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Life lessons

Sali Hughes has recently written in the Pool about lessons that she might have found useful and it made me think not only about things I might have valued but things my daughters might have missed:

HOW TO COOK THINGS YOU WANT TO EAT

All kids used to have “Cookery”lessons at school, somewhat dressed up as home Economics. We learned how to make scones and bread, a strange combo dish called “cobbler” and remarkably little about nutrition. Nowadays most kids don’t even get this.

Useful food that you might want to eat would probably start with soup. As Ms Hughes’ points out an inability to make yourself – and a date – some dinner is pathetically unattractive and wouldn’t it be useful to have some idea about how to make one value bag of pasta last a week.

Bread making is all well and good, but not that useful when one only has two eggs and an aged Babybel in the fridge and doesn’t know how to make a simple omelette. The ability to make an all-in-one cheese sauce (Hughes’ recipe: bung together 40g cold butter, 40g flour, a pint of cold milk  – then heat gently, stirring all the time. Season. When cooked and thickened, turn off heat and add cheese) will serve you well throughout life. Meanwhile, a generation of girls are dropping entire food groups like hot potatoes because some prat on Instagram tells them to. Osteoporosis: bone health is ultimately more useful than a concave abdomen.

SAYING NO

Kids are great at saying no but, instead of encouraging the impulse where appropriate, we scold and punish them out of it. They will desperately need the confidence to use “No” throughout life.

“No, I don’t want to be touched; no, I won’t cover for you; no, I won’t be giving you my number; no, I don’t want to do you that favour; no, you can’t come for Christmas; no, I can’t take on any extra work; no, it’s actually not OK; no, I’m not coming to the party; no, I won’t lend you the money; no, I didn’t orgasm, NO NO NO NO N-O”. A firm, clear, polite but negative response is among the greatest of all life skills and yet, still, most of us take decades to acquire it the hard way, because we’re too scared that we won’t be liked.

NOT EVERYONE WILL LIKE YOU & THAT”S OKAY

By the time we reach our forties, all being well we will know this. But it should be taught much, much sooner.

Most people spend their teens and twenties feeling bad about themselves and everyone else when people seemed not to like them which, if you think about it, is extraordinarily self-obsessed and entitled, not to mention a huge waste of a fine time. It’s an unavoidable truth that no one but Julie Walters is liked by everyone, and not being liked is not a sign of a bad person.

Recently my youngest daughter came home very upset because her Chemistry teacher appeared not to like her and didn’t seem willing to make the effort to get to understand her problems (she underperformed on a test after a stinking cold made her feel sick as a parrot).

I pointed out that while this may be true, it isn’t actually anything to do with who my daughter is or indeed who the teacher is. Liking each other is not part of the deal.  They just have to get through their mutual dislike (or more likely, indifference in the case of the poor teacher) in the most respectful and tolerant way possible. Adults have to get along with people they can’t stand almost every week of their lives. The teacher-pupil relationship is as good a place as any to start learning how.

THIS IS WHAT AN ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIP LOOKS LIKE

A couple of half-hour lessons would save us all a load of practical coursework. My parents had an abusive relationship that I thought gave me a head start here – certainly I’ve avoided most of the disasters of my BF from a much more well-adjusted home life.

When men or women tell you what to wear, who to see or what to do, or when they spy on you, or routinely read your diary/personal emails/texts, or who withhold your money, important documents and property, or who constantly criticise your weight/appearance/intelligence/character, or who try to vet your friends and family, or who physically hurt you or make you engage in anything you don’t want in bed, or make you have a baby you don’t want, or who threaten to either harm themselves or you if you ever leave them, are abusers. You cannot fix them, however “special” they tell you you are. They will systematically ruin you if you stay.

You need to confide in people you trust outside of the relationship and then you have to leave. You need to leave.

HOW TO DO WELL AT WORK

“Turn up, work hard, don’t be a pain in the arse” – this could save whole terms of “careers guidance” and is absolute key to success in the early days of any career, regardless of job title, qualifications, experience and contacts. All else being equal, and obviously it isn’t, people give jobs to those who knuckle down and make life easier for everyone else. My daughters’ teachers are understandably so preoccupied with grades that they failed to give them, the three most important pieces of workplace advice, closely followed by…

HOW TO ASK FOR MORE MONEY

British people are useless at this, especially women. By the time we get around to asking for a rise, however deserved, we are desperate, have tied ourselves up in knots and the whole thing has become personal.

Employers don’t care that you have bills to pay, or a car to maintain, or extra mouths to feed. They need to hear why your specific work calls for more money, which duties you’re effectively performing for free, what added value you’re bringing to the role that would cost significantly more were another to fill it. Be forensic, dispassionate and methodical, and show clearly how you’ve come to your proposed salary increase figure. Then negotiate.

HOW TO TIP

15% for servers, 10% for taxi drivers. A couple of quid for your hair washer, 10-15% for your hairdresser or manicurist, unless they’re the salon owner, in which case none.

WHAT TO DO IF YOU FIND YOURSELF PREGNANT

In soap operas and science lessons, women get pregnant and just have their babies, however unwanted. In real life, people make mistakes and civilised societies give them options. Your doctor will not shout at you; you will not necessarily have to beg, borrow or steal to pay for a safe termination. Yes, it’s undesirable, will be uncomfortable and can be traumatic; no, you will not necessarily regret it for the rest of your life (the same should be taught of divorce).

The first step is a GP, family planning clinic or Brook Advisory Centre. You will need a friend to take you home and will need to sort out future contraception before you leave. Take it.

SELF-DEFENCE

Perhaps all kids should be taught how to punch, where vulnerable tissue lies, the power of a jagged key and why it’s most important of all to get the hell out of a scary or intimidating situation. Self-defence would better serve our girls (and boys) than hockey, and bolster their confidence far more than not being picked for the cool girls’ team.

HOW TO RESPOND WHEN SOMEONE’S LOVED ONE DIES

It’s a sad truth that no one really knows what to say until they themselves need to hear it.

You say, “I am so sorry for your loss.”.

You can add if you know them well “This is absolutely awful and horrible and I am so bloody sorry you’re having to go through it.”

Do not attempt to identify a silver lining, because there isn’t one. Do not draw comparisons with your dead pet, because no one cares.

Assume the bereaved person has needs, even if they aren’t expressing them. By all means, offer to help, but either be specific (“I would be very happy to make all the sandwiches for the wake/babysit your children for the next few days”) or take matters into your own hands and leave a lasagne on the doorstep.

Similarly, never respond to someone’s critical illness diagnosis by telling them which members of your family almost or actually died from the same condition.Just don’t.

HOW TO FILE A TAX RETURN

I know people who have spent days – even weeks – of their early adult lives crying about their tax return. Most people, want to pay their tax, but navigating the sodding form without suffering a minor breakdown can be difficult for people – ask for help!

Everyone would be happier for receiving basic tax, credit (someone needs to tell kids that making your minimum monthly payment on any credit card is essentially a decision to die in debt) and finance guidance at school. Maybe not at the time, but certainly for years afterwards

WHICH SIDE TO STEP WHEN ABOUT TO BUMP INTO AN ONCOMING PERSON

I still don’t know this. Learning is a lifelong project.

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Workout

The Scientific 7-Minute Workout

Each activity should take no more than 30 seconds but be carried out at pretty much unpleasant levels (0-10 discomfort, you should score an 8)
DESCRIPTION

An article in the May-June issue of the American College of Sports Medicine’s Health & Fitness Journal concluded that in 12 exercises deploying only body weight, a chair and a wall, it fulfills the latest mandates for high-intensity effort, which essentially combines a long run and a visit to the weight room into about seven minutes of steady discomfort — all of it based on science.

“There’s very good evidence” that high-intensity interval training provides “many of the fitness benefits of prolonged endurance training but in much less time,” says Chris Jordan, the director of exercise physiology at the Human Performance Institute in Orlando, Fla., and co-author of the new article.

Work by scientists at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, and other institutions shows, for instance, that even a few minutes of training at an intensity approaching your maximum capacity produces molecular changes within muscles comparable to those of several hours of running or bike riding.

Interval training, though, requires intervals; the extremely intense activity must be intermingled with brief periods of recovery. In the program outlined by Mr. Jordan and his colleagues, this recovery is provided in part by a 10-second rest between exercises. But even more, he says, it’s accomplished by alternating an exercise that emphasizes the large muscles in the upper body with those in the lower body. During the intermezzo, the unexercised muscles have a moment to, metaphorically, catch their breath, which makes the order of the exercises important.

The exercises should be performed in rapid succession, allowing 30 seconds for each.The seven minutes should be, in a word, unpleasant. The upside is, after seven minutes, you’re done.

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Seeds

In my dreams my garden is elegant and restrained. It might even be one of those beautiful white only “outside rooms” that people talk about.

In reality, my garden is pretty. It has too many plants and too many colours to come even remotely close to “elegant”.

Salvia viridis syn S. horminum ‘Oxford Blue’ – annual clary

And yet every year I seem to find more space to cram in yet more flowers. This year I’m happy to have planted some mini-narcissus under the hedge and it’s looking good. There’s still a gap on the fritelaria bed so there’s some more room free for planting up bulbs next Autumn.

Nigella hispanica ‘Midnight’

 

But what I have never really invested in are seed catalogues yet this year they’ve arrived and there is some space around the new roses to be filled.

Papaver somniferum ‘Black Peony’

In the end I’ve decided that nigella will grow and look good against the pale pink roses. maybe they’ll form one of those artistic elegant drifts but probably not. Having done this before with nigella, I do know that if I scatter the seeds about, they’ll certainly grow and grow.

Zinnia elegans ‘Luminosa’

 

In fact it’s likely to take years to get rid of the beggars if I decide that I don’t like them after all. I’ve dabbled with the idea of zinnia or salvia.

Zinnia elegans ‘Benary’s Giant White’
Cosmos bipinnatus ‘Double Click Cranberries’

And who wouldn’t love cosmos growing in their flower beds.

Cosmos bipinnatus ‘Fizzy White’
Cosmos bipinnatus ‘Purity’

Poppies and nigella are on their way. The sweetpeas are about to be planted in their coir pots and all is well with the crocus and narcissus sparkling bright and sharp amongst the greenery.

This is going to be a good year for the garden.

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Retirement

Their dad tells me he’s going to retire at the end of the year. I’ve told him that he should have a plan. The words of a friend “You marry for life, not for lunch” echo around.

My life is essentially organised around having fun, with a bit of fund management thrown in for good measure. I play tennis and bridge with friends, visit galleries, go to the theatre, organise and undertake some wonderful travel (Peru and Bolivia later this year) look after my nearly grown kids and throw in a bit of financial fund management to finance it all. Most days have an organised schedule but nothing that couldn’t be cancelled at the drop of a hat or the call from school.

So when he finally stops work, looking to me to provide entertainment is likely to a waste of time. My life is already quite busy and whilst we can probably rearrange things to spend a couple of mornings or afternoons doing something together, we’re not going to be each others be all and end all activity.

According to an article in the Guardian today, there are a couple of things to avoid when you retire:

Unsuccessful retirements have two main characteristics, either they tend to atrophy or they do too much: they take on too many responsibilities or they fail to put boundaries in place to stop their families demanding too much from them.

Successful retirements nearly always involve a plan:

David Kelley runs a pre-retirement course in a quiet office in central London.Distilling Kelley’s decade of expertise down to a core lesson isn’t easy but the phase “proper selfishness” jumps out. “We have to start thinking like a two-year-old when we’re thinking about retirement,” he told the group. “We get forced into adaption throughout our youth and our working lives. Now we have to get out of that habit and into one that says ‘me first’.”

Obviously many people are faced with both financial and health constraints which will have to be managed. We’re lucky, with both of us having savings and pensions in place and no obvious health issues on the horizon.

Studies show that retired people waste a great deal of time deciding what they are going to do with the rest of their lives. At 65, a man can expect to live 25 more years, and a woman 27. But they can also spend up to 15 years post-retirement reorienting themselves: just 56% say they enjoy retirement “a great deal” during this period, and just 57% feel it is working out as they planned. So it’s important to have an idea of what you want to do before you actually retire.

Apparently There are four basic factors that make for a successful retirement:

  • By far the most important element is a person’s social network. Entering retirement with only your immediate family and your work network is a frequent cause of retirement depression which can be a downward spiral that is very difficult to reverse.
  • Having purpose and challenging one’s mind is the second element. This usually takes the form of some type of work – whether paid or unpaid.
  • Ongoing personal development should never stop a factor highlighted by the recent rapid increase in mature learners and the boom in retirement learning and development services
  • The fourth element is a serious one: to have fun.

Obviously, looked at through a slightly different lens, the elements of a successful retirement are no different to the elements of a successful life.

David Kelley himself has no intention of wasting his time. Immediately after he retired, he wrote himself a business plan for the rest of his life. It read: “Two days earning. Two days learning. Three days just for me.” There are two addenda: “Don’t be afraid to say no,” and “Don’t travel anywhere before 10am.” “I hate the rush hour,” he explains.