Keep calm and…

I have this fascination with intense training and the army. I even signed up to join the South African Air Force, didn’t get in but you know I would have been a damn good fighter pilot! Another thing I’m fascinated by is Navy SEALS and the training they go through. I have read and heard that Navy SEAL training includes having your feet and hands tied up and jumping into a deep ass pool, kicking from the bottom up, catching your breath and then sinking down again. (I think there is a weight involved there also, I’m not sure, I’m not a SEAL, I wish I was… G.I Jane next level). The point of this exercise is not too measure your lung capacity or even how well you kick up. It’s to test how calm you stay under water when impending danger and even death is lurking. If you have watched American Sniper (which I urge you all to do) you will kinda see what I mean.

It’s a face your fears kinda deal…

It’s all about keeping calm and level headed. As usual I try and see the lesson in there. Constantly seeing lessons and never learning… Anyway, the lesson that I got from that was that even when all the odds are against you, your hands are tied and you feel like you are drowning, just stay calm, assess the situation and focus on what you can control. So you owe a shit load of money and you don’t think you will make it each month, don’t go and get another loan to pay of the first loan, that’s like chopping your hand off because your foot is missing. Take a deep breath, re-assess your budget, or better yet START a budget. Look at reasonable cuts you can make to your budget to make sure that all the essentials get paid. Listen, you don’t NEED a gym membership if you can hardly put petrol into your car. Just as well as you don’t NEED to eat out at fancy restaurants at R500 a pop per weekend if you end up having to scrape change together for bread and milk halfway through the month. Keep a level head, because it’s during the panic that we make stupid decisions.

Then I watched this

We can all learn something from this. I have a great deal of respect for people who embrace discipline and order, maybe because I struggle to impose it onto myself and sometimes wish I had a personal drill sergeant telling me what a softy I am. Even more than that, I respect people who know how to discipline themselves, how to say no that that last slab of choc-apocalypse ice-cream. How to force themselves to see past the obstacle and envision the reward at the end. See the finish line at the beginning of the race and have the determination to go through with it, keeping that finish line in sight at all times.

I respect those who come alongside others who struggle with running their own race, and stop (effectively stalling their own race, using their own resources and time) to help these people finish. In today’s world we are all after our own goals, we are all after our own self-actualisation (lekker big-ass word for an Afrikaans person) that we stop to consider that we are in a community, a fellowship and we are all here to help one another.

Hmm… food for thought!

I say all of this not because I am philanthropist of the year or even Wonder-woman (but also, have you seen wonder-woman and myself at the same time?? hmmm… just saying), I just say this as a reminder to myself that every-one has a struggle of their own, and we should all try and keep each other calm and level-headed. What’s the point of both of us drowning if I have an oxygen tank and you’re a strong swimmer, but we try it to make it on our own instead of co-labouring.

Just a thought!

Let’s get an animal, they said…

So you have reached a point in your life where you think you are qualified to be in charge, be in control, of another living thing, but you also lack the commitment to be in a relationship long enough to have children sooo you figure “stuff it, I’ll get a cat.” And because you want said cat to love me like it’s own mother it should be a kitten, fresh-from-the-factory old kitten, just old enough to stand but not old enough to walk without that cute little drunken wobble. The wobble you usually see on a girls night out, when the girls wear those heels of satan, had one too many jagger shots and they catch those speeds wobbles, that make it look like their ankles are made of jello.

Anyway, so you get a kitten. Cute as shit little kitten with a cute as shit little name, like Mr Fuzzles or something ( I don’t think that’s cute) and you seem to forget that all fresh-from-the-factory animals need a certain amount of training depending on the brand of animal. Training in terms of where it sleeps, where it eats and where it shits. As we all know you should never shit where you eat, kittens need to be taught that, puppies need to be taught that, the only animals that don’t need to be taught that are sharks, I doubt they care where they shit… (from about 0:20 secs in)

Little anythings are hard work, constantly cleaning up after them, constantly checking why the heck it’s so quiet. You know, with human babies there is that stage, right after production, that they just lay there and when you pick them up their head does that deadly swing which reminds you that human babies are actually totally useless, yeah, kittens don’t have that stage, they pop out, wobble their heads a bit and get up on their legs ready to deal with their lives, which at that early stage consists of choosing which teet to suck to stay alive today. Kittens don’t have the helpless baby phase, apart from straight out the box, mom has to lick all the nastiness off of me for the first week, they go from THAT to causing havoc in the time a human baby goes from wobble head to… uhm well less wobble head. Kittens grow 15 faster than human babies meaning they reach that deadly toddler phase REAL EFFING QUICK!

At least kittens don’t have thumbs…

The toddler phase, you know it, where you keep that little shit factory within smelling AND hearing distance, at least, at all times. And as soon as it becomes quiet you drop everything and go look, because, bet money, that little bubble faced snot is doing something that either involves danger or he’s already dead. Same thing with kittens, as soon as you don’t hear things crashing you wonder, what are they shitting in/on? Where are they peeing? Who are they contacting to come help with world domination?

Google… How to take over the world

So you think ok, I won’t get a cat, I’ll get a dog. Whoop-dy-do. Same thing really, just MORE pee and the whining. The constant puppy whining and that puppy shit smell. Puppies are like the friend that comes over and drinks ALL your booze and gets so shit faced that it pees on your couch, while it’s passed out on it with a half-eaten borito in its mouth. The thing with babies is you put a diaper on it and be about your day, and WHAM that gut wrenching smell hits you, but it’s ok, because the situation is contained. You take the diaper off, wipe the bum with those baby wet-wipes that are just sooo handy, and put new diaper on – all is right with the world again. Those wet-wipes are the way forward, spilled coffee on your phone, BABY WIPE, cried during Bad Boys 2 where Markus get’s shot in the ass and now you look like a panda raccoon, BABY WIPE, cut yourself while’s shaving the forest that has grown on your legs due to it being winter and all, BABY WIPE.

See, they work for everything…

With a little animal, they don’t have diapers, puppies have the newspaper because grass is too mainstream and kittens have that box full of special sand because garden sand is too mainstream. Bunch of hipsters. These idiots will just sit, while they shit, so that it goes EVERYWHERE. Down their legs, it sticks to their tails, they fall over into it because their balance is useless. Kittens at least close up the nastiness. That is AFTER they dug to china and shat on the shanghai temple, if you have a cat you will know what I mean. They don’t contain the sand, they don’t try and keep it in the box. Nooo, they re-enact every single sand-storm that ever hit Egypt, and then walk away so proud of themselves for hiding their bowl-movement evidence.

Cos who has the time to train them to do this… apart from Mr Focker!

My advice, get a snake, or a spider. Less hassle and people will think you are bad ass!

Dear 19-year-old me

EEEEEDJIT!!! Gosh!

You are an idiot!! Seriously, how did you think that NOT doing ANYTHING with your amazing brain after school would be a good idea? What the heck did you think was going to happen in your life? Did you think that by lazing and teenaging around that life was going to hand you a silver spoon? You don’t even like chick flicks, did you think some knight in shining armour was going to show up while you were doing stuff all and be like, yeah sure, I’ll support you for the rest of your life. You got lucky, that job you got is because your mom knew someone and that person pulled some strings. Come on…

Yeah, so you’re a good girl, you don’t drink or smoke and you let people know that you disapprove of the FUCKING swearwords and yeah you had your first kiss a few months before you turned 19, so what? What does all of that mean in the grand scheme of things? You aren’t doing the bad stuff, but you aren’t doing anything else either… you are being average. Actually by comparison you are being below average. All those opportunities that you let pass you by, the IT course, the option to study through the company you’re working for, the standing back and not fighting for anything, just accepting whatever happens.

You know you weren’t cool the way you rebelled, right? You know that a lot of people are now going, yikes… We told you long ago. Your poor parents. How did they cope with you, the worry and the wonder.

Now, 8 years later I am doing what you should have done, and now, because it took so long to realise what needs to be done and to make a decision, it is 20 times harder. EVERYTHING after you has been difficult,  you had no freaking drive, you had no motivation or inner willpower to GET OFF YOUR ASS!!! You didn’t have the discipline to stick to anything and most of all you lacked the respect and self-respect to listen to constructive criticism and not rebel. You dropped the ball on so many things and totally closed off a lot of rooms in your brain. No I need to go in there and spring clean, this place is a mess… Bitch.

I forgive you though, you weren’t all that bad, you have given me an amazing testimony and some amazing memories and friends (whom I have not seen since…). I forgive you because you were a product of your environment, you reacted the way you thought you needed to. I forgive you because you made me stronger and smarter (ironic how that happens), and I suppose I want to thank you, for being an idiot then, so I can be a smartass now.

Yours truly

27-year-old me