Every now and again I try to take a step back from everything going on around me, regroup, and reassess where things are heading, what path my personal life is taking and how things can be changed.

This weekend, I’m back in Norwich for various reasons, so thought I’d spend some time analysing things that have happened recently, from my “outside” perspective.

Whilst doing this, I kept on hearing my Gran’s voice in my head, saying certain sayings. For example, she always compares modern day events to what they would have been like during the war. I thought I’d look up some of these sayings, and bring them into my outsiders perspective. Make sense? No? Well, read on, it might become clear…!

The problem in defense is how far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without. – Dwight D. Eisenhower

Pretty self explanatory I guess. To put into my perspective, I feel like I’m in some kind of self-destruct mode. I try to defend myself as much as possible, it’s human nature after all, but recently, looking back, I can see now that it’s really made me worse inside, even if the exterior seems to be ok.

War grows out of the desire of the individual to gain advantage at the expense of his fellow man. – Napoleon Hill

It really is a dog-eat-dog world we live in. There’s this lady who gets my train most days. Now, there used to be a time where a man would give up his seat for a woman, without any hesitation. Ok, so most of the time people give up their seats for the elderly, disabled, pregnant and so on, but if you’re fit and well, it’s a real free-for-all. So yes, this lady, every day, she basically takes a run up on to the train, barges through to ensure that *she* has a seat. Not a thought for anyone else. It’s petty, I know, but there are elderly people left standing, and it is only a 15 minute ride, but that is not the point. We just seem to have lost that community spirit, you know what I mean?

War is never a solution; it is an aggravation. – Benjamin Disraeli

As I look back over the past few months, I have to admit that at times, I’ve been guilty of raging war in scenarios where it wasn’t needed, and it has indeed aggravated people. Mainly in my personal life, I have been all to quick to snap, react and later regret my actions, by which time I’ve caused the aggravation and made things a whole lot worse. If I just took that time to think “Is this really the best thing to do now?” or “Maybe I’ll just let it simmer, and hope it doesn’t boil over”, then maybe I could have avoided such aggravation.

Mankind must put an end to war before war puts an end to mankind. – John F. Kennedy

Ok so not everything that I’m looking back over can be controlled by my actions, but, enough of it can for me to make a big difference in the way things have been, and will be for the rest of the year. But basically, if things need to change, then they need to be actioned quickly and effectively, before either the damage is irreversible, or unfixable at all.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that it’s far too easy for us to kind of self destruct, to become our own enemy. And when this mindset sets in, it’s blows the petty, stupid things even more out of proportion (see *all* of the above, really!)

Sometimes, once you’ve stepped back to see what’s really going on, things just become so much clearer.

I’ve had similar thoughts, check out the Related Posts tab at the bottom to read of my musings!