alone.

First there was in Greek the word AGAPE -Ah gar pay-This is that unconditional love that we often leave to the Gods to love for as humans we often find it hard to know or be this kind of loving. It’s the kind of lov that is selfless, sacrificing ad in every way puts the other first. definitely not human love for sure. There are the few that have crossed over and known this for themselves..they are the Mother Theresa’s of this world who set an example for us all to attain to our at least admire from a distance.

The there is our friend EROS – one we know all too well. The erotic sensual, pleasure based love that has destroyed and enticed many a good man and woman . Little more needs be said about this subject other than I guess, if thats all that is present then that definitely wont last the distance.

Of course we could not talk about love without talking about PHILIA - This is the brotherly love we feel for people who may not be bound be kinship but we love then just the same. Philadelphia is the city of brotherly love. Shame…someone should have told them that..its murder rate is phenomenal.

Then there is STORGE – The love we feel for family..the love that says, sure, borrow my clothes and never return them because your my brother..or sure…you borrow my money crash my car and eat me out of house and home but you are my son!!!! Kinship love is the love we feel for family and for kin.

So where are we , now that we have more words to frame and compartmentalise our love for each other. Is it an eros love or an agape love. An unconditional love that will last the test of time or are we just Philia..just frinds and you love me more as a close friend. You see with more words at our disposal it becomes clear that we are better able to let others now what it is exactly we really are feeling.

So..the next time someone says they LOVE you..ask them this…IS it Agape, Eros, Phillia or Storge kinda loving because f its anything but Agape..you can keep it and give it to some other fool!!! Actually dont say that..but at the very least keep in mind that Love is a many varied and wonderful feeling…Sometimes I sit at the mall and people watch..its funny you see people together that might as well be apart. No contact, touching or holding, sitting at a table eating their dinner the other totally oblivious that the other is there..and then you get the two who can’t seem to get enough of each other..so embraced..one cant see where one starts and the other finishes. Young silly love…or maybe the older couple hands embraced walking through the mall, at different times catching each others eye and smiling..a knowing that they are together and happy.

Truth be told people are together for a whole raft or reasons. We cannot assume that Love is the reason why. People are together out of duty, because of children, because of others expectations, or maybe they dont yet know why. Love is only one reason why they could be..and yet when it is LOVE it stands out..like a red rag on a blanket of snow. There is much debate about the virtue of arranged marriages as opposed to marriages born out of love or romance. And I guess arranged marriages will always last longer because of the way they are constructed. Being with someone because you love them is argued as fickle and trite because love is a feeling, an emotion and not something to base a life on. Sure..that may well be true, but when you add a touch of AGAPE, a sprinkle of PHILIA, a dash of EROS and a pinch of STORGE you may well be onto a winning formula.

And hey what do I know….I think Ive just been on my own too long

The Good Bad and Fugly!

Some of my best friends are white people..

I do remember saying it but not so much who was there at the time. Sometimes words drop out of our mouths and say more about the condition of our soul more than we would like to know or mention. “I forgive him…I will just never forget what happened”!..was my outburst.

And in that moment realised I had a problem. And that problem was simply how I felt did not much what I expected or maybe even others expected of myself. Forgiveness is in essence confronting, dealing with the pain and leaving something behind and starting again. If I choose to neve forget that pain..I have not forgiven because Im am fixed at the pain and not moved on to the restitution and freedom on the other side.

My understanding of the Maori term “utu” is that it is not so much about revenge, and more about bringing balance to a situation. Well my choosing to not forget was weighing heavily against me as the unbalance was not in my favour.

Isnt the mouth just the funniest thing sometimes. Words just jump out of it and get us into all sorts of bother. Or at least they have the potential to. Ask MP Hone Harawira…I guess i can be thankful I didnt say what I said on National Radio or Tv or in an email ..but to exclaim as he did about ..”white motherf…ers” of “puritanical bullshit” for expecting him to follow the rules”…then he really has said more then he intended and more about his views and where he sits then maybe he could have ever realised. I have not wanted to wade into this debate as it has been savaged by most blogs and news reporters already. That some in the Maori community identify with what he said and his sentiment…is little different to those that identified with Don Brashs ”Orewa” speech on Maori separatism and the debate that continued after that. Extremists polarize peoples views, and want to create camps of allegiance..No thanks…not for me at the moment I like where I sit and the view from here.

I am more concerned about the “issue of Hones heart”… Issue as in what flows out of it..like mine and like anyone elses, or maybe just mine. I guess if I were ever to  keep a register of whats going on inside me then this really would be a good for me to know. I wonder sometimes, if unlike Hone, or anyone else for that matter..If we really had the opportunity to say what was really on our heart..and not on our mind, because we all know its censored and filtered by the time that it comes out…what we would say to each other and what we would really discover about ourselves. What really flows from our inner well-spring and what we feel or think ,though we would never really disclose.

Life is so good at bringing these things to the surface. Ultimately we cannot be anything but ourselves,

even if it is the guy who hates asian drivers, but only when driving, or Maori neighbours, but only when they have a party, or White MO Fos..but only in an email! This is not a discussion about race or racism , more about what we feel and how we think and being connected to that and real about that, if not with anyone but ourselves. Surely when someone came up with the word integrity this was what they were thinking about or had in mind.

It reminds me of a movie we saw as kids. Mum and Dad taking us to the local cinema to see..”A Man Called Horse”

Blemish bruise or bumps....

and ..”The Good the Bad and the Ugly”..not only a classic 70s Spaghetti Western but also a good title for what we are about. Integrity..its a word we whisper more then shout nowadays. SO much is done in the name of pragmatism is it any wonder integrity has been ousted out of the english language. I am a part of that..a part of that pragmatist so this is by no means me standing on a pedestal. As I have said before..pedestals are only good for falling off . Tuco from the Movie The Good the Bad and the Ugly sums it up like this…

“I like big fat men like you. When they fall they make more noise.”

So I have avowed not to stand on one no matter how good the view from up there. Integrity is not grandstanding about what is right and wrong for others, surely its about keeping short accounts with oneself and ensuring that I am connected as much as is possible to the many layers that make me a person. .my Good, my Bad and my Ugly. Integrity is looking in the mirror and noticing the blemish as well as the bruise as well as that part of us we really admire and that which we dont. The blemish; something defective we were born with and had little choice over, the bruise something someone did to us and its effect in our lives, and then theres that which we like others to see and admire and cultivate as a visible part of who we are and that we dont.

Life has the last laugh..yesterday I took my daughter and my other (not family but is considered family) daughter out for breakfast or lunch as it was closer to mid day sometime. We were at the lights and she said to me ” Dad what does that bumper sticker mean”?..I looked closely at the car and it read

Live your life as a preacher..that way when it comes to your funeral you wont have to lie!”

I explained to her that what it meant was..if you live your life as a preacher..a life of a priest close to God and holy then when it comes to your funeral you wont have to get people to lie about how good or what a great person you were. reality is most priests or preachers I have come across were bloody shockers and I wouldnt emulate their life if my soul depended on it. Truth be told..it should have read….

“Live your life as YOU..then people wont have to lie at your funeral.”

Good Bad or Ugly at least you can say it was YOU all along and not someone else…surely thats integrity.

Trifle Anyone..

Love is like Trifle...

Sometimes I sit in my room staring out over the city lights and wonder whether thinking is all its cranked up to be,. Sometimes I think, I just think too much and live in this head of mine having conversations with the me inside, like some old lunatic sitting on a park bench watching the world go by. Layers of thinking and feeling then thinking again..wondering also how to appropriate all this stuff inside me.

It reminds me of being a kid and eating my mum’s trifle First the cream, then the sponge cake..ahh the fruit salad..with the cherries promptly eaten before hand by my younger brother..and then the jelly..all sort of mixed up..and all sort of layered.

Like relationships in our lives. The many varied layers that they are all sort of mixed up and all sort of not. Meeting people as an adult as opposed to a young adult, as opposed to a teen-ager is so much more fun. You no more mind read or even attempt at guessing what people are thinking. You say what you think and feel ,and most importantly..you say what it is you want. Mostly. Or at least eventually..which has got to be better than not at all.

What a wonderful trifle it is meeting people later on in life. You tolerate fools less so they soon disappear, you put up with bullshit a whole lot less ,and games generally are kept to a minimum. I do so enjoy this trifle so much better then the one I had. Lots of cream but little filling, and what lay beneath that layer of cream..oh what a surprise.

I don’t like surprises..Well not those ones anyways. Who would trade what we can have as adults for the mock cream and soufflé we had as teenagers. Or even as young adults. Life is so much better on the surface..as opposed to being submerged under the weight of emotion and insecurity..the plagues of adolescence that some seem to find no remedy for.

Love, life, people are like a great trifle..life is like a trifle..why do I equate this with food..I think it’s the good feelings I had around trifle as a kid..Trifle meant being together as a big family; extended is a construct other people understand. I understand family as cousin’s uncles and aunts, grandparents and friends..Love is like a trifle…hmmm doesn’t quite have the poetry that Shakespeare could have penned. I wonder if trifles were around if Shakespeare would have used such an analogy

Romeo and Juliet:

“My only love sprung from my only trifle! 
Too early seen unknown, and known too late! Prodigious birth of love it is to me
that I must love a loathed trifle”

No doesn’t quite fit the picture…  and yet life and love and relationships are so much like a beloved trifle. The layers we bring, the layers the other brings. The expectant layers, the unrequited layers, the layers hard from life’s unmercilessness, and those soft by its tender and loving warmth.

In this trifle we call life,  these layers represent our relationships and connectedness to people and ”People matter..Can I spend a part of my day, thinking about how I can make someone else important..a way in which I can make them feel they are special and show them..because this really is the measure that they matter. Love in action is love realised..I know for me I enjoy love actioned..it jumps of the page of emotion and like the little wooden boy “Pinocchio” becomes real.

Love Is an action it is a verb and more than just an adjective… lets not trifle ( haha no pun intended) our opportunity to do something for someone today and make them special. For sometimes our needs are best met when doing something for someone else. Sometimes what we need for ourselves is found in the doing and giving for others, and in ways that we have not realised yet. Navel gazing is good, it’s looking at the lifeline from whence I came… there are also times we need to look up and out..because what we will receive inside from another in return, may well be the remedy we have been looking for our own ailment all along.

“There is no greater love..then you lay down your life for a friend”

Mother….Im Home!

Mother..What have you done?

In the 1960s Horror classic Pyscho….Good old Norman Bates really does give a whole raft of reasons as to why its good for a man to leave him and not live with his Mother into his 30’s or 40’s. Apart from the fact that it can turn you into a homicidal maniac pretending you are your Mother and having strange discussions with your delusional self. It’s actually not that cool. (I do hope cool is still a word).

Reading other blogs..as you do as one floats around the “blogosphere” (how corny I know) and came across this little gem. I would like to thank Teresa Silverthorn for her article on Why Men live with their Mothers..as I belive that article was given by the gods for me… After querying a number of her friends she compiles a short list of top ten reasons as to Why Men still live with their Mothers.

If this is you then shame on your sorry Ass. You should gather up the little dignity that you have left, put it into where coins would normally be in your wallet. And get your lazy sorry life out into the street and get a life.That any man in his 30’s or 40’s for that matter would be still living with his Mother is just diabolical..well to me anyways. So here is her top ten reasons as to why, and in response I have listed ten bloody good reason why one would NOT want to be living with their Mother in their 30’s or 40’s. FFS grow up and grow some!

Ten reasons why MEN live with their Mother at 30 or 40.

1. Men see little reason to get a job, if they don’t have to pay rent.

2. If these men do have a job, they can purchase sports cars, and various other luxury items, because they have no debt.

3. Men can have a sex-free relationship with a woman, and still get one home-cooked meal a day.  And, if they’re lucky, their laundry is always done.

4. Mothers can have a sex-free relationship with a man, and still have companionship.

5. Men can date other women, and never worry that his mother will be jealous.  He can spend the night with whomever he pleases, and always be welcomed back the next morning.

6. Mothers, whose relationship with their husbands have dissolved; still have a man around the house to do home repairs.

7. Men don’t have to marry and relinquish their independence, nor be burdened by children.

8. Any inheritance that would have been shared with a daughter in-law can now be shared by the mother, and son.

9. If the man has already married, and divorced, he can live with his mother and reserve his financial resources.

10. Men can care for their mothers until death, and gain financial security by simply taking over the home after her demise.

Ten reasons not to live with your Mother at 30 or 40

1. Im 40! And I guess it’s a time when I don’t expect to be living with my Mother.

2. She may be the queen in my life, but I’m looking for my princess

3. I love being independent not dependant.

4. That’s what my Dads for. To keep her company.

5. That’s what my mum’s second husband is for. So she can boss him around.

6. I clean, cook, iron and make my own bed..so what’s the point.

7. I thought eighteen years was about all we both could handle.

8. At 2am it’s a little hard to explain..when bringing a “friend” home.

9. My Mum is also a person with her own life and doesn’t need me hanging around.

10. I don’t know why..but I just feel like everyone thinks Im a LOSER.

Is it any wonder some women complain that there is a shortage of MEN out there who havent yet cut the apron strings

Get OUT..your 30 years old!!!

 and left home to build a life for themselves.  And yes that also includes those guys that though they have left home are still dragging those extended apron strings across the city and into their relationships… Youve left home..but still the ties and bond is too strong for any other relationship to even come close..and who needs competition in a relationship when its an unhappy threesome..and not the tranquil two some that people out there enjoy. To all the “Normans” out there. Its time to leave poor Mother behind. But thats just my opinion

Meet Jill Black!

I wonder if death served up as Angelina,

Hi....Im Jill...Shall we Dance?

back in 1989 when Brad Pitt played Death in the Movie  ”Meet Joe Black” would have done so well. Can death be as alluring and mesmerizing in the body of a beautiful woman as much as that of a handsome man. Needless to say death will come to us all and when it does I doubt that it will look anything like Angelina or Brad Pitt for that matter.

And for most of us when it does come, we will not notice its rude and interrupted violation of our lives until it is much too late. Watching the movie tonight , it does arouse a number of very powerful emotions and looking at it again ten years later from when I saw it first it seems ever more so poignant.

Here I think is one of the memorable quotes from the movie…

” Love is passion, obsession, someone you can’t live without. If you don’t start with that, what are you going to end up with? Fall head over heels. I say find someone you can love like crazy and who’ll love you the same way back. And how do you find him? Forget your head and listen to your heart. I’m not hearing any heart. Run the risk, if you get hurt, you’ll come back. Because, the truth is there is no sense living your life without this? To make the journey and not fall deeply in love – well, you haven’t lived a life at all. You have to try. Because if you haven’t tried, you haven’t lived.”

I wonder how many of us went to bed tonight, whether married or not single or in a relationship it really does not matter..And we have not yet lived. We still have not made the journey and fallen deeply in love with someone or something. And I don’t mean a thing like a car or a house or a pair of golf clubs..I mean a cause, a passion..Yes a passion that we believe deeply in feel passionately for and devote our lives to. I don’t really care what…more that we have at some stage in our lives reached beyond the grey populist world and into a world of color and depth and meaning. Of feeling and vibrancy measured not by dollars and cents but by passion and sense

Say hi to Joe..or Jill

You see that’s what strikes me most when I watch this movie and especially around this quote…Because if you haven’t tried you haven’t lived. Because if you haven’t done what your heart and not just what your head desires then you are dead already. ..You exist, you breathe but there is no breath, you have a thought but there is little thinking, and you have an urge put it is not a passion. And I keep saying the word passion because its a word we hear very little of. ..What do you feel passionately about? What consumes you secretly in a way that it turns your world upside own, if only you would let it?

Vigor, vitality, these are living words. When was the last time you were able to say that you did something with vigor or vitality..To quote again from the movie Meet Joe Black..

” that you would have a life as lucky as mine, where you can wake up one morning and say, “I don’t want anything more.”

Is this the life we live? Is it a life where by we can say, that is has been so full, and so good that I want for nothing more. I have loved like I have always wanted to. Danced like there is no tomorrow, Said the words that need to be said to the people that matter…spent time with those I have neglected..Forgiven those that have offended me and asked forgiveness and made restitution for those that I have hurt..Each and every day surely this must play some part in the ritual that we call a day. God I am sick to death of the word busy coming out of my mouth. Busy? Busy doing what.. Maintaining the grey in my world so no color cloud ever escape and expose the true dullness that it is or could be.

Busy, busy busy, busy Auckland

Busy is bullshit…That’s what it is..its head in the sand stuff..its not living just existing stuff..We should have no time for busy and should not placate to its sedative kind of living. Turn the bloody TV off and talk to someone. Call a friend up and make a time to meet ,to connect to be connected. If ever there was a time that we as people needed to ensure our connectedness with significant others it is now.

In this virtual age, of which funnily enough this medium can be one…the only reality we seem to digest and by the bucket load, is rubbish they serve us called reality TV. But it’s not real…its edited and cut and produced for mass production. It’s a misnomer to call it reality TV because it’s just a have.

One day and I don’t know when, though the later the better I will have my date with Jill Black. She will call me to her side and we will dance a final dance, and speak a final word and we shall depart together. That and taxes apparently in life area the only certainties. The only other certainty is that in a moment in time I will take stock of my life as it whizzes past my eyes from start to finish, every piece like a page in a cartoon penned in the corner of a book. Flickering past as I watch it being played out.

I wonder how many have gone before me and at that moment ,hoped this was just the intermission…that somehow this was only the first half and here was still another half to play. If Death had meaning, then that meaning would be realized at that moment..When you realize this is not the intermission..This is the end. Death is a life not lived, an opportunity squandered, thats what death really means and we walk past, work with and speak to dead people everyday. They just dont know it yet.

DO SOMETHING! For gods sake do what you’ve always wanted, always hoped for, always dreamed, always desired, always romanced about. Love your kids like there is no tomorrow, call those that have always been there for you and build bridges and pathways for those in your world so as the connective strands can be made stronger and more real. Surely this is what we call living. I know I have been “busy” for a long time. Busy busy busy…and another day goes by and another day closer to meeting Joe or Jill Black. Come on lets live a little…I Dare Ya!

Who’s in your Pond?

Me and my brother..no pond just a hose!

I remember clearly one day when we were kids…we had some new neighbours who had only just arrived in New Zealand from the Pacific..As new migrants I guess it took a little time to understand and make the change, that they were now in a very mixed New Zealand setting instead of the one back in their own home land.

 Anyway, we were coming home from our usual Sunday with family at my Grandmothers, as we were driving down our street into our drive we noticed the new neighbours were out on the street riding bikes..not just any bikes..they were mine and my brothers bikes!!…Im not too sure what had happened previously but it would seem that this was quite an ok thing to do from where they had come from, and after a short rather awkward conversation..the bikes were happily returned.

A few weeks later..I remember being at the window of our kitchen washing the dishes, and I saw one of our new neighbours walking past on the street. He was dressed rather dapper, in some very trendy looking houndstooth check pants..the only reason I recognised them..was because they were my brothers..as was the shirt he was wearing..I remember yelling out to my brother..hey man..the bloody neighbours have got you clothes on..which explained why they had gone missing from the line a few days earlier….once again it was a short conversation about how we actually dont do that here..and the clothes were happily returned.

This incident was not so much malice, as much as it was just a learning that whats your is not always whats mine and making that transition when in a new country. We laugh about it now..and laughed about it at the time, and it was not only a lesson in different values, but also one where despite the fact these things had transpired, we were neighbours and had to live together so we had to try and make it work..Sounds a bit like a bad marriage!!

Neighbours, family ..we have little choice as to who we are born into and who we live next to. I heard someone say once..though I could have just said I made it up…”friends are the family we choose”..Friends and people in our inner circle, are the people who we consciously choosen to be in our lives for a whole raft of reasons. When your young, your friends are many and the pack seems to rule the day especially for those of us that stand for number ones.

As life goes on your friends diminish, and then one day you find from the pack, to the team, to the small hand full to the number you can count on one hand; your friends are the faithful few. For my own reasons life is equated a lot along the lines of  game of rugby, though that game could just about be anything. I wonder sometimes when the final whistle blows for me, how many will be in the stands cheering and clapping or sad at my departure…hopefully my kids and my grand kids, a few friends ; a significant other.

I remember working as an orderly a year out from University studies, and me and another orderly used to visit this old woman who was struck with a stroke..hardly anyone visited her or spoke with her..and it was our job to move her in the mornings and in the evenings..such was the vulnerability I sensed in her eyes, despite her body unable to move…I felt the need to forge a relationship with her that lasted the year I worked there. I always wondered where was her family and significant people she was connected to. We would sit with her and talk, and she would endeavour to acknowledge our being ther, quietly eating our lunch as we would talk about family friends, and life outside the hospital walls.

I guess today ,I am asking myself why certain people are in my world and why others arent. It’s important I think to acknowledge the people who are in your inner circle , and to let them know why they are there and what makes them special. To question the health of that relationship, what it contributes, or detracts and if it is a negative in your life ….what the hell they are doing there in the first place? If it is a positive, how can I nourish and service this relationship to keep it healthy and vibrant.

Making conscious decisions around this can bring change that is far-reaching, and adding and removing people from your inner circle also build ones own sense of personal power, and growth. Power is a funny word, and it really is only used here in a context where it’s about what we allow and what we dont through our personal gates.

People pop in and out of our busy lives, some for a long time, some for a short time and some you wished the stay was

Oi..what are you doing in my Pond?

longer.Others you wished there stay was very brief. I guess the puzzle is, when you have people who continuously treat you badly and yet you keep them in your inner circle.. Or..those that love you and treat you with kindness that you keep out.  That just begs the question..as to WHY? We must learn to be a friend to oursleves and love ourselves, if we are ever to  be a friend or love another. A friend from another blog, that I read most days called “enriched living” asked me this question just last week..” who’s been swimming in your pond? “ …and  I think thats a good question to ask from time to time…! So I did!

Pimp my Mind

my heart..my soul

If you ever have the time and most of us don’t, to watch a couple of hours of TV, apart from being bombarded with commercials for everything conceivable, and noticed the endless array of Shows and real-life dramas that revolve around the central theme of getting a Make over. There are so many shows on at the moment I can hardly keep up with them. Make over houses, make over grannies, make over mums, and make over make overs..It just seems like an endless outpouring of make over shows.

 We all are sold on many of the ideals around looking good..from the outside anyways. You should see all my shoes….it would make a woman cry! Dr Dorfman form 90210 can make you look like a million dollars..one has to wonder though if you started out feeling more like a fifty cent (not..50cent), then how long would it take for the million dollar make over to stop reflecting the fifty cent that you really feel? I have always wanted to see how these make over people are two or three years down the track. Maybe Mr. Hubby was ok with his dowdy wife..But now she looks more like a woman from Wisteria Lane, I wonder how the dynamics will have changed in the relationship and whether it can survive such a drastic outward overhaul. Maybe when Mr. Boring gets his Dorfman teeth and face lift, his partner of 20 years may now not be so keen and eager to let him out at night with his mates..one has to wonder..Well at least I do, as to what it is that s really unleashed when you do so much work on the outside yet the inside remains the same.

 Mind, Souls Heart, whatever you call it, can become the neglected muscle or little toe nail of the person that we are. You see the little toe nail, is probably the least admired, looked at seen, combed, stroked, brushed, lamented or thought about part of ones body. I cant remember the last time I got intimate up close and personal with my little toe nail..except for onetime it popped out of a little hole in my sock..”Oh..there you are?” For me it really is an appendage from another body. So it is with our inside, the real us..The bit that really counts, that really lasts and that really makes an impression. That really needs to be loved, cared for and nurtured. And yet can be so neglected, ill treated and left out in the cold.

When I haven’t spent time with myself and get caught up in the business of life..I start to feel like an imposter, a phony, someone that is merely existing and not living…I think about the many years have I labored to pull back the layers laid over time, layers that were put on by me to protect me that only became layers that imprisoned. Why did I live like someone pursued and chased, when now that  was not the case…I am an adult, I am grown up and yet I remember so clearly, years ago seeing the little boy inside me that need to be nurtured and wanted to grow up. Wanted to be a grown up..To get out from the protection that had now become a cocoon and become a man. It’s a scary thing to still ones world, to shut it out and listen to what your heart wants to say…because it might just tell you what you don’t want to hear or what youve wanted to hear all along.

What a painful and tumultuous next few years lay before me. Facing some of my greatest fears, forgiving those; once I understood that we all are victims and that unforgiveness was torturing me. Nurturing finally the things that I liked, hearing my voice for the first time in a long time and saying what I liked and what I wanted. This was no crisis, this was a challenge that I walked through each and every day…living not existing, feeling not numb and conscious, not submerged in a world of pain and negative emotion. So this is what its like to stand in the Sun and really enjoy the moment..God it was like being thrown on the tracks in front of train and having to very quickly learn to get off.

I couldn’t do it on my own and I so love the very few that walked with me during that very painful time and loved me through it. You know who you are and what you mean to me..My family took on a whole new meaning during this time, as they gave me pieces to the puzzle that I did not have..For only they had journeyed with me and could make some sense of where we had been and what we had been through. I realized that to go forward and live I must in some ways go backward..for if I could not  understand my journey and where I had come from, then how could I ever make sense of where I was going and what the future would be for me.

my mid life crisis

Talk about baggage. I think I qualified as someone carrying luggage and lots of it..Still, I smiled through it all but inside the pain was getting worse and worse..What a burden when I was able to confront and remove some of this luggage. Some put on me, some put on by myself and some I really didnt know how it had got there …god its so good to travel lighter..now it’s more like hand luggage. Carry on only and definitely under 20kgs…my bery own ManBag. Best of all I know more of what’s in the hand luggage so when it pops out I also know how better to deal with it. Living in a conscious, spiritual world for me is such a bonus. Learning to spend time with oneself has been a huge learning curve and to be ok when alone has also taken some getting used to. I enjoyed the crowd because the noise would shutout the cries from inside me..and sure..my to do list is still full, but I am a work in progress and I am going somewhere.

One thing I loved about working with kids and young adults for 14 years was there ability to smell a phony a mile away. To spot an imposter and say it like it is. Today’s blog is defintly a double check as to where I have been, where I am up to and how much further I have got to go. Pimp my mind, do an overhaul and a makeover on the me that really counts, then the outward make over will be congruent with all of who I am..not running ahead while the real me tries to catch up. Today is where I am today. Today is about taking more small steps to where I really want to be. A real and honest ME, happy, satisfied, whole, in touch and kick ass me that despite it all remains smiling. from the inside out.In the words of my man Xzibit…….Ive been “pimped”..