Out Damned Spot!

Am I to be forever in the quest of self-improvement? I was listening to an article on Woman's Hour (BBC Radio 4) which said that we should embrace the times when we are wrong, and so learn from them. Some woman has written a book about how we should deal with being wrong - that we first of all have to admit that sometimes we can be wrong but moreover, that being wrong shouldn't be seen as an indictment of our moral worth. We are told to remember that because we have swift-thinking minds, it is inevitable that we will sometimes make mistakes when we are reacting to the fast-changing world around us. We have to accept that mistakes will be our life-long companion, and that the more ready we are to accept those mistakes, the more likely we are to avoid making them in future.

This isn't rocket-science, of course. "Learn from your mistakes" is an oft-heard maxim throughout everyone's life. But how many of us do just that - heed this aphorism? I am as ready as the next man (often readier) to acknowledge the frequent lapses of judgement that befall me, but do I actually learn from that? Some guy on the programme suggested that we should write a diary of our errors, so that we might more easily identify where and how and why they are made, and then to use that as a framework for our future behaviour. Blimey, this would be one hell of a diary in my case! I'd have writer's cramp from this, sans doute. But nevertheless I might give it a try because as I said at the opening of this entry, dear reader, it would seem that I am doomed to be forever in search of self-improvement and never seem to be in a position of self-satisfaction.

Take this recent weekend, for example. Having had one hell of a few days running up to it, during which I was knee-deep in paperwork and other legal matters surrounding the execution of my late father's estate, I decided to relax on Saturday and to treat myself to some 'rest and recuperation'. All well and good, you might say, and probably well-deserved - but the problem is that it is now Tuesday and I haven't yet re-started! I have been spectacularly lazy since then, and have only performed the barest minimum of chores in order to preserve some semblance of a ship in working order. My father's affairs still languish; there's been no writing done at all; I haven't attended to any matters relating to my crushing personal finances; and apart from buying a (relatively useless) rice cooker and subsequently cooking (and then eating) some rice to test that it worked, I haven't eaten anything. I have only been able to sustain the engine of my body by taking in calorific value from other sources - the scatter of empty whisky bottles and empty wine bottles can testify to that.

So, this is clearly wrong - and as per the advice from the bloke on Woman's Hour, I aim to write this information in my diary. I don't want such information to get muddled with other items in the list - such as sending inappropriate text messages while under the influence of alcohol, or trying to get the wrong (and equally inappropriate) people into bed when it is clear that they would never indulge me in such things - but muddled it will no doubt become. So, as a born administrator, I think an Excel ® spreadsheet is called for. Along the top, the days of the week; down the side, categories of foolishness. And rather than simply putting a tick into a particular cell to identify when some oversight in behaviour or attitude has been encountered, I will put a brief description of the precise misdemeanour that I have committed. A weekly review of this chart will then hopefully induce such shame and humiliation in me, that the following week's chart ought to look thinner, with more white space.

Unless of course, as each particular ignominy then becomes eradicated from the pattern of my iniquitous life, I find more and newer disgraces with which to discredit my pitiful self. Oh dear - how far does one need to sink before one can begin to climb out of the mire? Pity me.