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 🙂