IF I Were Any Better - I’d Be Twins
Dear readers….I got writing this and it just kept going… so forgive the length and enjoy your day.
I have a character in my family we call “Uncle Bob”. Â He’s one of those people who you look forward to seeing just so you can ask him how he is doing. Â A conversation almost always begins like this.
“Hey Bob, how you doing?
His reply - “If I was any better I’d be twins.”
For the nearly 10 years I have known Bob his reply to any form of a greeting has always been upbeat, filled with positivity, and possibility. If a person didn’t know better they might think Bob hasn’t had and doesn’t have any problems.   I happen to know some of the significant hardships Bob has been through…not because he’s told me of course.  Because Bob isn’t one to talk of or dwell on such things.
I try to be like Bob. I try to focus on the positive and the possible and I work hard to deliberately fill my mind and my language with words that lift and inspire.  I believe this practice, more than any other, helps me keep my focus, my language and my life on a more positive path.  I believe such a practice helps to make us more attractive to good things in life, I believe it increases our like-ability and magnifies our pos-abilities.
There are those in life who don’t, won’t or can’t seem to understand or accept our deliberately positive attitude.
“Hey Kirk, How was your weekend?”
“I had a wonderful weekend, heck It was Awesome!”
In reality it was filled with challenges and the other stuff that makes up this experience we call life.
Have you ever vocalized your enjoyment of life so much that people only to have people say foolish things to you like. “You seem so happy, and either imply or say directly that they would be too if they had your nearly perfect life.” Perfect life? Who has that?
I have another friend who seems to think his problems are so much greater than anyone else’s that he is obsessed with talking about them to anyone who will listen. The problem is everyone is tired of listening - because that’s all they every seem to hear from him. The more they try to distance themselves from being his “needed ear” the more his need to be listened too seems to go unmet and the situation exacerbates itself.
Most of us are now or have experienced a relationship with someone like this…we love them, but just can’t dedicate the time to being the friend they seem to need…especially considering that all the listening we have done in the past hasn’t seemed to do any good.
I recently listened to a friend bemoan the unfairness of his life for over an hour.  The situation he described was pretty awful - I wouldn’t have wanted to deal with any of what he was experiencing. Â
At one point as I listened - he actually implied that I, along with other people had “no idea” of the unfairness and difficulty of what he was dealing with…and that their attempts at offering comfort or counsel were not even approaching being helpful to him.Â
As I listened - I began wondering if he wanted my life instead…or even the last year of it. Was my life so devoid of difficulty that I couldn’t relate? Or was my life so “pleasantly perfect” that I wasn’t able to comprehend, counsel, or console my friend.Â
What was my last year like?? My mother in law passed away from complications stemming from diabetes, she had suffered a long time…kidney transplants amputations of body parts, loss of eyesight, seeping wounds that would never fully heal. For the last 2 years she had something called “shingles” on her side. It was often hard to watch her suffer, it was painful for her to endure. Did my friend want her life? With all of her obvious discomfort and loss of quality of life…she never complained.Â
My brother-in-law Jared, age 37 died a few months ago of tongue Cancer. He left behind a loving wife and 4 young children. The cancer was brutal…for nearly the last year of his life he couldn’t eat or even swallow. The treatments for his cancer were or seemed barbaric and they didn’t help. It wouldn’t go away. He just kept shrinking away until finally his body had nothing left to keep it going. Jared was not one to complain - I remember only once him saying to me that “cancer was a cruel way to die.” Does my complaining friend want his life?
If my friend had lived only as long as my brother in law - he would have died and stopped complaining over twenty years ago.Â
My own father was just told that one of his kidney’s has several cancerous growths on it and needs to come out. He’s not so young anymore - losing a kidney can be a hard surgery. My dad is not complaining about it…”what good would that do” he says, “it’s just part of life.” Rather his thought process is - “I am glad the Doctor took a close look at my blood work that was done when I got my pacemaker… it was because of his attention to a small detail that they were able to discover I had this cancer. Had it gone undetected for another few months it would have spread throughout my body and been much worse…even fatal. As it is, I’ll just be losing a kidney.”
Life does and will continue to come at us hard and fast. Life is not fair, nor is it unfair…life just is. It is a great and grand experiment and experience that helps us better understand ourselves and hopefully helps us discover our capacity to be our best selves. Or at least it can if we approach it with a right mind set.
Some people might seem to have it easier than we do, some to have it more difficult. In the end - who can say? All we really seem to have is a choice to make about how we will respond to the experience of life…we can respond with bitterness and blame…or we can respond with benevolence and a sense of becoming.Â
My life and my happiness is not the result of favored circumstance, but of a determined choosing and deliberate and sustained effort.   This sustained pattern of thinking is or can become a mental mindset. My uncle Bob pours concrete for living - he’s nearly 70, looks 50, and I haven’t seen a twenty year old that’s able to keep up with him, in fact no one seems to be able to keep up with him…he works so hard and get’s so much done -it’s like he’s two people … It’s like he’s twins.
Make it a Great Day - Just by saying that it is!Â
Let’s Make it a Wonderful Day - Let’s Be Twins
Kirk Out
PS -Â Special Holiday Specials & Bulk Pricing on my books at www.morebetterbooks.com
November 20th, 2007 at 8:32 am
[…] My Barbados Blog wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerpt What was my last year like?? My mother in law passed away from complications stemming from diabetes, she had suffered a long time…k… […]
November 20th, 2007 at 9:07 am
I just want to say WOW, I really needed this today. I’ve been feeling overwhelmed and its partly my own fault for falling into the negative thinking loop. I will be much better now. I appreciate the T4D and frequently post them on my cubicle wall for others to see as they pass by.
My favorite is related to making mistakes… if you can’t be a good example… then you just need to be a horrible warning. And… Some mistakes are too much fun to only make once.
Life is change and today I strive to change my thinking back to the postive. Thanks Kirk.
November 20th, 2007 at 10:06 am
Great post Kirk! I needed this kick in the pants today. That’s twice in the last few weeks you’ve written directly to me.
November 20th, 2007 at 10:40 am
Hi Kirk,
I just want to say I am sorry you have had so much loss in your life.. and you are right it is life and experience… either way its hard and its up to each of us to choose what to do with bad times.
I also want to thank you for this story… it could’ve not come at a better time… I was feeling low about some news in my life, and when I put it into perspective its not that bad… and I realize I have to make better choices on how to deal with it. Thank you so much!
November 20th, 2007 at 2:07 pm
Wonderful as always and here’s to all of us appreciating the next few days with friends and family and opening new doors with old friends by just being there with our smile!
Here’s to your health, wealth and happiness!
Bo Tomlyn
November 20th, 2007 at 2:09 pm
Kirk: I love all of your posts but this was awesome! I am awesome, you and your family are awesome, and I was so glad to run into you in the airport and briefly get to share you with my wife! Have a wonderful holiday with your family! I know I will (that’s with my family not yours; just kidding).
Love ya man!!
Rich Hand
Executive Director of Membership
November 20th, 2007 at 2:10 pm
My prayers and best wishes for your Father’s return to health. I lost a kidney when I was 17 years old (29 years ago.) You don’t even miss it. Everything works the same. The remaining kidney grows and compensates.
Regards,
Phil Downs
Downs & Company, Inc.
November 20th, 2007 at 2:11 pm
Thanks for sending this to me. I really needed it this morning. I really need to start helping myself by doing myself the favor of filling my head full of positive truths. I know I can do it… its just going backwards to what I have been so used to doing for such a long time!
I love you MAN!
Nathan
November 20th, 2007 at 2:13 pm
I really enjoyed this T4D! I agree 100%! We all have issues - it’s how we handle those issues that matter! It’s a choice!
Thank you for sharing!
Gina
November 20th, 2007 at 3:17 pm
Kirk,
Not to detract from the sentiment. I whole heartedly agree that we are masters of our own fate and that when all is said and done I am where I am as a result of the choices that I have made. It hit me while reading this thought. We positve thinkers bent on exceeding the present. Those of us that are searching for the next handhold on the cliff of life. In our quest to reach the summit. As we climb and have what seem like random encounters during our assent. Do we look at these “bemoaners” as some one to avoid or as another rung in the search for happiness Take advantage of these opportunities. You may be the turning point in the “bemoaners” journey to the lighter side of life. Ultimatley it is their choice. Be the segue.
November 22nd, 2007 at 11:44 am
G’day Kirk,
My condolences on the loss of your Mum & Brother-in-law - losing someone in your family is hard.
But I really, really liked your T4D today, so I thought I’d let you know how much I appreciated it, because us Aussies like to “under-emphasise” everything. Hell, our weekend could consist of getting stuck on a deserted tropical island with - Heidi Klum or Eva Longoria would be my choice, get asked “how was your weekend” and we’d say something like “not bad” or “yeah mate, it was alright”. I think when we do that we sell ourselves short.
So I’m going to make sure I have a brilliant day - carpe diem !
thanks mate
Marcel Welter
November 25th, 2007 at 6:11 pm
Sorry it’s taken so long for me to comment on this - despite the delay, I felt I still had to. Quite simply this is possibly the best T4D I think I’ve read (and I’ve been receiving them for quite some time now).
Why? This is the crux and the core of what all the other messages are about. Leadership is essentially about mastery of self and this message shows just that in the real, living, and sometimes ‘trench warfare’ that the battle for the mind can be. I must say that you and Bec sound like a formidable team that you have met these recent challenges in the way you have. To have such fortitude of mind and strength of spirit can only come from being vigilent and working hard to exercise the mind muscle constantly and always, so credit to you for seeking to be one of those people in the world that people look at and say ‘wow, I wish I was like him, he’s so ‘up’ all the time’.
Just on that, I did want to make one comment along the lines of what Steve pointed out. I guess one of the goals of leadership that of course you have often spoken on yourself is to bring others with us and sometimes that means a ‘coming down to their level’ or ‘meeting them where they are at’… that bloke Jesus was a champion on this stuff.
Of course this doesn’t mean you have to get down in the dumps with them but often to really draw someone out of their mire means they have to know of your own vulnerabilities and trials that you are conquering too and to know that you haven’t found it all so easy yourself - and I think this is crucial. You would have hurt, you would have cried, you would have struggled through these challenges. I think people like your friend need to know this - and well, I realise you may well have been vulnerable with him on these points to try and ‘bring him out’. But the thing is that people like this who are stuck in that state of mind, do see the world from a victim’s view and need to realise there are others who have had the same and got through it.
I guess what I’m saying is that vulnerability in leadership I think is just as important as bold, forward, positive movement and that sometimes we need to vocalise these challenges and show that we hurt before we conquer and set off again.
Having said (all) that… there are some who simply will not drag themselves up, and that whilst we should never give up on them, to drag our thinking down all the time does nothing for this world that needs leaders of attitude and fortitude.
and Kirk, this message comes from someone who has looked at you in the past as being a little untouchable at times because you were just so on top of everything - knowing full well you would have challenge in your life but maybe just needing to be able to see it a bit more and know it is touching you and drawing on your energies, yet despite your hurt that you are feeling it, experiencing it, then moving on.
And Kirk, my heartfelt condolences on your difficult losses.
Peace,
Daniel
November 26th, 2007 at 10:55 am
Kirk,
I’ve been out of the office for a few days and took the time this morning to catch up with the past few T4D. This post is terrific!. I have a friend that replies to “how are you” with “just about perfect” and it always makes me smile! Family losses are tough. My mother has been gone for 25 years and I just lost a sister to cancer. I have been through plenty of “life” challenges but I make the choice to be positive and find good in everyday. It is a choice! I am thankful for family and friends that are good listeners and have helped me through the challenges to keep the right mind set! It’s so important to surround yourself with good people and remember to live, laugh, and love!
November 28th, 2007 at 3:43 pm
Hi Kirk.
Great T4D today!
It reminds me of an answer I got from a colleague of mine a few weeks back, when I asked him how he was doing. We used to work together about 12 years ago, but our paths rarely cross anymore.
I said: How ya doin, Tim?”
He said: “Any better and I’d cancel my OHIP!” (OHIP is our Ontario Health Insurance Plan)
Tom Redmond
January 24th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
This is my first time reading your article. Thank you. My family is going through a difficult “patch” (very difficult) and I was feeling sorry for myself…..but I am now grateful for our good health, the support of family and friends and the countless gifts and talents we have to resolve our problems…..Thank you…I will resolve to change my mindset.
Sandra