Category: Daily Prompt

No Good Crying Over Spilt Milk

What’s a lesson you’ve learned recently that shifted your perspective?

We spend all our time trying to control every aspect of our lives. But the reality is that we have very little real control.

A lot of our lives are controlled by others, or by our circumstances. Employees are controlled by their managers, managers by their directors, directors by the business owners, business owners by the market demand. Children are controlled by the needs of their children, and children by the needs of their parents.

And even when we have free time, our freedom is controlled by the circumstances around us.

Take yesterday, as an example. My plan was to work around the house. Then my son called to tell me that he was available to help me with a different task. So, I drove to his house to collect him.

Leaving his home, we were greeted by a number of neighbours asking if it was my car. Yes, it was. Because a bus has just hit it, and the driver took his bus and left the scene before exchanging insurance details.

And that meant that after caring for the heavy lifting with which my son had come to help, and taking him home, I spent the day making reports to the police and insurance company. And now I’ll have to go through the trials of getting the car repaired. And because the bus driver is unknown, I’ll have to pay the excess on my insurance.

What have I learned? That we’re not as “in control” as we’d like to think we are.

How does it change my perspective? It’s a car. No one died. No one even got injured. It’s just a car.

Was I able to do what I wanted to, yesterday? No. I’ll have to do that today. But there’s no point worrying about it. As the saying goes, there’s no good crying over spilt milk. It’s gone. Like the time I’d set aside yesterday, it’s gone. No point worrying about it. I’ll never get that time back. And there’s nothing I can do about it.

So why worry? Why get angry? Will it help get my car fixed? No. Will it make me feel better? No. Will it get the bus driver punished? No. All it will achieve is cause me stress, and shorten my life. So why worry? Why get angry?

Instead, channel that energy into positive acts that get things done.

The positive side of yesterday was that I had less time available, so I carried out a different, shorter task. And strangely, that made a bigger difference than everything I’d planned but couldn’t do!

Read Widely

What’s one habit that has improved your life the most?

I’m a firm believer in keeping your mind active. People ask me what I do to relax and I say, “I study.” I read widely and keep learning. But there’s a warning attached.

Reading widely means we learn a little about a lot of subjects. We must never think we know it all. We must recognise the limits of our knowledge. We know enough to discuss matters intelligently. But that doesn’t make us experts. What it makes us is interested in others, empathetic.

So, read a wide range of subjects, but don’t boast about what you know. Use the little that you learn as a prompt to learn more. Ask questions of those who do know.

As it’s been said, the true knowledge is knowing how little we know.

What has it done for me? It’s allowed me to speak with a wide range of people without embarrassment. As Kipling put it, it’s allowed me to “walk with kings nor lose the common touch.”

Want What You Have

If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?

I grew up in the town I’m now living in. But I haven’t always lived here.

I moved away when I was aged 20. I was away for 30 years. And I chose to come back “home”, 20 years ago.

But what I learned is that contentment comes from wanting what you have.

If you want what you have, then you’ll automatically have what you want.

Not as easy as it looks

Hit 5,000 steps today and drop your achievement here — we’re cheering you on!

Try to stay healthy

Much easier said than done

But we do our best

I made 6,200 yesterday. But today is not going to be so active!

Words, Geiriau, Parole, Palabras, Mots, Palavras, 👋

Which languages do you speak and how did that impact your life?

Being able to speak a language is relevant. We use a very limited vocabulary every day, but we know a lot more words than we use. Therfore, we may understand a lot more words than we can speak. But we don’t need too many words to get by, and to get our basic needs met.

I grew up speaking English and went to a Welsh medium school, but I didn’t use Welsh until one of my sons went to school. We were living in a predominantly Welsh area, and we felt he would benefit from being educated in the Welsh stream, so I re-learned the language.

Three years ago, my youngest two were playing around with a language app but always running out of ‘lives’ with the free version. So, I paid for the family version of the app and decided that I wasn’t going to waste the money. I would learn Italian, like I’d always wanted to but never gotten around to it.

Since then, I’ve moved on to other languages. So, as of today, I speak:

English, Welsh, Italian, Spanish, French, Portuguese. I can also sign a limited vocabulary in British Sign Language.

How has it impacted me?

I first realised the significance when I was sitting behind a young man who was a deaf mute. His interpreter and family had gone to get lunch for him and he was sitting alone in the midst of all these people enjoying their own conversations.

I tapped him on the shoulder and spelled out, “Hi. My name is Michael.” And I’ll never forget the sheer joy on his face over the fact that someone had ‘spoken’ to him in his language.

I’ve had similar experiences with others, over the years. Even a simple greeting in the person’s mother tongue makes a huge difference in their life. Suddenly, they’re not alone. Suddenly, they have a friendly face in front of them instead of a sea of potentially frightening mystery.

Why does this happen?

A friend told me about a conversion he once had with a native Welsh speaker. It went something like this:

“When I converse, I converse in Welsh or English. When I watch TV, I watch TV in Welsh or English. When I go shopping, I go shopping in Welsh or English. When I pray, I pray in Welsh. That’s the language of my heart.”

That’s the impact. We talk of speaking in someone’s ‘native tongue’. What we really mean is speaking in the language of their heart.

Then there’s our heart. Our heart expands when we learn another language. Our heart is touched because we’ve touched someone else’s heart.

And when we touch someone’s heart, anything can happen.