In my younger days, any Hollywood film that needed a suave, debonair, well spoken Englishman, cast George Sanders. He didn’t play the part; he was it. Some of you may have heard him as the voice of Shere Kahn, the tiger, in the film “Jungle Book”. So why am I writing this? Well, it’s because when he died he left a suicide note which read “Dear World, I am leaving because I am bored. I feel that I have lived long enough. I am leaving you with your worries in this sweet cesspool. Good luck”. That note had style, just like the man himself.
I like to think that I have style of some sort and no idea what the future might bring. Maybe I, too, will get bored, but I don’t think so. You see that, even when I feel down, I know that there is still a lot to do and, no, I won’t do it all; I will though, at least, try. For me those feelings of being overwhelmed come about when a whole series of the day to day minutiae of life come all at once. Such has been the case in the past few weeks. Fortunately, I’m able to do what I always do in these situations and carry on. What my wife calls my “incredible perseverance” and what I call, “getting on with it”. That getting on with it involves tacking those problems and getting back to normal. I am boosted in this in that I know the immense feeling of satisfaction that overcoming problems gives me.
This starts with working out what has gone wrong and why before moving onto the detail of what needs to be done, in what order, by whom and how? So, when I published my first two books, I went on a self publishing workshop, put what I learned into effect before contacting those kind, helpful people I have gathered around me who delivered in abundance. I have now done the same for my third book. In all this, I find that, if you are generous and helpful to others, they will usually reciprocate. It’s happened again this week when I offered to help someone and may now be writing another book I hadn’t thought about in a joint venture. Generosity and kindness, I find, breeds more of the same. Unfortunately, I also find the reverse to be true.
What I won’t do, however, is to allow the “Sod you, Jacks” of this world to get me down; at least not for very long. In this I am bolstered by the fact that, if the whole world operated as they do, it would be a far worse place. I also believe the reverse to be true in this as well. And it probably doesn’t require any more effort than doing the opposite. “Courtesy”, as my Aunt Doreen used to say, “doesn’t cost you a penny”. It is also more likely to get you what you want and make the world a better place.