rethink PERFECT

I think love/relationships is all about treating each other carefully and being especially careful about our reactions. Using Created Understandings or more commonly called “agreements” to assist in this process.

Preparing for the failure or lack of perfection during this process is imperative and
so creating our first understanding, around an apology process, is a good idea.

I suggest using a 3 step apology process where we state:

1. What we did
2. Why we did it, and
3. What we would do next time

But you might have a better understanding to suggest?

I would go without food for a thought.

Talk a lot and make it up as you go along………..

Why try to understand each other? Probably a question you have never asked yourself.
A lot seems to be written about understanding ourselves and each other but for what reason? I say it is far more important to “create an understanding” between us rather than simply understanding ourselves and others.

Once I understand you and you understand me, we then seem to set about trying to change the other to suit ourselves. But what if we dedicated more of our energies into creating an understanding between us rather than to just understand each other?

I think that is what I have been doing for most of my adult life or striving to but missing the mark considerably as I believe most of us seem to be doing, because of this simple nuance.

So what does “create an understanding” mean. Simple. We strive at understanding each other and then strive even harder at creating an understanding or what I call an agreement on how we are going to proceed forward. The devil is in the detail of forming this agreement NOT in the observing and understanding of the problem.

It is this moving forward that seems to be missing in the idea of just trying to understand each other.

Now that this is clearer in my mind and I can then help you understand it (here), I believe we can start to build an understanding on how we will move forward, from this point, together. Let’s try.

PS Next post is on: How to Create an Understanding…Together.

The Drink & Drive Responsibly campaigns in Australia have been very successful, helping in part to reduce the road deaths by a whopping 1000%.
From: 43/100k vehicles in 1980 down to 4.5/100k in 2014

Possibly kicking off in Victoria, in the 1980’s, with the Transport Accident Commission TAC, the figures seem to speak for themselves.

List of motor vehicle deaths in Australia by year

I am now proposing a new campaign that could equally have dramatic results in all facets
of our lives, from personal relationships, business relationships and partnerships, domestic violence and even violent crimes. I call it the Anger Responsibly campaign.

Instead of focusing on the symptoms of anger, such as violent crime and domestic violence, I am suggesting we focus on anger and making us more responsible for our behaviour.

From helping us monitor our own response to external feedback, to ultimately giving responsible apologies for our anger when our anger is no longer responsible and is adversely affecting others and oneself.

Like drinking responsibly, we each can decide what that is for us with a lot of people simply opting not to drink at all when driving, some of us could deem that no level of anger is right for them. Personally, I like to get a little excited in a discussion or conversation but would have to ensure that the person that I was participating with was up for a little excitement also.

“Responsible Anger” can have many levels and ultimately it is up to us all to form agreements to what levels are okay for each of us. But like the drink driving laws, there is  an ultimate level that we all can agree has over stepped the mark to be irresponsible.
Forming agreements on such levels will be crucial for such a campaign.

For years I have been working on the details of the Anger Responsibly campaign and would love to help in its inception. Any takers…..?

It seems to me that we spend our lives in a constant state of participating in either our destiny or a delusion. So, how can we tell whether this is part of our destiny or our delusion? When we actively set out to prove our delusion, maybe.

Ask anyone that has been divorced, for example, and my bet is that they will tell us that they were living a lie or in a delusional state for some time before the split.
The same applies to running a startup business that fails, most of us are “…believing too long when the whole situation was wrong” Billy Joel – A Matter of Trust.

So what is going on here?

Well, I think we are here to continually test what state we are in. That is, are we in a delusional state of mind or simply following our destined path. It takes a lot of courage to expose our thinking to be delusional and most of us seem to pussy-foot-around the subject rather than take the risk of exposing our deluded state of mind.

“Seizing the moment”, to me means, taking the opportunity to expose our delusional state when the moment arises or as near to “now” as possible.

I don’t think that it is ever possible to actually disprove our delusion or prove our destiny but quite easy as an objective observer to prove a delusion. Not so easy to do so when we are the subject, however.

But here is where friends and family come in and the person/s of our deluded fantasy.
As the saying goes, we are our own worst enemy. Seeking outside advice and feedback, although not perfect, can help to expose our delusions. Conversation, with the right people, is the simplest way to expose our delusional state of mind, in my view.

Ultimately, when our delusions have gone too far we call this a mental illness.
Delusions of grandeur occur in patients suffering from a wide range of psychiatric diseases, including two-thirds of patients in manic state of bipolar disorder, half of those with schizophrenia, patients with the grandiose subtype of delusional disorder, and a substantial portion of those with substance abuse disorders – Wikipedia.

“Time with tell” can be somewhat a misnomer. As, I think, it is more “Time & testing will tell”. Ensuring that we open and transparent with our testing is also imperative for exposing our delusions. As without transparency,  we risk involving someone else in a delusion.

I somehow doubt that we can ever strip away all of our delusions, but this could be another delusion….ha.

What about this for an agreement?

That we consider that a conversation or discussion is like it is a tennis match.

That there has to be always a server and a receiver. Both responsible for sending the ball or proposal over the net to the other side. Once the served proposal is accepted as being “in” then it can be considered that, it’s up to the receiver to return it (with their proposal) back over the net. At this point the server could safely consider that it is “up to you” to return a response to his or her proposal.

However, to make sure that the ball is safely called in, we need some guidelines (a court) and an umpire or judge to adjudicate.

This is not easy when there are just two participants and no one else around. So certain agreements are going to be needed to be the adjudicator and a sense of fairness.

For example, one such agreement I propose is that no question served to the other person can be used unless it includes the server’s viewpoint as well.
That is to say, I could not serve up a question like: “What time to do you want to go home?”, without me including “….because I feel like an early night!”.

And once my point is served, the receiver cannot respond or think that it is “up to you” (me) but she needs to reply with her point of view and only then believe that the ball is then back in my court.

In this way we both participate equally in the decision making process, by getting to hear each other’s viewpoint and hopefully reasoning. This saves a decision being made by one person’s viewpoint that was left “up to you” by the other,  with the possibility of some snide remark being made by the them when the decision does not go as well as first planned.

That is why I always say it’s “up to two…to participate” or “now, it’s up to you!”

Could the secret to a successful relationship be as simple as making an agreement to help each other understand each other and give an acceptable apology when we get frustrated and annoyed by the process? That is not blame the other person for our anger.

I think so an am now willing to try it someday.

Surely the secret could not be that simple, I hear you say.

My bet, after a 30 year investigation, is that it could be certainly worth a try.

Can anyone think of one reason this process would not work?

This is probably the most complex thought that I have ever had,
that is, being able to see the difference between allowing and accepting something.

What is the difference you may ask?

Well to allow something or someone does  not mean we have to accept it, in my view.
The example that I have derived this simple and yet complex thought from is when we get angry. Anger is allowed because we are human and flawed. I do not see anger as the solution to any problem and yet it seems to be a great way to red flag an issue, allowing us to identify that there is a problem.

By not accepting anger, however, means that we can quickly move from the identifying of a problem being present and move into solution mode, starting with an apology for my anger being the first of such solutions.

So I can allow anger as the identifier of a problem but not accept it as the solution to the problem.

PS If I fail to allow anger I am also in danger of getting angry myself, which I think is what most of us find ourselves in. Ensuring that we have this “allow but not accept” agreement in place before such problems occur is crucial to a healthy and sustainable relationship or partnership, in my view.

Here is a bit of fun.

I would like to draw reference to the analogy of the invention of tennis for the English court (the palace of a king or queen) and how we pursue our mate in our mating cycle or  more colloquially called courtship.

Lets look at how the game of tennis, previous called Royal Tennis and the words associated with the game seem to also mimic how courting seems to take place.

“15 love”.
“Ball is in your court”.
“Advantage server”.
“Break point”
“Fault”
“Line call”
“Singles”

“Good point”

When we are making a proposal for an agreement it is important that both participate and continue to return the ball. Like tennis there is always a winner and loser. There is no compromise (especially with the advent of Hawkeye). So, when one puts forward a proposal or argument it needs to be countered or conceded by the other. The best shot wins.

Only losers talk about the merits of compromise!

My advantage.

I can see no good reason to compromise oneself.

Game, set and match!