A crumbless situation…

A few months ago I was staying over at a young couple’s place. Had to be there early in the morning and no way I was going to make it at 7am on a sunday morning 80KM away from where I stay.

I was given a biscuit/small cake of sorts. Now I am not sure if you are the same as me here, but I tend to be lazy with these things so I normally just pop the whole biscuit in my mouth. It has various benefits 1. I don’t have to keep lifting my arm, 2. Most importantly it affords you the ability to not create crumbs….

So yes it has its benefits, but the one major downside is that it certainly is not good social etiquette is it….

One cannot talk so easily or at all sometimes. As luck would have it, the guy’s wife asks me a question about a second after I pop the biscuit in. Really funny situation. Took me a minute or 2 to answer. The silence was rather ominous thinking back now it was rather funny.

But it got me thinking. We do that sometimes in life too. In order to get something done and not have mess, we take on more than we can handle. The result is usually we are rendered useless for that period. All you can do is focus on the situation you got yourself in. For lack of better words, we bite off more than we can chew.

The problem with crumbs…..means people have to clean up after. In life those crumbs are normally the effects of broken people. We need help, but we never like asking. There is always some sort of help needed, but we delude ourselves into thinking that we can do everything on our own.
I know this is a bit of a stretch trying to link eating a biscuit to life. But I am sure you would agree that sometimes we do bite off more than we can chew.

I never like crumbs on me, they always tend to fall in the places that creates the most uncomfortable experience. Therefore that and sticky hands I avoid like the plague.

What do you hate?

the Honest One

Please help me out here, I am considering moving to a hosted site, but this means that everyone would have to resubscribe (maybe not sure which way yet). Also it might mean that I will email the post links out each week so you would actually have to go the the post online to read it rather then the full post in an email.
There are multiple reason for possibly doing this, but ultimately if everyone does not like it I won’t do that. Also considering running them side by side.

You will be disappointed……

At some point in life we all deal with disappointment. It is inevitable. You will, there is no escaping it. I was thinking about it the other day and trying to analyse it and see if there is a way to reduce or eliminate the negative side (because that is what I do all day….try to avoid all the pain in life ha ha ha).

Anyway getting back to my point. the best part about disappointment is what we almost never focus on. The fact that in order to be disappointed you actually have to have a hope for something better than what occurred.
I think we all hope for something better (the intrinsic you I mean). We know deep down that this is not all there is.

Look I am not saying we should live in a bubble and in fairy land…..but life as we know it now is not what it is meant to be. So for now I think that element of being disappointed is always going to be around.

I guess its how you manage it or deal with the people around you that will determine the outcome of it.

But here are a few pointers to minimize the after effects :

– Most people think of themselves and therefore you will not be high on their list of considerations. Therefore assume that as a given and you will not be too disappointed when they fail your expectation of them. And people will fail you

– That said, we get most disappointed when our expectation of the outcome we forecast (in our heads of course) does not line up with the reality. Solution, try not to forecast….. Seems so simple to say, but it is possible. I am not saying be a pessimist (although its so much fun being one since I am a pro at it). I am saying when it comes to expecting from people, live in the moment and be surprised by the outcome.

– Stop expecting people to be what you not…..and yes this deserves some introspection.

– People assume many things about many things and you, so why would you expect people to “know you” if most people don’t bother find out the truth anyway.

So all this is doable when dealing with humans, but what about God. He is perfect and does not suffer our failings, yet more people are disappointed in God (even the ones that don’t necessarily believe He exists). And we think we have it tough.

I will only venture one suggestion (IMHO). Most people don’t really know Him. So its almost impossible to not be disappointed when you have no idea what to expect (since you do not know Him). Also God’s P.R. officers (christians) have largely done a terrible job of representing Him.

Most of what is presented today is not true of Him, so disappointment in God is rife and rather unfairly so. Its normal for people to be disappointed, that’s okay, but at least let it be because you know the real person and work through it.

Enough said for today.

the Honest One

The Minimalist

I am by no means a minimalist…..and I mean that in the broader sense of the word. If you looked at my life you would more likely see the phrase “Go Big or Go Home”, especially when related to my mistakes in life. Monumentalist is more likely what you could call me.

That said, there are areas where I do the bare minimum, it is with that sentiment in mind that I refer the phrase minimalist to. Not the current trend of less is more.

Minimalist – One who does the bare minimum in a particular area or overall (thehonestone’s dictionary)

Doing the bare minimum requires a certain type of thought process. When its towards yourself, its devaluing who you are and what you are capable of. When its towards work, well then it could simply be laziness or lack of passion. Are you a minimalist?

Do you do the bare minimum? Or do you push the edges and limits to create something new or different?

I would stretch that a bit and say that some people are minimalists when it comes to others. We do everything for ourselves, but we do the bare minimum for others. We have no issue spending thousands on ourselves, but when someone needs something, we start counting the coins. Minimalists…….

Are you one of those?

When it comes to careers, sometimes all we want is to get our foot in the door. The problem is sometimes we park there for decades….at the door, not venturing further or exploring.

When we look at our social lives, how often are we willing to meet new people? Do we stick to who we know? Are we minimalists in that regard?

I have fought my minimalist ways for most of my life. And good that I did that to. I shudder to think where I would have been if I just let it happen and done the bare minimum……

To end off today I would like to draw your attention to one thing that seems to be a problem here in South Africa. Our minimum wage.

I was chatting to someone over the weekend and he (a foreigner) was saying that his girlfriend was working as a cleaner and her salary was R1900($260 at the moment) a month. Now I ask you……Is that a livable wage for anyone? And they have children………

Anyway so this friend was telling me that the country that he is from, is at war at the moment. I did not find that really shocking because if you knew which country he is from, you would not be surprised at all. But they were not at war with other countries, the citizens are at war (the peaceful non violent type) with the authorities with regards to cost of living. And they are winning the war.

I was puzzled and curious, apparently it all started on facebook, with a group about the price of cottage cheese. Its a common item in the country and it had more than doubled in price. What a bunch of citizens did is protest via creating a facebook group. It went viral and soon the whole country was standing together. Amazing hey, needless to say their demands were met.

I was gob smacked and started saying it will never happen here. He said that he believed the same about his own country, yet they proved him wrong hey.

To cut it short and get to the point, on your right on this page is a facebook page about the minimum wage debacle. I think it should be at least R3000 ($410) per month. If you agree please like the page. You never know, we might get it done……….

DISCLAIMER
Although I am not advocating you work for the minimum wage, it is a good place to start and do for a while. I am simply saying that if you do find yourself there, at least you should be able to live…

thehonestone

Just For Fun