I may have over-egged the pudding by making this sound more interesting than it is, but something gave me the idea to put it out there and see what everyone else thinks…

I know that one of the great things about humans as a species is the incredible variety of differences between us all – from the obvious physical or aesthetic differences, to the superficial likes and dislikes, not only between cultures, but down to the lowest common denominator. While these things are easy to identify, and accept on the whole, the vast difference in types of personality and character traits are often what really define us as individuals. These things are often as ingrained within who we are as the colour of our eyes, hair or skin.

Whereas a person may be able to appreciate or accept another’s musical taste, or identify with their choices in life based on their beliefs or moral standing, how we interact in situations that cause two differing individual traits to conflict is where the real friction can lie, but one which enriches our concept of self, and helps define our relationship with others.

Case in point:

Myself and someone very close to me had very differing attitudes to air travel. For her, flying was an unfortunate necessity which must be endured and suffered to be able to reach interesting or relaxing locations that aren’t to be find by driving round the M25. Particularly during take-off and landing, my hand (which I hasten to add was always offered for support) was always squeezed to near breaking point as she was consumed by what can only be described at a fear that something would go catastrophically wrong with the plane. A perfectly natural response a lot of you will concur with, and in some cases, such a fear is what prohibits you from flying. I, however, had no such reaction. Is this because my fear of death was any less than hers? Not necessarily. Is it because I have learned by wrote statistics on the likelihood of any such event occuring? Definitely not. Then what?

In such situations my reaction is based solely on a feeling of inevitability. Not in a fatalist, “if it’s my time then it’s my time” way, but I feel calm in the knowledge that if something awful were to happen, there would be precisely nothing I could do about it. I can imagine some of you thinking poorly of me for saying something which sounds almost defeatist or even lazy, but allow me to continue. While my girlfriend of the time would hate the take-off and I’m sure during the moments of anxiety would want to get off the plane, that isn’t possible. The plane won’t either halt it’s take-off, or turn around and land so people can get off. Likewise, if the worst were to happen mid-air, there is nothing you would be able to do to except make your peace with the world. This sounds insensitive to my girlfriend’s concerns, and I would like to add that I was nothing less than supportive in wanting to help ease her anxiety, and I would have given comforting words, or tried methods of distraction to help alleviate the situation – however, I don’t feel sharing my thoughts on how I deal with the same situation would have done anything less than further upset her. Is my way of dealing with it internally the wrong way? No. Is her way of externalising her anxiety wrong? No. Two different ways of dealing with fear that help to highlight differences in the human condition. If anything, or differing approaches helped us both. My calmness added pacifying support to her, and her anxiety helped to draw attention to other points of view about the severity of the situation to me.

Where I think different coping strategies can be more black and white as to whether they are wrong or not can also be interpreted as part of a healthy mental state. A documentary I watched recently covered the story of a 15-year old boy who was coming to terms with the fact that he had been diagnosed with diabetes. This discovery meant that to maintain a healthy life he would have to regularly test his blood sugar levels, and regulate the amount of insulin in his body with injections. All of his daily life began to revolve around the various procedures for doing these things. As a typical adolescent boy, he constantly had feelings of denial and anger as to why he would have to do this for the rest of his life, and how different he was to everyone else he knew. This lead to him deliberately missing out on injections or not monitoring his glucose levels, and on occasion suffering collapses that could potentially lead to long term damage.

His response was to angrily state that he didn’t want to do the checks, or self-injections because he didn’t want to have diabetes and it wasn’t fair. Tough. Just as my girlfriend wishing the plane would turn around and let her off wasn’t going to happen, him not wanting to have to manage his condition for the rest of his life doesn’t stop him having diabetes. Sometimes inevitability must be confronted, and I’m sure many of people with qualifications that I lack in psychology will say that the pattern of disbelief, denial, anger and acceptance is a natural, healthy process which must be experienced to truly come to terms with one’s own situation, I think inevitability often brings calm and peace in more situations than we really understand.

Some situations in which we encounter inevitability mean that we must take control, and bring ourselves through to the other side, and in others the same inevitability means that the exact same control is taken away from us and will take us through to the other side no matter how we feel or react.

So if you’re sat with me on a plane and want to know why I’m not panicking about the plane crashing, don’t be surprised if my answer isn’t as reassuring as you’d like…

As tongue-in-cheek as the article is, I can’t help thinking that there is a general truth behind this. It also brings into question how other world leaders will deal with President-elect Obama – from working with the bumbling toddler to an eloquent, educated ‘man of the people’…

I like to think the e-mails will have brightened her day and given her something to laugh about with colleagues. It may have just made her angry…

For those interested in purchasing the original artwork, you can buy it on eBay here.

Nothing life-enriching or socially important, but here is a fantastic view into the creativity of some architects. In charge of designing a new building with a ‘flexible’ (read: ‘elaborate’) budget? Build something to make people stop in wonder…

(photo: Greg Adams)

Take it away Chuck…

Love it… “Obama! Obama! Obama!“

So the Olympics are over. A fantastic Games for many reasons, but it’s been great being part of a country that has a great deal of pride for what our athletes have achieved.

For a team to be so far ahead of it’s own estimations and targets, it’s great that the fickle British public has got behind them, and I’m a big subscriber to the ‘medals per capita’ argument so to come in behind China, the US and Russia with far greater populations (1.3bn, 305m, 142m respectively, compared to Great Britain with a mere 61m) so comparatively we’ve done fantastically well. (Nb – To mention the medals per capita measurements insists I must congratulate Australia on coming fifth with a far smaller population of 21m).

While there were disappointments in some areas of the squad, mainly regarding track and field, having other teams succeed above expectations, and in some cases dominate their disciplines has more than made up for it.

The emphasis now, as everyone is so conscious of, shifts to London. Once again as a proud and patriotic (and as previously mentioned, fickle) Brit, I worry that not only the infrastructure and requirements will not be ready to the same standard the world is used to, but also that British athletes nerves will get to them and that we’ve peaked too early and the team will struggle to compare with the competition just gone.

But away with this negativity, and for the foreseeable future we’ll be revelling in the pride and celebration of our brave boys and girls! I can see a fair few honours coming from Her Majesty and well deserved they will be. Also, I hope our Paralympians will achieve the same or greater successes and wish them all the luck in the world.

For a future post: The potential controversy of the GB football team…