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  • My Mother’s Alarm Clock

    As a parent, have you ever had trouble getting your offspring out of bed, dressed, fed and off to school, in the morning? If you have, it may be a one-off incident or a regular event. In any case, you will know how difficult and time-consuming (I might even say, time-wasting’) experience it can be. That’s without mentioning the psychological questioning you undergo; “am I a bad parent?”, “Could I do things better?”, “Why is this happening to me?”.

    You are not alone. Yet, I can tell you one parent who rarely had such a problem; that person was my mother.

    My mother used what I can only call a very effective alarm clock. I am not talking about a loud-ringing bedside clock, nor am I referring to any modern-day app. I am not even alluding to a bucket of cold water. My mother’s alarm clock was …

    Well, let me explain;

    As a family, we lived a little under four miles from the school I attended. I know this was the case because had we lived more than flour miles away, I would have been entitled to a school bus pass. That would have meant I could have travelled free on the bus to and from school.

    I mention not having a bus pass for school because it meant that I had to walk to school. Walking to school was, of course, a lot slower than taking the bus. Hence, it was important that I left home in good time. Leaving home on time relied upon getting out of bed, getting washed, dressed, and fed effectively.

    I can reflect upon this now but at the time, as a teenager, I didn’t really appreciate it. My mother, though, had a much better idea of how essential a good morning routine was and the importance of getting me out of bed promptly.

    How she made sure I got up on time, is the subject of this story.

    My mother was not the sort of person to spend a lot of time calling and shouting for me to get up. Neither was she the sort of person to resort to shaking or dragging me out of bed. Instead, she used a rather unusual ‘alarm clock’. It worked a bit like this …

    My mother would open my bedroom door and call me when it was time to awaken and start getting ready. This was my one and only call. I would then have to get out of bed, go to the bathroom to wash, get dressed and finally come downstairs to have breakfast. On schooldays, my breakfast was a bowl of cooked porridge.

    This was good because, as a lad, I liked porridge; I still do. For me, it was a pleasure to come downstairs to eat a bowl of freshly hot porridge. Herein lies the secret of my mother’s alarm clock.

    If I did not get up in good time, or if I were slow, lazy, or dallied in getting washed or dressed. I would come downstairs to find the porridge would no longer be hot. If I were really late or slow, the porridge would have become a cold, congealed lump in the bottom of the bowl. It would be difficult to break it with a spoon, but I would still have to eat it.
    I learned quickly that if I got up on time and completed my washing and dressing efficiently, my morning porridge would be warm and welcoming. If not, I’d be faced with something a lot less palatable.

    So that was my mother’s ‘unusual’ alarm clock for getting me up and off to school on time each schoolday morning; a bowl of porridge.

    Of course, I cannot guarantee that porridge will work with all school-age children. I cannot even guarantee that it will work for your children, especially if they do not like porridge. It could be worth a try, though. If porridge does not work, well you could try with other breakfast food. Toast or bacon could work well; anything that is less appetising as it gets colder or drier.

  • Get a New Phone To Make You Look Successful?

    Businessman in blue suit using smartphone on city sidewalk

    The other day, a man came up to me and offered to sell me a new phone.

    I am not a wealthy man, and certainly not one who can update to the latest cellphone each year. So, the man’s offer intrigued me.
    ‘But,’ I thought to myself, ‘do I really need a new phone?’

    At least, I thought I had thought it to myself, but then the man said to me, “I can see that you are wondering if you need a new phone.”

    I looked at the man, he had big googly eyes and a reddish skin (perhaps he had been in the sun too long). I admitted that he was correct, I had been wondering whether I needed a new phone.

    “Show me your phone.” He said. So I got out my phone, opened it up, switched it on. I wiped the screen clean with my shirt sleeve and pressed some of the buttons.

    I swear the old man could barely stifle his laugh.

    “Ah”, he said, “I see now why you need a new phone. This one is so old, I bet it even has Moses in its contact list.”

    I wasn’t quite sure what he meant by that remark, but before I could ask, he went on;…
    “Here, let me show you a new phone, see what you think.”

    He reached into an inside pocket of his long overcoat and then pulled out a shiny golden phone with a touchscreen, unbreakable glass and even a diamond encrusted case.

    “Look at this”, he said as he handed the phone to me, “What do you think of it? This is the type of phone for someone who is special, who is successful, and who is important. Someone just like you.”

    “Just like me?” I said, self mockingly.

    “Sure, just like you. With this phone in your hand, you will look important and successful. Everyone who sees it will notice you and want to be just like you.”

    “But how much does such a phone cost?” I asked and then immediately regretted it because it made me sound eager.

    “Just 5000 of your dollars” he said, without a hint of hesitation.

    “Five thousand is a lot” I pleaded, hoping that would see an end to it.

    “It’s not a lot to someone who is successful and wealthy. With this phone in your hand or even in your pocket, you will appear, and you will feel, successful.”

    “I may look successful, I may even feel successful, but I simply do not have 5000 dollars to pay for a phone, or indeed for anything else.”

    “I’ll tell you what,“ the man said, taking a step back and looking thoughtful,“ how much could you give me for this new phone?”

    “How much could I give you? How much could I give?”

    “Yes, how much could you give?”

    “Well, I have nothing. Nothing at all. So, I can only give you nothing for it.”

    There was a pause, a short pause but definitely a pause, before the man replied;
    “ Very well, then, take this phone and use it for a month. See how you like it, see if it makes you look successful and wealthy. I will not take any money from you but, after a month, come back here and meet me again. If you like the phone after a month, then I will sell it to you. I will sell it to you in exchange for something you have that is worth exactly nothing.”
    “For nothing?”
    “For something that is worth nothing, that is the price you said you could pay.”
    “Are you serious?”
    “Oh yes. But, if after a month you cannot give me something that is worth nothing, then you must pay the full price of the phone.”

    I thought to myself that this guy is a fool. There are plenty of things that are worth nothing. Plenty of things I could give him.

    “Agreed”, I said, and we shook hands.

    Thereby, I became the owner of a smart new phone. A new phone that should make me look successful, important, and wealthy.

    … To Be Continued.

  • How Failing as a Decent Human Being Taught Me Empathy

    I lost my first fiancee in a car crash.
    It does not take much imagination to realise how that would have had a devastating effect upon my life.

    It was several years later that I started dating again. One of the people I met was a girl called Rachel. We met, I took her for a drink and a meal. Then I took her back to my place. At my place I was hoping for …. Well, you know what I was hoping for! She, however, wanted to talk. She wanted to talk about her last boyfriend.

    It turned out that her last boyfriend had proposed to her while on a dinner date and she’d said yes. Both of them were feeling ecstatic and excited as they climbed onto his motorbike and started their journey home. They were so excited that they hardly gave attention to the road. The consequence of which was that he lost control of the motorbike, crashed ands died. Rachel sustained an injured leg but was otherwise physically survived.

    She told me all this in her story and I sat there listening to her. Do you know though, to my shame, when she had finished, I had no idea what to say. The room was filled with an awkward silence.
    Even though I had been through something similar; I still did not know what to say, what to do, or even how to respond to her. I was ashamed of myself; I felt a failure. In fact, I felt a failure as a human being.

    You will not be surprised to hear that my relationship with Rachel went no further and lasted no longer. It was a total disaster apart from one thing; there was one good thing that arose out of this experience. I made a promise to myself that I would find out and learn how to respond in such situations, so that in the future I could avoid an embarrassing situation and also that I could be a positive benefit to the other person.

    It was two years later when I was finally able to satisfy this promise. I had been invited to attend a training course to develop counselling skills. My teacher was a relationship counsellor called Christiana and her course was to become a ‘light-bulb’ moment in my life because it gave me my first insight into counselling.

    I had been so energised and excited by her introductory course that I immediately signed up to study properly for a counselling qualification. A major part of the course was the study, practice and development of empathy.

    Let me say at this point that I believe ‘empathy’ is possibly one of the misused and misunderstood words in the English language.

    From the course, I learned that empathy is not ‘understanding’, not ‘compassion’ and not ‘sympathy’. Yet it is often used as a word when one of those other terms would be more correct. ‘Empathy’ sounds a more powerful and a more positive word than those other terms. Moreover, ‘empathy’ is not just about emotions and it involves much more.

    What my training taught me is that empathy is not about putting yourself into someone else’s shoes. It is not about imagining how you would feel if you were in the same situation as someone else. This though, seems to be what many believe to be ‘empathy’.

    Empathy is about seeing and experiencing the world through the eyes and senses of another person. It goes deeper even than that, though. It is also about interpreting and understanding those experiences though the point of view, or the philosophy, of the other person.

    For empathy to exist, there needs to be communication between yourself and the other person. Furthermore, that communication needs to be in a ‘language’ you both comprehend and where there is agreement on the meaning of words used.
    Consequently, you cannot be empathic with an animal, nor with a human baby. This does not mean you cannot be ‘understanding’ or ‘compassionate’ and ‘sympathetic’ but do not claim to be ‘empathic’.

    The biggest barrier to empathy, apart from lack of communication, occurs when a person has been through a similar experience as the other person. I’ll let you read that last sentence again. It is often assumed that if you have been through the same or similar experience, it makes it easier to be empathic. The opposite is the case.
    If you have been through a similar experience to the other person, you are likely to believe they will have had the same emotions, the same responses as you did. You risk projecting your emotions and responses onto the other person. In this way, you fail to experience the situation through the eyes and viewpoint of the other person. To be truly empathic, you need to put aside your experiences and emotions and to take on those of the other person.

    Let me conclude by saying that empathy is a powerful tool which has positive benefits for all concerned. For me, I felt ashamed that I could not experience empathy when Rachel was telling me her story. I have no doubt that our relationship would have been more longer lasting and positive had I been able to do so. However, it was the shame that I felt at that time which led me to seek to improve myself.