What’s the bravest thing you’ve ever done when no one was watching?
This question has, perhaps for the first time in the daily prompt, left me at a loss for an answer. First of all, bravery is such an abstract concept and second, why the qualifier of saying ‘when no one was watching’? I have heard of the idea of showing goodness when no one was watching but not bravery.
I don’t consider myself brave and I don’t suppose others would. I do things I don’t like and I do things that scare me, but they are simply because I have no choice. Even if you consider that bravery, which I don’t, I couldn’t think of any time when I have done one of those things with absolutely no one else watching. I have made leaps into the unknown but they have been with others or seen by others. This world is so interconnected that I would think it is impossible to be unobserved.
Some people might consider that putting one foot in front of the other is brave. Others may consider that a physical act that is completely selfless but endangered you in some way is brave. What about speaking up when no one else will? Is that bravery? I look back at myself and my actions and I can see signs of what some might call bravery, but all of those signs have been observed by someone. To be honest, though, I don’t see myself as brave at all. More often I am fearful and risk averse. If you are looking for something inspiring look elsewhere!
What’s something you do completely differently from how you were raised?
Every generation is the product of the generation that raises it, but more importantly it is a product of it’s time. When you are a child you are raised in a way that reflects both and if you have a family of your own you repeat the pattern but not the final design. There will be things about your upbringing you enjoyed and want to replicate and there will be things you will never do again once you leave your childhood home. These things differ both in the elements concerned and the reasons behind them. Some people will have had very unhappy times in their family lives and want to do their best to leave everything behind them. Others will have enjoyed certain aspects but will not be able to repeat them due to lack of money, lack of time or a changed society.
Looking at the way I was raised and my own approach to parenthood I think the main difference is that the children are completely central to every decision we make, even now that they are adults. When we had family holidays with our own children, for example, we made sure that everything was set up so they could have the best possible time. The Pontins holidays we had were not ones we got a lot out of in terms of activities but the children loved them, which was the main point of going, so we went back three times because it was cheap and it was the best holiday we could afford for them. When we had a little more money we went to Amsterdam and Mallorca and both times their needs were central to our decision.
The few family holidays we had when I was growing up were entirely focused on what my parents wanted and I was expected to accept that. I did because I didn’t expect anything else from the holiday and I don’t suppose many families of my generation were any different. My memories are not of halcyon days of family togetherness! I remember getting badly burnt on a beach in Malta because my sun worshipping Dad gave me sun tan oil to try to get me brown instead of the ‘pasty’ complexion I had. He would get absolutely dark brown by the end of a two week holiday whereas I went from white to painful red and back to white again. I remember being told off for talking too much to the woman sitting next to me on a coach excursion when we were in Scotland and being made to apologise for being a nuisance. To be honest I can’t remember many good experiences because I never suited the role of mini adult. I think my early experiences gave me a dislike of holidays that took a long time to shift and even now I feel like I would rather stay at home instead of go away. I need to be pressed into holidays although generally I enjoy them once I’m there. The cost of the holiday means that I put huge pressure on myself to make it as good as possible for everyone else and I will happily not do what I want to do if it makes everyone else happy. Even now that’s the case. I do enjoy parts of the holidays once I am there but I don’t really relax in the way other people do. Part of that is my nature but a lot of it is the early experiences of family holidays as an additional complication.
What are your favorite 5 apps on your phone?
My 5 favourite apps are not that much different from the last time I was asked this question, or something very similar, which is good because I have found something that works for me. Relaxation and making my brain work are the themes of my Top 5.
Jetpack is my most used app because I had notifications on and it sent me scurrying to the app for my latest dopamine fix multiple times a day. I am trying something different in September, turning off the notifications to see if that stops me obsessing over figures and likes! I will of course continue to post my daily blogs and I will regularly check it, just less often I hope.
Calm is an app that I have talked about on many occasions and it’s still helping me to relax and meditate every night. I listen to the Daily Jay every night and even if the content isn’t relevant to me, the relaxation of the three deep breaths at the start of each session is really effective. Along with Jetpack it is my most essential app.
Happy Color is a constant and I really enjoy the relaxation and the pleasure of the finished pictures. I wonder why I don’t enjoy colouring real pictures with pencils and can only conclude that it comes down to my fine motor skills which have always been a problem for me with my dyspraxia. It makes colouring a test and a trial rather than relaxation. Happy Color is much more effective at getting me to relax.
I have stepped back from social media in many ways. I still have Twitter for music challenges. I’m aware of all the arguments against but at the moment it’s helping me enjoy myself so I will carry on at present. However, it is not on the phone anymore. The one that is, is Instagram. I came off of Instagram for a month and now I have a one hour limit every day. I also focus on learning and books, especially daily visits to Erinmerylstudy which is amazing.
My final app that I use regularly is the outlook app for my emails because it’s the only way I can easily get onto my second Hotmail account.
So, there you have it. My phone is not the centre of my life in the way it has been at times and I am using a restrictive app called ScreenZen to reduce the amount of time I spend on here, but I’m always looking for further ways to reduce it to safeguard my eyesight and my lifestyle. It is, as it always will be, a work in progress.
What’s the best thing you’ve ever found randomly on the street?
When I was first going backwards and forwards to London back in 2005, I regularly picked up money from the streets as I went to and from work. Over an average year I would pick up £20 or so and that money was split between the children after we used one of those change machines in our local Sainsbury’s. It wasn’t much in the greater scheme of things but it was always nice to pick up a one pound or two pound coin as that supercharged the yearly amount.
Nowadays, there’s virtually no change on the streets and that’s, of course, because we are living in what is effectively a cashless society. Yes, there are advantages to not having to carry cash, but on balance I think it’s been a negative change. Why do I think this? Well, first of all, I think it’s far more difficult to control your spending when you’re using contactless payment. When you take £20 out of the bank in cash and you have £10 left, you know you have spent £10. When you have a card you don’t know how much you have spent particularly if you are tapping in a number of different places. It’s incredibly easy to lose control of your spending when that happens. Small charities are losing out with on street collections which are pretty much a thing of the past. It’s OK for the bigger charities because they can get by with regular payments online or having the money to provide collectors with tap and pay machines. Events like Dickens Christmas have lots of stalls which used to get loads of cash but now require the initial outlay of the machines to get people to buy from them. When I went to Salzburg nearly every stall in the Christmas Market was cash only and it made it much smoother and much easier to keep track of. We took €50 out of the cash machine and when it was spent we left. It forced us to really consider what we were buying and why.
This might be old man shouting at clouds territory but I genuinely believe that life has been made more difficult for those of us who find it more difficult to budget and that we should return to a nice balance between cash and card to suit everyone. It won’t happen of course but it would change very little for those wedded to their card (or even their phone!) for payment while making lives less complicated for those who aren’t.
What’s the kindest thing someone has ever done for you?
I could easily answer this by picking out one event and it would be effective, but I feel as though this question needs a more complete reflection.
First of all, what is kindness? To me it’s not doing something nice for someone, it’s doing it without expectation of a reward of any sort. It should also be something done without expectation of recognition of any sort. If you are in a relationship with the person then it should be a matter of course that you would do something for them with no expectation of reward but it shouldn’t be unrecognised by the person in receipt of the kindness. So your family and friends should have the expectation of their loved ones going above and beyond. When I do something for my wife or children I don’t see it as doing something amazing, merely something expected. When they do something for me I wholeheartedly appreciate it but I see it as part of a loving relationship.
What about kindness in the work environment? Well, here you are faced with the question of motivation. Very few people will indulge in an act of kindness in their jobs without at least an unconscious reflection on how they will possibly be rewarded for it in terms of current or future progress in their career. I don’t think it’s always front and centre but if someone does something nice for a colleague, a manager or someone they manage, there is always that quid pro quo in the back of their mind whether they realise it or not.
So, based on the above, the idea of kindness is best attached to something that a stranger does for you. For me, the most obvious example of kindness came when I fell over a couple of months ago and did a lot of damage to my face. A couple who were nearby came over, helped me up, took my shopping bags from me and put them in the boot and then drove me home. It was an example of kindness the like of which I have never experienced before and I was so lucky that they were there for me. I never asked their names, being too dazed to do so, but I was so lucky that such kind people were there in my moment of need.
