Things I Learnt the Hard Way

Many times My grandfather would tell me, “Listen to me so you do not need to learn with your own skin”. I understood this so I absorbed a lot from him (I wish my kids would do the same). I was still a painful child that got up to Young and Dumb. However, with respect for my parent and grandfather, I never broke the law or did anything to another that would cause them to notice me. I was still used by those that I thought were friends. and I did come to peer pressure. But hay, wisdom does come with bruises. I was so talking to all of you young people out there. As a child all the way to my mid-20s when my Grandfather died, I spent a lot of time with him. I received a lot of Memos for life from him. As a man who served the holocaust, he would not talk much about the war, but he did talk about hard lessons that he had learnt along the way. Now that I am much older I can see a more well-rounded vision of what my grandfather was talking about. In my early years, I could only see a superficial understanding, but now I see those words of wisdom main flesh in others who have not heard or learnt of such wisdom. In my youth is was only education, now it is wisdom.

I see some of the youth of today starving for such words of wisdom and looking for it on YouTube, not seeing that some are just leading them further astray. I can see that with the lack of good role models people like Jorden Peterson and Tristan Tate as so popular. The former I do like, however the latter, I find unpalatable. Like I tell some of my clients in counselling sessions, just as we have a diet for our body to help it function at its best, we must also have a diet for the mind so that too can function at its full potential.

Why oh Why can you not treat your parents and your grandparents as a source of hints and tips in life? They will tell you that there are rules that you need to follow, some you can break and hope you don’t get found out. Other times you just need to stick to the rules. You cannot bend reality and get away with it. it will bounce back and hit you in the face, and hard. We start off with a vision of what we would like our life to look like. We work hard to make that vision a reality. Then soon enough it is a reality. But then temptation comes knocking on your door to take a break from your current reality. When we act on that temptation we are bending reality. That affair at work, the casual use of drugs, or even that adventurous holiday that goes wrong, or you just make a snap decision that demands the attention of the police. we are bending reality, thinking that we can slip back into our old life without consequence. Oh but how wrong are we?

We sometimes wish that after we have bent reality, that we can just slide back into our life as if nothing has happened. However, people have memories, organisations and institutions keep records, and based on these forms of records of the past, we will never fit back into the reality that we once called home. We have a short time drinking, cheating, stealing, sleeping around or getting wasted, or the lot, then expect to fall back into your life without consequences? There are times that you can twist reality a bit, and test fall right back with all as it was. this can happen with a major celebration. but if we push the envelope and fly too close to the sun, we will be burnt. not your limitations, and know the boundaries of those around you. If you wish to have your reality stable, do not go beyond those limitations and boundaries.

People often complain that life is painful, hard, and difficult to endure. While all along they are walking with their shoes full of pebbles and small sharp rocks, that they have placed there themselves. Each rock, pebble and stone is a time that reality has been twisted and you did not stop to untwist it so that you can move on with greater wisdom. And yes at times shit does just happen. but we navigate and use the obstacle to our best advantage and come out the other side as a master of your self.

If we do not look at others as a source of learning and want to do or what not to do, we will feel it with our skin the pain and suffering of bending reality and have it fling back and hut us right between the eyes. We can look at others and see where they are and understand how they got there. why would you choose the same path?

I work as a D&A Therapist, I ask people why they use it. it is usually to run away from something, commonly the thoughts in their head, or to make a good time better. They tell me of people that they know who have overdosed and had their lives turned out by drugs, yet they still stay on that same path, when they know where that path leads. It is hard to make the blind see when they do not want to see, you can lead the house to water but you cannot make it drink. It’s all the same, the hero will find the mentor only when the hero is ready.