Have you got the X factor?

“Don't compare yourself with anyone in this world...if you do so, you are insulting yourself.” 
― Bill Gates

Well, it's that time of year again, the start of a new series of "The X Factor". If you didn't know....where have you been? It's been everywhere!

It tends to be one of those programs that is very similar to marmite. Either you love it or you hate it and I, for some reason, love it. I don't know whether its the surprise of hearing voices you never expect or the chemistry and relationships between the judges. Whatever it is, it's a winning format. If it wasn't Mr Cowell would be worth a far lot less. 

Now we can all pretty much guess what will happen this evening. Sob stories, outrageous outfits, awful singer followed by a good singer followed by an awful singer etc etc etc. But somehow out of all these contestants, through good and bad, a star will emerge as having the X factor! Ok... so maybe there are several rounds before getting on to the TV stages and nowadays everyone is pretty aware of how the program works....is it a fix.... that is still debatable. Still, come Christmas time we will be given a new X factor winner who has it all. The voice, the looks, the moves, the X Factor.

But what does it really mean to have the X Factor? Is it having a voice like Whitney? Is it having the looks of Beyonce? Is it having the moves of Justin? Is that what we now class as being the X factor? Has this TV show blurred our idea of what this saying really means?

Along time before the world of singing competitions and high waisted trousers, the term X Factor was used to describe a feature or trait that couldn't be put into words. Something that makes someone different, something that had never be seen before. The X could stand for anything: eXcellence, eXtravagence, or something that is quite simply extraordinary.

If that's the case then the world is full of people with the X factor. People who, on a daily basis, do eXtraordinary things. The army men serving on the front line to protect our country, the doctors and nurses giving their time to save lives, the teachers giving up their time to prepare the next generation, those giving thier time to stand for what's right in the world. There are people all over this world who have the X factor, the difference is these ones are not voted for by making a simple phone call, nor are they celebrated and followed all over the television.

So I end with this thought.

Who do you know that really has the X factor? Not someone who can sing well, or has the moves like jagger, but those extraordinary people in the world who really do have the X Factor. Those who have achieved extraordinary things and overcome the impossible. 

One of my best friends recently overcame a life threatening illness (I'll be doing a special blog about her story soon!). Against all the challenges and difficulties she took on the battle of Leukaemia and won. She really is someone who has the X factor. And that's just one of many stories I know. I'm sure you know of people too!

While your watching The X Factor tonight, if you watch it at all, spare a thought for those people who really do have the X Factor around you. Maybe even give them a text. Those people in the community, in your family, your friends who have achieved and done extraordinary things in life. Sure its great to hear a good singer and hear stories that make you feel all gooey inside, but life is more than songs and looks. It's about those people who have, and will continue to do eXtraordinary things in life.

Bywyd sydd yn byw - Just living life!

RM

Perfection! Have you got it?

"Gold cannot be pure just as people can't be perfect"

- Chinese Proverb

What's your view on daytime TV?

Being a teacher it's not very often that I am able to spend time watching daytime TV which, from the things I've seen on TV, is not necessarily a bad thing. It's all about auctions and car boot sales, or chat shows and house programs. There's nothing wrong with those sorts of things if that's what you like. But there are only so many 3 bed, detached houses and 100 year old toys you can take before it all becomes too much.

On the plus side, there does seem to be a wide range of game shows on during the day which, I'm sorry to admit, are something of a guilty pleasure. I love them! From Deal or no Deal to Tipping Point, I love the tension and challenge of having to rack your brains to try and find the winning answer. One particular game show that I've discovered, during my day time TV binge, is a program on BBC 1 called "Perfection". If you haven't seen it here's a link to an episode.

Basically this is how the game works. 

The contestant is chosen at random from a panel of 4. Once selected the player is given a selection of different questions on a variety of topics to which they must simply answer true or false. Easy. The idea is that they must get all of their answers correct to achieve perfection. If they don't achieve perfection then the remaining 3 players are able to change the answers that they think the player has wrong with the hope of winning the round. The winner of the round, be it the contestant or the panel, is then able to choose the topics they would like their questions to be about in the final round for the prize. WOW! That was tricky to explain but watch the clip and you'll get the idea. The format is compelling to watch and is a great idea.

As I watched the program for the last time today, before returning to work on Monday, it got me thinking about the concept of "perfection".

Perfection is something that many people strive for in today's world. Plastic surgeons help those aiming for perfection in their looks. Stores and outlets offer clothes and sales that can help you achieve perfection in your looks. Students study and revise to achieve perfection in their results. Car enthusiasts try to keep their cars looking perfect. The list goes on. Perfection is something that we, as humans, have an obsession with.

Living with two sisters, there is always a talk about all things fashionable, including jewellery. Now I'm not really an expert but I've picked up that jewellery is also categorised according to its perfection. The more perfect it seems to be the higher the category. A diamond which has few imperfections are worth far more and consider to be much better than those which have more imperfections. Yet again, another example of our obsession with getting things perfect. We love to be perfect.

As I thought about this example it got me thinking, how often do we judge people like we judge diamonds? Looking at people's imperfections before we even know anything about them. How often does society put those who seem to be "perfect" before those who are not?

So I end with this thought.

No-one in this world is perfect, nor will anyone ever be. A wise Chinese proverb once said, "As gold cannot be pure, neither can people be perfect". I wonder how much time and money is wasted by people who try to reach perfection? How much better life could be if we embrace our impurities and celebrate our differences. People who aim to be perfect will never be satisfied in life. Another cut. Another tuck. However, people who are happy with  themselves and are comfortable in their own skin will always be happy with their life. 

As I read through my twitter feed this evening it seemed that I wasn't the only person thinking about this topic of perfection today. Jahmene Douglas (former X Factor contestant) tweeted this today, "I'm not striving for perfection, I'm striving to be better."

That's what it is all about. If we strive for perfection we will fail every time. But in our lives, if we aim to better ourselves we will always succeed. The same applies to those people we come into contact with. Don't judge people for their imperfections but love people for those things that make them unique. After all, the best friendships and relationships often form between the most unlikely of people. 

C.S Lewis put's it this way, “Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: "What! You too? I thought I was the only one?”

So forget about perfection, you'll never get there. Be happy with where you are and who you are and tomorrow try and be better! Remember, it's your differences and imperfections that make you you, and no-one else does you better!

Bywyd sydd yn byw - Just living life!

RM

It's not about the money....but it helps!

"You can't take it with you when your gone!"

- Unknown

So it's coming up to the end of the Summer holidays and as anyone who is in the teaching profession understands, these last few days are like gold dust. You try to squeeze as much in as you can because you know that once work starts back your life is not your own. It's that same feeling that anyone gets when they are coming to the end of their holidays. 

With the end in sight I thought it would be best to get a couple of jobs out of the way that would be difficult to get done when I'm in work. Clean the car, wash the car and sort out any repair issues. For the past couple of weeks the brakes on my car have been making an awful sound so today it was off to the garage to get it sorted.

Now I don't have anything against anyone who works in a garage, it is indeed a very dirty job, whilst also being a skilled job too. However, I can't help but feel a knot in my stomach whenever I walk in. You know what it's like. As you stand there, you try your best to explain the problem in your feeble way (such as; "It's the springy thing that makes a banging sound when I turn this bolt bit" - that sort of thing!). The mechanic simply looks on with disapproving eyes and takes a big breath in that can only mean it's something major. 

It's honestly like awaiting the results of an x-ray or a scan. You're simply stood there waiting to hear what the damage is going to be.  And you know you're not going to leave with much change from £50. 

But this time was going to be different. I knew it was the brake pads as I had had a similar problem before. This time,  the trip would be positive. I had it planned out. I would walk in there, head held high and simply tell the mechanic in my most confident voice, "It's the brake pads". At least that's what it looked like in my head.

I drove to the garage. Pulled up. Explained the problem, just like I had planned, and left it with the mechanic. No feeling on edge, clear explanation of the problem and a knowledge that brake pads would cost me at most, £50.00. Result! 

As I sat in the waiting area, drinking from my complimentary cappuccino served in finest paper cup, feeling quite pleased with myself the unexpected happened. The mechanic reappeared with "the look". Oh you know "the look". The same look that  you get when the vet tells you there's nothing they can do for little fluffy, or the look you get when the dentist tells you a tooth is bad and has to come out. 

I knew this look.  

Apparently not only did my brake pads need replacing but so did my brake disks. Now, as far as I was aware, the brakes on a car were like brakes on a bike, but apparently it's not quite that straight forward. I'm no pro with cars (I can drive them and thats about it) but I could tell that this part that needed replacing was not going to be cheap. £100? £150 at the most I thought.  We walked into the office where I was faced with the cost ... £235 for the job. £235! My plan was failing rapidly, as was my bank account. 

Normally I would have said leave it and I'll replace it again but the brakes are kind of important. If it was something else fine, but the brakes are a bit different so...yes... you guessed it, I coughed up. 

This whole incident was a disaster and nothing like the vision of grandeur I'd had of walking in and being the super car mechanic, that I certainly am not.  As I waited in the seating area, perched on the italian leather couch, which I'm sure I should have had as a complimentary gift, this whole incident got me thinking.

How many times do we make plans in life and just as everything is going right, all to soon something unexpected happens? Something we didn't see coming. And how often do those times end up costing us? The boiler is broken and needs replacing, the car is broken and a new part has to be ordered, you've missed your flight because of traffic and need to buy another ticket. You know the sort of thing. 

I'm sure there are many people out there who would be able to change brake pads easily at a fraction of the cost, but for me I couldn't and if I tried to fit them or something went wrong then all to quickly I could find myself in a tricky situation. Maybe a car accident? Maybe crashing into a barrier? The brakes are too important and I knew that even though the cost was high, I valued my life slightly more than £235.  It might have been quite a price but as someone once said, "You can't take it with you when you're gone!" In that sense £235 wasn't really much in the long run.

In life, all of us will come up against things that we didn't really expect, and sometimes they end up costing us. Maybe not just money. Maybe it costs us time, maybe it costs us in other ways. I suppose all of us would be much better off if we could plan for the unexpected events that happen. But that's not life.

Life is filled with ups and downs, expected things and unexpected things, surprises and shocks. It's a guaranteed thing. The question is how you deal with the unexpected.

So I end with this thought,

In life we all value different things. Family, friends, loved ones. For most of the time things usually go smoothly but how do you handle the unexpected moments that happen in life? When we're faced with decisions and choices that we didn't see coming it's sometimes hard to decide what the right thing to do is. It's not enough to simply flip a coin or choose a straw to make a decision. What counts is how much we value things. 

When you value something, no matter what happens, that always remains the most important thing to you. Why? Because if all else fails you know that it is those things you value the most that will also be the things that bring you true happiness in life. Not people's advice or opinions, not money, not even the local mechanic. 

Life is a long time and if we go through it unhappy then it's an even longer time. But when we take care to value those things around us that are important to us and bring us real happiness then there's nothing we won't do to make sure that they are always there. There's no price tag on happiness. 

£235 was a bit steep but I valued my life too much to take the risk. My life brings me happiness and so do so many people around me. Not such a steep price when you look at it like that.

Money doesn't bring happiness. Today, don't sell yourself short, settling for second best in your life. Don't sacrifice those things you value for something less. In life make sure you put those things you value first, whatever they may be. After all, money might look good in the bank but "You can't take it with you when you're gone."

Bywyd sydd yn byw - Just living life!

RM

One man's trash is another man's window

"One man's trash is another man's treasure"

- Unknown

I love those sayings that you come across in life that just seem to stick in your head. We all have them. I wonder how many times we've failed at something and someone has replied with the classic "If at first you don't succeed...", or when something goes wrong for someone you hear, "Well they've made their bed" (which ironically I haven't done today!). There are probably thousands of these sayings, each with their own little message.

I suppose for me the saying "One man's trash is another man's treasure" was one of the first I remember. I remember one incident in Primary school where a man who worked at the local landfill site brought in items that seemed, on the outside, to be brand new products. Sealed lids, unopened packages, but in fact were all items that had been brought down from the waste site. It's fascinating to see what people consider to be rubbish and what people simply throw away.

Just last month our local council decided to jump on the band wagon of fortnightly bin collections. It's put a real pressure on people to recycle and reduce their waste, a topic that constantly seems to plague our news. I'm not against reducing waste and recycling etc etc, but does it really need to be a daily news article? Anyway... I digress. 

You're probably thinking, "Why write a blog about rubbish?" Let me explain.

As I was reading through my twitter feed this morning (@ryanmorgan_1) I noticed an article that reminded me of this saying I had first encountered at Primary school. It was a story about a monk who had spent the last 50 years building a cathedral out of rubbish and items that people simply didn't want anymore. Here's a link if you want to see what I am talking about: Recycled Cathedral .

Wow! It's pretty impressive and clearly something that was not built over night. It's taken a lot of time and care to get it to that point, and it's not even finished. After watching this clip it got me thinking what sorts of things do we waste in life?

Maybe when we hear about waste we simply think about old, broken, useless things but I guess waste comes in all shapes and sizes. Wasted time. Wasted opportunity. Wasted efforts.

There's lots of things we waste in life and yet to someone our waste may have been a treasure. To a man with only hours to live, our wasted time would be a great treasure. Not money, not diamonds, not fame nor fortune. Time is his treasure. Or those times when you've walked past someone living on the streets and simply walk by. How many times have you done that and thought, "Maybe I should have given them something?" Wasted opportunity. You never know what a difference a sandwich or a burger can make to someone who has nothing. Who would have thought a burger could be a treasure? It's all about perspective. The way we see things.

There are many times in life where we think we are right, where we think we know best, but I wonder how many times we've stopped to think about another perspective? 

I love those illusion pictures and photos that you can look at. The longer you look the more you see different things. When you change your perspective you see something in a completely new way. It just means sometimes taking a little bit longer to wait and watch.

The monk building his cathedral changed his perspective to see something that others couldn't. What one man saw as an old oil barrel, the monk saw as a pillar for his church. What one man saw as an old plastic bottle, the monk saw as a beautiful stained glass window. It's all about perspective.

So I end with this thought.

How do you look at life? What's your perspective. So many people struggle in life because they see everything in such a negative way - just like looking at a piece of rubbish. How different life could be if we took another perspective. The monk's perspective. When you look at the different situations around you what do you see? Maybe you see them like old plastic bottles? Something you just want to get rid of so you can move on to the next new thing. Or could it be that maybe what you are going through is just a small part of a bigger stained glass window that tells a story? 

As you go through another day in this big wide world, know that everything you have is a gift. So use it well and don't waste it, you could just be the treasure that someone has been looking for. 

Bywyd sydd yn byw! - Just living life!

RM

We're all different...but together!

"The essence of beautiful is unity in variety"

- Felix Mendelssohn

So it's August bank Holiday, the weather is hot (a miracle!) and London is buzzing with excitement at what activities may take place during this, the day of freedom we've come to know as Bank holiday!

(It's somewhat bitter sweet for those of you who, like me, have already had 5 weeks off for our summer holidays; and before you say anything, I know, teachers have it easy right? Maybe we'll pick that back up in another blog. Teacher's holidays are not what I'm here to write about.)

Bank holiday isn't usually a time where I get great inspiration but this recent outing got me thinking. It's funny how, in life, we come across moments in our life where simple objects, beliefs or situations unite us, no matter who we are or where we're from.

After a busy day traipsing around the great city of London with a good friend of mine, it was all too soon time to return to the Welsh valleys, something that was very much anticipated having spent the day being barged and nudged like some giant 21st Century human cattle farm! I love London, really, I do. The lights, the sounds, the buzz, the mix of people from all walks of life, it makes it a fascinating city. I guess London is like a good dose of antibiotics. It's great to have once in a while when you need it but take it all the time and eventually the effects wear off. It was during my train journey home that I began to think about this concept of unity.

As members of the public busily filled the 8-carriage long train, it was a relief to find that the ticket I had booked was located in the "quiet carriage."  A funny concept that I had not encountered before. A train carriage full of strangers simply staring at one another and sat in silence, quite the opposite to the train carriages I was used to in the Valleys.

No mobiles. No chatter. The tangible fear of breathing too loudly just encase you were to offend the passengers sat around you. If you've been to a funeral it's very much the same sort of feeling. Scared to even smile with the fear that you will get the look of death from those around you. It was pure silence. What a nice thought to think that the 2 hour journey to Cardiff would be spent in quiet; the perfect ingredient for some 'me time'. A feeling that was clearly shared with those passengers sat around me.

As everyone had taken their seats and the train had begun to pull off, I began to sit back and relax, that was until the carriage filled with a group of females who clearly were not aware of the concept "quiet,"nor did they have any intention to be so. There was burping and screaming, laughing and cursing, all set along what can only be described as a very colourful conversation. Not exactly the "quiet" atmosphere I had anticipated for my first experience of a quiet carriage. It was with this outburst that my thoughts turned to unity.

It was clear to see the disapproval and pure annoyance of people sat around who, like me, had expected this journey to be "what it says on the tin". As I looked around, the carriage was filled with passengers who, all too soon, were in unity.  Strangers tutting to one another, rolling eyes across the train at each other, nodding to one another, filling their ears with anything they could find just to block out the cackle that was resounding through the carriage. This was unity at it's finest. There was something quite amazing, quite beautiful about this whole situation taking place.

Unity, I guess, is something that comes in many shapes and forms. I suppose it can't really be summed up in one simple definition. If it were a simple definition then Dictionary.com would simply state that unity is "the state of being one".

The state of being one?? Hmmm...interesting. On the outside its seems to be something positive. Being together, being one. Simple to say, easy to understand but the more you think about it the more you have to ask yourself, "What does that mean exactly in today's world?" Everyone has different views, different beliefs, different ideas, different opinions. Surely in the 21st Century unity is something that can never truly exist?

Unity is something that I naturally think of as coming from positive experiences. A hope that our favourite football team will do well as we support, a love for a celebrity or pop star that we are particularly fond of, or even a hobby that is enjoyed with others who have similar tastes. Unity, surely, can only come from positive experiences?

Maybe not, or so I found from this experience. It would seem that unity in the 'cackle carriage' came from a sense of joint anger and annoyance, a sense that people weren't playing fair. Unity was not established here from something positive but from something negative. "The state of being one" isn't suffice to describe unity, rather it should be "The state of being one through good or bad situations". I guess that is real unity. Being together through the good and the bad. Regardless of the situation or circumstance you are in, unity is the glue that binds us together.

Whether on a train full of people you've never met before, or in a room full of trusted friends, true unity can be experienced at any point in life and in any situation - good or bad!

Unity - The state of being one. Together. With that in mind I end with this thought.

True unity I've come to find is not about all people having all the same views all of the time, it's not about all people all having all of the same opinions all of the time, it's not even about all people having all of the same beliefs all of the time.

Unity comes from finding those things, those times, that one point in time even where, for a brief moment you look at a stranger and think, "I know exactly how your feeling." That, in essence, is true unity and that is something that each one of us can experience everyday.

Happiness? I know that one. Loss? I know that one. Annoyance at noisy passengers? I know that one too. In our own personal situations, different though each one may be, there is still that sense of knowing that we're not alone and that someone, somewhere is going through the exact same situation as you. Don't focus on what makes people different from yourself, don't try and change people to be the same as you, and especially don't feel that you are alone! Try to find that which unites you to those around you, that thing which brings you to 'a state of one' with someone. What a different place the world would be if we all did that.

A man once said, "The essence of beautiful is unity in variety," and after this trip I think I can say I know exactly what he means. Life is amazing! So often  our time is spent crossing paths and building relationships with people who on the outside seem totally different from you. It is only in seeing through these differences that we find times of unity.

Bywyd sydd yn byw - Just living life!

RM