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Adjust your Attitude

June 19, 2007

I can remember - very clearly - thinking when I was 16 or 17 that if I didn't have everything figured out and sorted by the time I was 25 then life simply would not be worth living because I would be a failed adult!

And here I am - 25 backwards - and I still don't have everything figured out and sorted, yet I don't feel in the slightest bit like a failure!

In fact, I am quite proud of the fact that I am still a work in progress, still learning and growing and becoming the person I was born to be.

I strongly suspect (and hope) that this process will continue until I die.

There is a huge freedom is being able to say 'I don't know everything' and 'I'm not perfect' but it's a freedom that was denied to our parents and the generations before them.

As a child, I never once heard an adult say 'I don't know' or 'I am sorry' to me.

Adults were supposed to know everything so, if faced with a question they couldn't answer, would fob children off with 'ask your mother/father' or 'I'll tell you when you're 21' or something totally ridiculous.

I have an uncle who would always respond to the question 'what's that?' with 'it's a lurel laurel for a gander's bridle' which I know now translates as 'I haven't got a bloody clue but if I tell you that you'll think I'm an idiot and you won't treat me with the respect I deserve just by virtue of being older and taller than you!'

So, I am very happy to be in a constant state of learning.

The lesson I have been receiving of late, from several angles, is 'no matter what the externals look/feel/seem like, everything is perfectly alright.'

I learned it on that eventful ferry crossing and I am now learning it again by coming to the 'everything is alright' conclusion in spite of being physically challenged by illness.

It all comes down to attitude!