Death Camps and Doughnuts

I have a few doughnuts on my plate and there was one I was looking at with enthusiasm.
Then someone took the jam out of it.

Well, of course, they didn’t. I did.

I tried something and it did not work and I am a little pissed off.
However, the reason I am pissed off is that the Bernie who is writing this would not have laid the ground work to make that thing not work in the first place.

Sorry, I am being a bit cryptic here, it is not for shame or legal reasons – I am hoping by talking about the sentiment rather than the situation I’ll be more useful.

It really is dumb to be surprised when life is unfair,

I also firmly believe that what we make happen is our responsibility. So when something goes a bit tits up how we handle it and the moves we make next will determine where we go.
Being really fucking depressed and then not being really fucking depressed has opened my eyes and ears in a way that is both rewarding and uncomfortable.

Likewise finding myself on a mission and building every day has made a huge difference to how I deal with things. Which means that I know whether I am hurt, depressed or just being a spoilt little London boy.

So I am here on the train home after having a great day and it has been made even better by not letting the doughnut without any jam dominate the day.

In fact, I am quite amazed at how little time I spent wallowing in self-pity and horror.

I shudder to think how many times I have laid down for days watching Netflix waiting for the feeling to go away, today It went away in about 15 minutes.

I always like to read a book about Nazi Death Camp survival to make me get my spoilt London head out my arse. Victor Frankel’s words about the gap between stimulus and response being where choice waits for us has always been burning a hole in the side of my brain.

Lately, I have become super aware – well super aware compared with the first few decades of my life – about what happens to me on the journey between stimulus and response. For example, I have taken to writing everything that pops into my head on post-it notes until I can deal with it.

Then I go through and stick what needs to stay in Trello. I am terrified of how many things I thought of and then did not need to take any action on. I saved myself by writing it down instead of starting it right away. Also, I make connections between projects faster this way. I always wondered what the big deal was with post-it notes and now I know.

They help you write down Bollox and throw it away before it dies you any harm and then gets to work on the good stuff.

Thanks for reading – let me know what you think about post it notes, death camps and doughnuts @berniejmitchell.