Still in the playground at over 65

Oh dear this past weekend we’ve been back on the ‘it’s not fair,’ ‘why can they do that?’ ‘Why are they doing this’?

Fact is the Turkish Government makes rules and regulations concerning COVID-19 in Turkey and they then seek to implement these rules. Problem is (cringe) as my German teacher the late W. Lesley Morgan, bless his cotton socks, used to say ‘there are exceptions to every rule’. This last weekend the whole of Turkey was on Lockdown from 9.30 to 15.00 on Saturday and from 9.30 to 18.30 on Sunday. This was due to the university entrance exams, so that those sitting these multiple choice exams in which they require a high grade to get to the best universities, could get to the exams along with their families. Okay. In big cities this keeps all the others off the streets. In tourist areas, as we are, there are not so many needing to travel. Some tourists have been arriving, some are Turkish, some are not (not entirely sure about some of that but I don’t mess with or make the rules here, I’d like to live here a while longer).

The fact that tourists are allowed out whilst the rest of us have to stay in annoyed some of the residents (or in real terms some of the residents got annoyed about that fact), these are the yabancı or foreigners, as opposed to citizens who in the main are Turkish. Now for us it was well, okay. Sunday is a little annoying because that only gives us one and half hours to go out as we are still curfewed at 20.00 hrs, But to be honest it’s already averaging 34 degrees C and the UV rays are very high from about 10.00 to 15.00 why do I need to moan about two days? Why do I need to say ‘it’s not fair’?

Maturity plays a large role in many different aspects of life.

Okay so this my take on Maturity and Being in the Playground (still) – for me  it’s important to be mature and surround yourself with similar people. If you have the misfortune to be living or working in a place where there is a lot of gossip, messing around and other immature behaviour going on, it may be hard to live a peaceful life in a small community or to succeed or achieve your aims in your job.  Even worse, you might become a part of this behaviour and lose any sense of normality or professionalism that you had in the first place.  Having fun at work is completely possible and a legitimate desire for many people. It’s important to realise that there is such a thing as having too much fun at work that then leads to your success being hindered by your actions and behaviors. Conversely being part of the fun out of work or in a small community leads to ‘stories being made up, gossip being passed around and more.

The best environments are those where there are no tangled webs of gossip and relationships that keep people from being productive at work and that keep people in their place in small communities. These behaviours show signs of great immaturity.

Like the girl at the soft play area recently where I was with my grandsons -

As soon as we walked into soft play area we saw this - near the entrance are tyre-like swings,

but now they are more like a shell in which 2 children (sometimes more can sit). Children just love them, it gives the illusion of control and a swing that moves on a pivot above, so little actual physical exertion required.    These are popular a little like bike or rowing machine in the gym where you can watch TV, until the bully shows up that is.  In this case, the bully came disguised as a cute little girl immaculately kitted out and wearing a ‘butter wouldn’t melt’ look on her face. She marched pertly up to the swing (past the whole queue), took a look at the two sitting in the swing and began to push the child nearest to her out to make room for herself. Eventually the ripple effect of the force caught up with the other child and he fell out of his side of the swing. Ignoring the fuss around her, the bully looked quite content, but quickly realised she didn’t have full control of the ropes. Two more swift pushes and she was all alone in the swing, a smug smile on her face and two crying victims on the ground next to her. She was going to get what she wanted regardless of who was in her way.  Some bullies never grow up and take their bad behaviour with them on into adult life.

What is interesting is that in applied psychology we talk of the ‘secondary gain’ or ‘positive intention’, the unconscious ‘reasoning’ behind why we do something.  The thing that our action gets for us, sometimes however whatever that is that we get is non-apparent as we grow up, grow older, become more mature. At some point in our life this behaviour, or maybe what is now seen as a dysfunction worked for us. It got us something (or at least the illusion of a pay-off), but as we grow older, as adults eventually these behaviours cost us more than they actually get us (although we may not see this at the time).

We can use the Uppy Downy way of changing a behaviour (actually known in NLP as the New Behaviour Generator) to generate new behaviours on our part.

WE cannot change other people they have to want to change.