Covered in Coffee and Dog Hair

How many cliches protest to the same end, seeing is believing, actions speak louder than words, proof of the pudding is in the eating, picture paints a thousand words… is that now why videos and pictures seem to be the most common communication because it’s ‘real’ whereas words can be manipulated, misunderstood, twisted and paraphrased.

Common phrases and idioms seem to have been held onto in a nostalgic effort to be a grown up and understand the meaning of life by my younger counterparts but just like their vision of the world quite often warped and misinterpreted. My favourite of late, in describing the ebb and flow of the days trade a colleague described that the customers came in spits and spats. In itself not entirely misleading and the gist could be caught. Of course she did mean fits and starts but had never been taught, properly heard it, therefore knitted the consonants around the vowels with some very bad wool!

Blame her, judge or condemn her I did not, instead started to wonder, and being a millennial with the associated learnt anxieties, I did worry, what else may those growing up have to piece together themselves now that parents have to work as hard as possible to provide the basics, teachers are qualifying at barely adult age themselves and aren’t paid enough for it to be a sustainable career, the education system couldn’t care less about teaching our children life skills and the poor little blighters now have to sift through all the social media bombardment of “advice”.

So us adults, the ones that have seen the trauma happen around the world, the ones who have faught, lost school friends to suicide, work hard and seen no rewards, loved and lost, those of us who have lived and learnt what is really important in life and how to make choices given the situation you’re in at the time, I think it’s our duty to pass on what we’re learning year on year to these youngsters.

First lesson; never use hindsight. Yes learn from mistakes, retrace your steps from A to B and pinpoint the pitfalls along your journey but remember if you didn’t know at the start what you know now then your choice would always be the same.

Lesson B; make decisions in the same way your Grandad would buy a car. Take some time, walk right the way round it, get in and under it, kick it a bit, take it for a test run, don’t commit until you’re certain and don’t feel the need to explain your thoughts. Nobody understands your morals and principals in the same way, in that sense we are all unique, so if you don’t want to do something or you don’t agree that’s fine. Be polite, be gracious and be kind always but don’t be ashamed of you.