rethink PERFECT

My Open Letter to My Mum

Dear Mum

[Appreciate]
Firstly thanks for all of your help over the past 18 months and letting me stay at your place for the time you did. Without that help I would not have been able to run my Quitober Challenge last year and it has been fun staying there also with you and Tessie up to last week when the incident with Tom happened.

[Acknowledge]
This was unfortunate that this all occurred just before I was to leave (I had no conscious intentions to create such a situation) but then again everything works out for the better, in the end, I believe.

By the way, I contacted Thomas about going to counselling but he told me not to bother.
I guess this will now drag on for who knows how long, as I doubt it will be resolved without someone objective listening to both side of our story and helping point out the error of both our ways (takes two to tango).

Another useful part to all of this is that you let me know that you already considered that you had already apologised to me a number of times before the other year when I dropped down to see you. So not 20 years as I had mentioned. Frank had previously said to me that you only said sorry to make Steve & I happy and now, it seems, that this is turning out to be true. I guess that is the difference between apologising (speech in defence) and just saying sorry. It is hard to pretend to be sorry when one gives a well crafted apology.

[Apology]

So I thought, to clear things up, and so no one can be accused of just saying sorry to please the other, I would give you my fresh apologies for what happened 23 years ago in what resulted in me getting told to leave home.

1. I am sorry that I called you a “liar” in front of dad and a “compulsive liar” in the family therapy session. It is not that you are a “liar’ it is just that you lied at that time and in that situation. If I had of been more aware of the consequences of putting you on the spot in front of dad I would have dealt with the issue privately. The issue of you arranging me to drive Dillis to the airport, when dad had asked you not to.

2. I am also sorry that I called Dad a piece of “chicken shit for allowing you to lie”. Once again, if I had of been more aware of the consequences, I would not have put him in that situation where he had to decide in an instant what he was going to do and say.

If you feel that my apologies are acceptable, can you simply tell me what you are sorry for and why ? If you are really sorry for what happened.

Thanks again.

Your son
Desmond

Which life skills should parents teach their children?
Forget riding a bike, swimming, and tying shoes. Today’s kids are more likely to master the Angry Birds app than learn essential life skills. Read on to see the 50 life skills you should teach your children.

My Comment

What about simply teaching kids the difference between listening to and creating gossip verses seeking out two sides of the story by going direct to the scource. A very fundamental skill yet really not taught by parents or teachers for that matter.

Gossip

If I am not wiling to say it to someone’s face or willing to have someone else say it to them
then I call this gossip. It is so easy to prove. When someone is talking to me about someone
else I can simply ask is it alright to ask the other person for their version and to tell them yours. If they say “no” then it is gossip.

Tow sides to every story (Anti-gossip) simply means that I can listen to everything that someone has to say about someone else and then find out the other person’s version.

I think our society runs on gossip and if I dare break the unspoken rule of telling the person that is being spoken about I am ostrasised as some sort of nutter. Well I think it is the gossiper that is the problem not the “teller” or seeker of two sides

I have decided for this decade to make sure I get rules of engagement with whoever I enter into a conversation/discussion with. It is too late to try form agreements as to how we treat each other after a dispute arises, as by this time we are over the cliff edge and falling with no mechanism to return to the top. Trying to learn to fly while descending at 9.8 m per second squared is not the best way. Better to practice first with both feet planted, I reckon.

We have all been there before.
We are in the mall and a child in the trolley screaming while his mother is too busy to sort him out while she is on her Iphone sending a message. This goes on for 5 minutes and I think what should I do?
Well finally I am sick of complaining irresponsibly to someone else about these pathetic parenting skills especially when we have to put up with them. So I goes over and said to her something like:
“Excuse but this could be a kin to child abuse the way you are ignoring your kid and on your mobile”
I walked off and she came after me. “let me tell you” she shouted “that he is throwing a tantrum because I won’t give me a lollie and nothing to do with my phone” she said. At this point I was not going to get into a discussion on the finer points of dealing with tantrums as she was throwing one at me too.
I guess that proved my other theory that the kids learn if from their parents.

Ah well, this was the first time I have ever attempted this and I feel proud that I did it and now at least I can complain responsibly to everyone else.

So it seems that we have a stand off!

The status quo is that women wait for men to initiates and they select from this bunch. As it is this seesm to serve women well as they at least get a feel for how well the man can speak for himself.

At the same time a smart man is looking for a woman that can speak for herself
so against all odds and the fashion he waits for a woman that can initiate a conversation.
And as you are thinking, yes, he is waiting a long time for one.

So he waits for her to speak up and she waits for him to and we have an impasse.

Either that or he gives up and initiates (which I think usually happens)

So how can we break this impasse?
I am thinking that there is a code that can be sent but even though I have been working on this problem for some 20 years
I am no closer to solving it and still single!

Imagine if we have gotten it all wrong?

Imagine if it was not the role of the man to court the woman but that the woman was supposed to court the man? That it was not up to him to “pop the question” or to go up to a woman in a pub and use some corny pickup line. But she was supposed to seek out her man.

Just imagine what this would mean?

Well for starters it would mean that most of the relationships that we see around us would be majorly compromised. That there would be plenty of failed relationships and that lots more of them are destined for failure and the rest would be dysfunctional.

Hey, wait a minute, that is what is happening today!

It would mean that us guys would have to wait patiently while women check out our cv’s and see if we have any possibility of being in a relationship for 15-20 years, long enough to assist bringing up a brood of kids. And if not that they would just use us and abuse us and go off and find someone more suited. It would mean that women would finally be taking responsibility for choosing the guy that would help them have and nurture their kids.

Hey! Maybe we have gotten it all wrong. Maybe women are supposed to be responsible for who they choose to share their kids and home life with. And we may hear less complaints about the guys that they are supposed to be responsible for choosing! I can only dream….

This type of thinking regards Feedback Loops could actually give us a number of things that I have been looking for;

The Truce in a Conversation

Stop the discussion/conversation from ever getting “too hot” that we need a tool to “get out of the kitchen”
Arguments, and fights might just be the result of these “feedback loops” where no one is stopping to
go away and think upon what was said. Instead both go loopy!

https://rethinkperfect.com/2010/09/13/truce-in-conversation/

So let me try run this past you.

A teacher or parent shares with their student or child what they have learned
throughout their experience in life to date.

What the student or child shares back is their feedback on this information
from their point of view.

If the teacher or parent then marks or evaluates the content of the student or child
a couple of things happens.

1. It will inhibit the student or child from disagreeing openly with the teacher or parent as the child or
student is well aware of the feedback loop and a no win situation.

2. You start to get a feedback loop and not good results for either.

So what is the solution.
All the teacher or parent can do is evaluate the process that the student or child used to
give the evaluation.
ie. Say the student said, “that’s crap!” the teacher could say,
“Thanks Jane for your feedback however a couple of pointers on your delivery

1. Are you saying that you think it is crap as opposed it is a universally approved crap?

2. I am sorry that I did not get this agreement with you before regards giving feedback
but I would like us to agree that we use the 3 A’s of:
thanks for….(Appreciate), sorry that…(Apologise), and I think that….(Acknowledge).
for when we disagree or are not convinced by each other’s point.

3. That I cannot very well give you feedback on your feedback of my point or we will simply enter into a feedback loop at this point.
So if you did use the 3A’s and told me why you thought it was crap, I would be better off considering and appreciating
it for another time and place when I have fully absorbed it and your reasoning and avoid any feedback loops at that point.

What about a Rethink Perfect App where your iphone could detect
non-adjustable or non-accountable and unacceptable language and beep each time or go
“warning, warning, will Robinson” with the voice of the lost in space robot.
The App could also detect unacceptable tone.
For example:

Non-Adjustable Warning:
So you could program in non-adjustable words like
always,

Every time

Never

Can’t,

Sick of,

Etc
This would get the one warning
http://www.tarantulas.net/guestusers/user03/robot_b9/warning_1.wav

Non-Accountable Warning:

And non accountable words like
you make me feel

You should….

you can’t
http://www.tarantulas.net/guestusers/user03/robot_b9/warning_1.wav

Non-Adjustable and Non-Accountable:
So if someone used a non-adjustable and non-accountable phrase at the same time there
would be 2 warnings like “you always try to undermine me”
http://www.tarantulas.net/guestusers/user03/robot_b9/warning_2.wav

Non-Adjustable, Non-Accountable and Unacceptable language

Finally if someone used non-adjustble, non-accountable with a swear word
like “You cant always, think that you are always right all the time, dickhead!”
The following warning would sound twice and then probably explode!
http://www.tarantulas.net/guestusers/user03/robot_b9/warning_3.wav