Tag: Health

Mid Life perfection? Not a chance. Not in my world anyway.

Yesterday, my eight-year old son and I were sitting outside a small cafe, enjoying the early evening breeze and enjoying our chicken fajitas.

From around the corner, cigerette smoke would fill our space and then our lungs. I used to smoke cigerettes. Let’s just say the smoke was “distracting”.

To be fair, it wasn’t so bad that it made us cough. However, it still was happening in a place where it shouldn’t have been.

When it got particularly frustrating, I noticed that the smoker had tossed the “butt” on the ground. Instead of the smoke source being around the corner, it was now directly in front of me.

I got up. Walked over, and before I used my foot to stamp it out, I looked at the guy and said, “I’m gonna help you out”.

Returning to my seat, I reflected on what had just happened and rendered myself “guilty as charged”.

In the same way the smoker was not perfect, my attitude (disgusted and angry) in the way I spoke to him wasn’t perfect either.

What happened next?

Well, I went and appologized. “I’m sorry if I made you feel bad or guilty. Please forgive me for that. I’m not perfect either”.

He accepted the appology and I think we both felt better and we both learned a nice little lesson – compassion.

I hope your day is filled with little moments where you get the mid-life opportunity to catch glimpes of your own shortcomings, and use that insight to be a little kinder, a little wiser, with your fellow humans.

Carpe diem, jeff noel 🙂