A Strength - A Weakness
I compulsively overdo things - I've come to live with it but it does make life a bit of a roller-coaster ride.
So I've developed some simple (perhaps horrendous) philosophies. Like "If it's not worth overdoing then it's probably not worth doing.". Try living with that one.
How do you like "I can handle boring and bland.". That's led to some weird results.
"I wonder if I could do that ??". Some almost unbelievable situations lie behind that one.
"I eat to live not live to eat.". This one is beyond incredible.
Other than that I'm dead normal. A more simple soul you'll never meet. Sometimes even I like me.
So I over-design so sue me. A lot of the stuff I've built will outlast me, my children and my grandchildren and their children - you get the drift ?? Some of the stuff collapsed under their own weight - tough lessons !! I've come to respect heights the hard way - I've fallen off a roof and a ladder and down a loong staircase. I've had accidents on bicycles, motorbikes and cars. Now I'm a safety freak - see !! I overdo things. I think I'm an expert at doing things the wrong way - maybe champion level, maybe world champion ?! Just there when I think I've outclassed everybody then I meet someone who's done it better, cheaper, more often and they beat me even at being stupid and persistent and ridiculous. "You never win !!" (that one's consoled me through many drubbings and failures).
"Life's tough !" (my favourite) and "Old age is not for sissies" my newly aquired status.
I'll never forget the roof episode. It was during and after the "great hailstorm" in Kempton Park. The "great hailstorm" is defined as the one that affected my life the most because actually Kempton Park is Hailstorm Mecca. Man, we had between 30 and 60 cm of small hail that day and my roof was relatively flat (7 degree slope) and the storm had a strange timeline - it hailed for about twenty minutes and then rained for about ten minutes then stopped for about two hours and did it all over again. During that two hour hiatus is when it happened - my ceilings were already ruined and beyond saving but my whole roof was sagging !!!!!! We could see that the storm was not past (nothing is as dark and ominous as hailstorm weather). So me and my son-in-law got onto the roof with brooms and tried to sweep the hail off the roof.
Nothing in this life is as slippery as lots of wet hail - NOTHING !!!!!! It's a testimony to our persistence and fear that we accomplished what we did because had we not then I would very possibly have died that day. We got so much of the hail off that it was lying more than a meter deep below the shattered gutter. The predictable happened (in hindsight, of course) and as I stepped backwards I must have stepped on the perfect pile of white wet ball bearings and I sailed on my backside at lightning speed - Wheeee !! Hey Geronimooooo !!! and I was off the roof with my broom and onto the pile of hail. Totally uninjured !!! (except for my pride) and I heard "Dad ! Dad ! Where are you ??" - it had happened so quickly and silently that he never saw what had happened. "Here on the ground and I arrived by airmail !!!!".
Needless to say our efforts stopped just there and we accepted whatever was going to happen - we'd deal with the consequences and we did.
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