I'M NOT THE MAN I THOUGHT I WAS

Les realises that others have skills he has yet to learn.

A few days ago I got to work with my computer and eventually produced a few posters and leaflets for a friend of mine's forthcoming event, needless to say I felt rather proud of my work but then if you want quality well I'm your man.

All was well until I became aware that my friend, (I'll kill him) had also engaged the services of another poster and leaflet producer and it was his work that made me realise that I wasn't quite the man I thought I was. I had to concede my "opponents" work was far superior to mine in fact I had to award him 20 marks and only one to myself. I concluded that when it came to producing posters and leaflets I was rubbish at least compared to my "opponent".

To make matters even worse the other day in conversation with a very dear friend of mine, oh dear shouldn't we pick our friends a bit more carefully? he made it abundantly clear that I wasn't in his view all milk and honey. You could say that over the past few days the old ego has never before taken such a right old bashing.

And yet remarkably all of this in no way made me feel depressed after all why should it? what's wrong with acknowledging that some people are better than you are when it comes to doing certain things but how often do you come across people who are prepared to admit this.

And what is wrong in having a friend who's prepared to lay it on the line and tell you to your face that maybe you are not as dam marvellous as you think you are. All we are doing here is doing nothing more than expressing opinions and this is something we should do more of and equally important we should accept that we are all entitled to our opinions and when those differ from our own so what we should gracefully accept them.

And talking of opinions the other day I was in the Feltwell Surgery and while I was waiting re my appointment I sat watching what I call the "Scoreboard" which started off with "Welcome to the Feltwell Surgery" it then read "Dr. is running 15 minutes Late" how nice it was to be kept informed of what was happening. The "item" that really interested me was when I read that some 54 people in July had failed to keep their appointments. Talk about opinions I'll tell you what my opinion is of most, yes one or two might have got genuine reasons, but the rest should stop wasting our Doctors time and do something else as well which I don't think at the moment they have done, and that's to grow up, and the quicker the better.

Dear or dear after that aggressive note I had better calm down and what better way than telling you that I have just shown this article to a most charming young Lady who's opinion was it was the most interesting article she had ever read. What a pleasure to meet such a lovely person I wonder if she is any good at producing posters and leaflets? if not I may well have to have a word with her Mother, who knows she might be better at doing things than I am, after all I'm always willing to learn and who knows I might discover with her help that I'm a better man than I thought.

Les Lawrence