Tag Archives: politics

NEVER Mind the Gap. (I’m proud of this one….)

23 Thursday Jan 2020

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I’ve been cogitating about another space. Not the one between stimulus and response, where we can choose that response and, in that choice, choose wisely or otherwise. There is another Gap, which must be important because I used a capital ‘G’.

The self-help (ugly term) industry is designed to help people close the Gap between ‘where they are and where they want to be’, as Jack Canfield trademarked it. This is the Gap of which I write.

In my latest rewrite The Three Resolutions, which I regularly review as my understanding of the contents improve as my experiences and studies dictate, I reminded myself of a time when I was providing personal development to police colleagues, and in one of my lectures I drew a diagram which illustrated the Gap. It looked a bit like this

The Gap

and was also intended to show how some of us have a HUGE gap between where we are and where we (careful…..), some of us are lucky and have a smaller Gap to close.

And it struck me, counter-intuitively, that the larger that Gap the easier it was to make it smaller, whereas once the Gap narrowed to a sliver its closure was harder to achieve. Which meant I had to figure out why this was.

My conclusion was this: when we start out in that HUGE Gap, we believe we have a million things wrong about our lives that need correction. As time passes, we tick off the faults which are easy to correct, and each closure has a massive effect on our lives. But as we get ever closer to our ideal ‘self’ we start to address the harder challenges, the ones which cause us the most stress, the ones we avoided earlier but which are also, by their very nature, the biggest of our problems.

But here’s the kicker. Despite that remaining Gap and the challenges it represents, we have become better individuals through making the Gap that much smaller. But we tend to forget how far we’ve come. We get so focused on the last 10 yards we forget we’ve travelled miles and miles.

Now and then, I suggest, look at what you were and compare it to what you are.

Not just in terms of wealth and professional standing, but in terms of knowledge, relationships, freedom and some other immeasurables. Are you better than you were at 25? Are you better after closing some of the Gap? In which case, CONGRATULATE YOURSELF.

Then set about that last bit in the knowledge that you are more capable of closing it now than you ever were. Celebrate the fact that you even know that the Gap exists, because penny to a pound you didn’t recognise it when you were younger/less experienced/alone or skint.

Yes, there may be one or two challenges left, and they may be the hard ones, but what have you got now that reflects your progress?

In 1995 I was a sit-at-the-back, let it happen of guy. Now I always sit at the front, I can think and write at a level I would never have thought possible even in my 30s, I have pursued things rather than waited for them.

So I’m a bit broader in the beam than I ought to be.

My family loves me and I love them. I am financially secure. I can read, write, count and argue with people and yet happily lose an argument.

Yup. Today, I like me. Like yourself, see how far you’ve come. Then gird your loins for the next bit……

Politicians – read and learn.

26 Friday Jan 2018

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The annoying things about politics and politicians.

They never apologise. Do you know why that is? It’s because other politicians don’t understand gratitude or humility in victory.

For example, party A has a policy, and a policy is usually well considered by many before it is announced. Party B decries it and demands changes.

Now, for all the best will in the world, there will be factors Party A didn’t consider because of a lack of omnipotence, and there will be factors they considered because of their value structure. (That is, the right tends to promote personal responsibility and conservation of what is, while the left tends to promote societal responsibility and want constant change in that direction.)

With that in mind, something comes to light or an alternative viewpoint is acknowledged and accepted, and Party A adapts the plan. Immediately, Party B rips into them for ‘U-Turns’ and ‘lack of leadership’ and ‘strife within the party’ and all that cobblers.

Try managing with that over your head. It is exactly like you making an honest mistake at work, apologising, and then being punished, attacked, demotes, moved, etc., despite correcting your error.

So instead of apologising, you try to justify yourself. Like any political party.

They don’t tell the truth. Occasionally, they do lie. (See above.) But one thing I learned from a lawyer years ago is that professional ethics occasionally mean they have to take a certain line – in the lawyer’s case I discovered that if a client tells them ‘I did it, get me off’ then they cannot sit there and listen to them lie. They have to go no comment. When I learned that I changed my approach from “solicitors are gits” to “No comment, eh? I must be on to something!”

 It is fair to say that senior politicians are privy to secrets and confidences, just like us. And just like us, when asked about them, they have to avoid answering ‘correctly’. Which means avoiding the question or using another tactic. Bear in mind that even the answer, “I can’t tell you that, it’s an official secret” breaches the Official Secrets Act as it (usually) confirms a presupposition in the question asked.

Occasionally, they don’t know the answer. Of course, ‘we’ know everything and expect the same of them. When they say ‘I don’t know’, the ‘examiner’ with the answer in front of them attacks them for not knowing that random statistic. Then the press joins in. Now, if the subject of the interview is clear and it is an obvious question, the politician should have prepared. But surprise questions with stats held by the interviewer shouldn’t be abused by the press. Anyway, they aren’t allowed to not know the answer, so they avoid giving one, which looks like avoidance of a truth.

They waffle. It’s often quite funny watching this. A question is asked, and it is immediately answered with ‘Let me clear (about something else)’, or ‘The reality is (party political broadcast)’ or ‘The real question is (combination of both)’.

 Nobody likes to answer uncomfortable questions, least of all us. Politicians are made up of ‘us’ but with the added expectation that they ‘must’ be transparent. Give them some slack and know when they are uncomfortable. They don’t want to offend the voters, even while offending the Opposition.

They have no manners. To my mind, there seems to be a complete – and ineffective – lack of manners when it comes to politicians and political interviewers. Interviewer asks a question, and as the interviewee draws breath they start attacking the answer not yet given, or the ‘opposing’ guest butts in. How wonderful it was to see Jacob Rees-Mogg and Vince Cable debate Brexit politely and intelligently without interrupting each other.

You can’t challenge a viewpoint or opinion effectively without listening to it, considering it, and seeing the holes. The ‘loudest shouter’ isn’t necessarily right. Make notes, wait yur turn, and then state your views. They are a lot easier to hear when you’re not arguing over each other.

What has all of this got to do with The Three Resolutions?

The Second Resolution argues for Character and Competence. For politicians, the spin doctors have invented a new competence – political avoidance, with training provided. (I find that non-pointing fist thing annoyingly inane, most of all.) Every statement must be slapped down and ridiculed by the opposing party, even when their own point of view is equally unclear through the same prevarication, avoidance or opinion. ‘The end justifies the means’, they say: but this means attacking the ‘enemy’ for doing what you would do yourself, but in the belief that their motives are evil while yours are good. Your ‘bad’ means are done for good ends, while their ‘bad’ means are done for ‘evil’.

Poppy-llocks.

What I would welcome is an improvement in the Character Ethic of the politicians and the media. Ask open questions, listen to answers quietly and respectfully, and then challenge in an appropriate tone and with considered responses where necessary. Acknowledge and respect the willingness or reluctance of the interviewee to provide answers and see things from their perspective, even if just at first. Just like Jac and Vic. Let your intellect say what your emotional outbursts actually obscure.

As a police officer, I was expected to do that when dealing with rapists and murderers. Wouldn’t it be nice if politicians and newsreaders gave the same respect to each other that I was expected to provide to the worst in society?

Let people change their minds; let them have secrets but let them say why it is a secret; interview them politely and challenge waffle – let them say ‘I don’t know, and I’ll find out’. It’s supposed to be about discovering the facts, not necessarily about finding them out in a convenient TV slot.

Let politicians rediscover Character as an ethical approach to politics, instead of perpetuating the ethic of Personality, where looking good is more important than being good.

Are you blind – ideologically? You reveal all on social media.

02 Saturday Apr 2016

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“Until we take how we see ourselves (and how we see others) into account, we will be unable to understand how others see and feel about themselves and their world. Unaware, we will project our intentions onto their behaviour and call ourselves ‘objective’. Stephen R Covey

Facebook is getting out of control. I think it started as a wonderful means of reuniting people, and I have been fortunate enough to benefit from that when I met up with some old friends from my ‘war years’ who, like me, had elected to see our past through rose tinted glasses. Without Facebook that may never had happened, nor would I have travelled abroad for it to happen.

But we have now ‘allowed’ Facebook to be not just a medium through which we can have a rant about things that annoy us like poor standards and over-commercialisation on television (my favourite) and the low societal standards by which we find ourselves surrounded. It has become a way to get involved in politics.

Not in a good way. What this particular issue shows us is that we are not all ‘balanced and objective’ about political issues. It identifies just how ideologically blinded we tend to allow ourselves to become.

I respect everyone’s right to hold a political viewpoint. I have one, after all. But when you read posts saying that XXXX MP is a (*&^%) because he is a member of, or not a member of a particular party, then you have to ask whether the opinion is ideological – because pound to a pinch of (you know) the poster has never met XXXX MP, is not a member of their cabinet/shadow cabinet, has not been party to the discussions about which s/he made that post, and is therefore spouting malicious bile. And I use as my evidence the fact that they use abusive language rather than considered commentary. When they do that, they tell everyone that (a) they are a member of a particular ‘side’ and (b) they are blind to alternative thinking.

You can disagree with someone agreeably. You can (and the ideological just can’t get their heads around this) agree with SOME things and disagree with others. Shock! Horror! Yes, folks – you have the ability to think, and to recognise that someone can be right some of the time and wrong some of the time, without being a *&^%.

Just like YOU, in fact.

I recall some abuse being circulated by socialist thinkers about Iain Duncan-Smith, relating to welfare cuts. Some choice words were used. But when he resigned in protest about his party going too far? Not one word. I wasn’t expecting praise, but the balanced and objective would have said something positive. But the ideological? ‘Pretend it never happened’, or, ‘Political self-interest, I expect.’ Probably based on their intimate relationship with him, I suppose.

And another thing. Sharing posts can be a valuable way of (and I hate this expression) ‘raising awareness’. My only request is that when you do so, you actually know for a FACT that what you are sharing is TRUE. Otherwise you are perpetuating propaganda, something circulated by an interested party whose post may be a load of old tripe. And they’ll thank you for doing so.

Facebook – a great tool unless you use it blindly. Open your eyes. Not just to the possibilities that other people are wrong. But to the possibility that you might be wrong, too.

And when you ARE wrong, at least have the manners to apologise.

Judge me by MY standards, not yours. I’m not congruent with YOUR beliefs, I’m congruent with MINE.

17 Friday Jul 2015

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“Revel in the ordinary.” M J Ryan

This isn’t a criticism of ‘self-help’ literature – a term I detest – but the well-motivated hype of some of the books and seminars just doesn’t suit a lot of us. We don’t all want to be millionaires and we don’t all want to be super-fit and we don’t all want big houses and big cars. We’d like some of those things, certainly. Our upbringing may have instilled in us the false belief that ‘money’ and ‘stuff’ are signs of a life well lived.

Some of us, on the other hand, just want to be ‘good people’. Living honestly, without conflict, with extreme levels of inner peace from living with integrity. And above all, without the expectation and even imposition by others that we should care for the things they are passionate about, and that if we don’t we are at fault.

Stephen Covey’s Circle of Influence and Circle of Concern illustrate my ‘desire’ for that. In the ‘outer’ Circle of Concern is pretty much everything we hear about, see, or affects us, even if only tangentially. In the ‘inner’ Circle of Influence are the things that are in that bigger Circle of Concern, but about which we can do something. Including ‘care’, as in ‘care about’.

So when someone else demands that I care about things that aren’t in that Circle of Influence – guess what, my response will be indicative of my disinterest. And that’s when the fights start!

(My intent is that I won’t let myself get dragged into such debates, but (unfortunately) I am human and if there’s one thing that will grab my attention, it is when someone uses enormous generalisations about a group, attacks them with vitriolic language, and then tries to use an academic argument to justify what, once a general ‘lumping together’ was used to start the attack, is automatically unsupportable simply because of that initial generalisation! For example, as soon as you say ‘ALL politicians are corrupt’ you cannot then use an academic argument to justify that case because you haven’t met them all. It’s an academically unsound argument! Nor can you say ‘all (opposing party) politicians are corrupt, because your ideological separation is all too specific – and obvious.)

Back to the point. Just because I want to be an ordinary man who occasionally does something great doesn’t mean I should be subjected to someone else’s hyperactive and enthusiastic counsel to spend hours trying to build big piles of money. As a result, while I am in no way ‘affluent’ I am ‘comfortable’ and secure and have no fears. My goal, for now, is to be wholly congruent with my beliefs and values and to encourage others to do the same.

Be congruent. But remember that congruence for you does not mean that I have to believe and value the same things as you. AND in recognising that, we can respect each other’s’ viewpoints without necessarily adopting them. We can disagree and both be congruent with what we believe, and neither will be less for that unless the generalised attacks begin.

And just ‘cos I ain’t rich doesn’t mean you are better than me, or more successful (by society’s standards). Nor does it mean I am better than you because I have neither money nor ‘societal success’. But rest assured – being rich doesn’t make you successful.

Being congruent does.