Nathaniel Laiet Copyright 2008

My brother went out riding with me on my motorcycle last week. It wasn’t difficult to convince him that it would be a fun trip to take part in.He is an outdoors kind of kid, the weather was great, his elder brother was going and there was a motorcycle - which 10 year olds just can’t turn a blind eye to. A little effort was needed in convincing him that wearing the helmet was a worth while investment to make, even though it meant that he would no longer be able to feel the fresh musky evening air rush through his hair, splash across his face or push flies up through his nose. And then we were off; the wind flowed over the tops of our helmets sucking out heads upwards from our necks and surely we would have flown had my brother stuck his arms out. Our helmet straps were beating against our necks at 10 million RPMs leaving reds welt and stinging so badly that the pain told us we were living. We were like cowboys. My bike that day was our steed as we galloped off into the sunset homeward bound. But, we had to stop. The back tire went flat and our trusty steed would go no further (now you know the real reason behind cowboy movies ending when they do). Misery! Two cowboys with a broken steed are suited only for sitting and complaining about how life is difficult, unfair, miserable and unbearable! And I was going to make the most of the time I had to do just that. There were two fallen power poles laying across the canal which I thought would serve perfectly for pacing while complaining. I had paced only three steps when my brother had it in his mind that our time would better be spent trying to push me into the canal. Life is unfair! My steed was broken and my brother was trying to push me into a canal. But there was no time to consider these new facts, because it was necessary to direct all thought to directing my steps so as not to fall at my brother’s hand, for he is nimble and I am old. So, time passed quickly while we waited for our slave, in the form of father to come pick us and our noble steed up. I thought about how little time I had to moan because my brother gave me a push and wanted to play rather than pace and complain…. … and I thought that perhaps I would be happier too, if I left those things in life that I can’t control and which cause me anxiety by the road side. I could instead give my Father a little push and say “Hey, let’s play while we wait!”

	True stories woven into parables about my brother. Proving that even autistic people have things to teach each one of us.Get professionally formatted PDF files of these stories from here Single A4 PDF sheet with illustrations, suitable for classroom use.
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“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: A time to be born and a time to die, A time to plan and a time to uproot, A time to kill and a time to heal, A time to tear down and a time to build, A time to weep and a time to laugh, A time to mourn and a time to dance, A time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, A time to embrace and a time to refrain, A time to search and a time to give up, A time to keep and a time to throw away, A time to tear and a time to mend, A time to be silent and a time to speak, A time to love and a time to hate, A time for war and a time for peace.”

Building Confidence

From an early age it’s pounded into us we’re taught that we’re not good enough. Not handsome enough, not affluent enough or whatever. And so, we spend years of our lives chasing after these things.

A day might come where you realize that you’re actually not bad looking and/or that you’re not bad off financially either. So you start dating girls. It’s easy. You see, most people are lonely and everyone is lonely in various seasons of their life.

The point is that you gain all this confidence and then one day you meet this girl. She’s the most amazing girl! Like no one you’ve ever met before. She’s smart, she’s beautiful; she has integrity and is always looking out for others before she ever bothers to look out for herself.

This is when you’re crushed. After all those years of building confidence in your physique and learning and social standing; you realize that you’re not good enough for this girl.

“For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things.”

Now love wouldn’t be true love if you can’t love her despite her faults or if she can’t love you despite your failings.

Love isn’t always that ‘floating on clouds’ feeling. No, love must be tested and proved. You want to know if this girl would love you despite your faults, your ugly history and despite you’re not having paid close attention to your character as you have to your physique and consumer life-style.

Refining Love

You need to test her love for you.

Partly because you love her and don’t wish to be in a relationship with someone who you have to keep secrets from and partly because you want to know if she really loves you enough to stick by you once knowing who you really are.

Chances are that she still will love you. Love is blind they say. My friend tells me “True love can’t exist without blind love.” I believe he means that if we weren’t blind in the beginning, we would too clearly see the faults of others and never risk our hearts with them.

Men seem to believe that people don’t change. “Once my good opinion is lost, it’s lost forever” is how Darcy said it in ‘Pride and Prejudice’. But women often seem to believe that people can change. And thank God for that!

You’ll probably find that this girl you love has more faith that you can and will change than you do yourself.

Young men often have this belief that they are a great catch for any girl. In fact, many men never really grow out of this. I’ll bet crusty old Donald Trump still believes that he’s a great catch!

This girl though, shatters your self perception and you’re starting to realize some truths about yourself.

Realizing Self

Your struggles begin!

In less than 5 seconds you’ve already questioned yourself on the following:

1. Can I be forgiven?

2. Can she forgive me?

3. Can I change?

4. If yes – how do I change?

5. If no – do I need to and will she still love me?

6. How long does it take to change and how can I be sure that I’ve changed?

7. Is it right to change because of a girl?

8. I have other reasons to want to change but how can I be sure if I never fully changed before this girl? Would I have changed without her?

9. Should we continue our relationship while I change?

10. Do I even love her for her or do I only love her because of her goodness?

11. But isn’t her goodness a large part of who she is?

… and more

Right about this time you disappear for a few days and she’s worried sick; wondering why you’re not answering your phone.

Seasons Change

Finally you meet this girl again. She’s happy (she thinks) but she has no idea why you’ve been gone for days with no words to comfort her.

You came back for two reasons:

1. You realized that change in yourself is possible
2. You still really love this girl and do really want to spend much of your time with her

You want to change – but don’t know how to yet, or if you’ll succeed! You love this girl but don’t want to let her remain emotionally attached in case you can’t be the man you know she deserves.

Over dinner she knows that you’re not fully present and she wants you to explain this. But you can’t explain all that to a girl. They think differently to guys. And you can’t explain it anyway when you’re debating in your own mind whether you should break up with this girl or not. You don’t know if you should or shouldn’t because both occurrences have the same logical reasoning.

“I love this girl too much to stay together – because she deserves better.”

“I love this girl too much; we should stay together – because I will always look out for her.”

And thus it’s proved that logical reasoning is not always absolute. For you can’t grow or discontinue the relationship from here without a little trust, faith or taking some chances.

I guess some decisions just need a little emotional help or some of what we call ‘women’s intuition’! And time! Trust, faithfulness and chance are like gemstones. Requiring time, diligence and patience before you’ll see them shine.

“Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.”

All quotes taken from the NIV published by Zondervan

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, Romans 5:3-5, Timothy 4:8

Dear God,

 

Often I wonder why You leave us handicapped.

 

During this era on earth, logic, science and philosophy are what rules mankind’s thought.

 

Now man believes that utilizing these forms of research and thought together will bring us to full understand of everything.

 

I’ve heard it said “A fact is just one man’s theory until another comes along with a better one.” The new theory replaces the last ‘fact’ and the new theory becomes our new ‘fact’ (consider the world being flat, for instance).

Indeed, even scientists in the same field with the same education don’t always come to the same conclusion. But each of these men believe their findings to be written in stone because their findings cannot be disproved with the knowledge we currently have. They must be proved with time, but the world is moving faster, information flows faster and no one allows time to test our findings before quoting them as fact any more.

 

And God! I am unable to prove your existence any better than they can prove their findings from their ‘observations.’

 

For that is all science is really; a person’s observations and extrapolated ‘thesis’ (thesis: position/intellectual proposition) from their observations.

 

So God, I know You. I’ve experienced you. But I can not prove You.

 

And in taking all of science, mathematics, and logic (and the many other forms of thought processes which many seem to know nothing about), I can not absolutely disprove You.

 

Why must You handicap me so, by making Yourself improvable and at the same time so necessary to my life?

 

But then I realized that even science is a form of faith. For every thought must be based upon an initial assumption.

 

So God, this is why I’m perfectly happy to use your word as my basic assumption. Because every other form of thought also requires an assumption. But I like your assumptions more, for none of them are bad. They are all wholly good.

But then, that’s based on the assumption that I know what ‘good’ is.

 

Ciao for now,

 

  ~ Nathaniel

Dear God,

 

Why is it that You must give us such a large learning curve?

When I was 16, I remember a time with friends.

 

Our singer in our jazz band had just told us that she had no parents. And I couldn’t stand the silence.

 

Trying to diffuse the situation, I said “Haven’t you read that book? Where do I come from?”

 

She looked at me, and I’ll always remember how her eyes narrowed and her face contorted when she said “They’re dead, you moron.”

 

She left quickly and my friends all just looked at me, while one of them drove the nail through my coffin saying “I can’t believe you just said that!”

 

It wasn’t until many years later I learned that my reaction to shock is to make a joke, hoping to diffuse the situation.

 

If only I had known, when I was 16 that people in shock react differently; me included. Then I could have avoided saying something so stupid.

 

Those 30 seconds were the most painful in all my life.

 

But God, through that experience, I’ve always tried to react slower and understand others emotional needs better.

 

So perhaps I needed to make such a blunder to learn that?

God, you always did know more than me.

 

~ Nathanial

Ok. Here’s my true scenario. Choose your reaction and we’ll go from there.

 

~~~A motorcycle rider has two young ladies on the back of his bike. So naturally I’m watching closely. All of a sudden he does some tricky swerve. The girls nearly fall off and he merely continues as though nothing happened.~~~

 

I’m 100 meters behind him on my own motorcycle.

 

How would you have responded in your mind (or heart). How did I respond?

 

A. What was he thinking? Doesn’t he know that he has to girls on his bike and he should drive more sensibly!

 

B. What were his reasons were for swerving like that?

 

If you guessed ‘A’ as my thought, you get a gold star.

 

Yes, ‘A’ was what I was thinking about for exactly 3 seconds before my bike hit a gaping hole in the road.

 

Second thought. “Yay, now I have a case study for my theory (which I didn’t apply in this instance).”

 

“People (generally) have a reason for what they do”

 

So I try to remember this theory when I see people do what appears to be stupid.

 

If I’d remembered my theory in this instance, I wouldn’t have had to replace the inner tube in my motorcycle wheel.

 

Some feelings are difficult to describe. One of these is how a woman can make you feel.

Meeting a woman is at 3,000 meters is best.

3,000 meters will clear your senses. Unlike sea level where it’s so easy to be breezy. Less oxygen at 3,000 meters forces our senses to work harder and thus clearer. At 3,000 meters it’s not to difficult to breath, but it’s difficult enough to make us concentrate harder and pay greater attention than we would if we were at sea level.

The thing about women is that meeting her gives a man a strong desire to climb mountains for her and with her.

Meeting a woman at sea level, is rarely any good. Many have given up their desire to climb mountains because life is breezy by the sea.

Meeting someone at 3,000 meters means you’ve already experienced some of the climb and can now see more clearly the mountain waiting to be conquered.

Those you meet at sea level may be planning on taking an entirely different direction to you but those you meet at 3,000 meters are already moving in the same direction as you.

The sea level woman may be fabulously gorgeous, but her beauty is difficult to see if you decide to climb different mountains. So you both decide to stay at sea level (it’s easy and breezy at sea level anyway) and you miss seeing how she’d look as she climbs.

Believe me; the climb always accentuates woman’s beauty.

But we’re supposed to be talking about how a woman can make you feel.

You’re halfway up the mountain, you meet this woman and you both continue to climb further.

As you climb, the oxygen thins and it becomes more difficult to breath. Climbing higher, your heart and chest starts to ache – you want to stop because it hurts so much and by this stage you can hardly breathe at all. But each glimpse of that woman climbing with you only strengthens your resolution to continue climbing.

Higher again, the lack of oxygen is no longer only affecting your breathing but it isn’t getting to your brain and you struggle to think clearly. You no longer remember why you’re climbing – you only remember that this is what you want, so you still don’t give up.

You forget every desire and infatuation you’ve ever had, because you’ve never been this high before with anyone.

Pretty soon your head is in the clouds and you can no longer see where you’re going.

It becomes necessary to hold hands as you climb so you aren’t separated.

They say “there are plenty of fish in the sea” but we’re not at sea level now and if you lose her at 5,000 meters, it’s unlikely you’ll meet another who speaks the same languages. You will have to finish climbing that mountain yourself or trek down a few thousand meters.

Many of you I’m sure have experienced this and know that it’s not enjoyable.

So hold that hand.

Even though you’re struggling to breathe and your chest aches. I’ll bet she’s feeling it too, and she needs your hand just as much as you need hers.

So hold that hand!

The greatest thing about climbing is that the higher you are, the more people to rely on each other. Not only those you’re traveling with, but with the people you meet on the way; those climbing and those who live there.

It often seems to me that those at sea level are content to care only for themselves. You can’t see very far from sea level. It may seem that opportunity abounds, but you’re not seeing very far.

Mountains from sea level look small. It’s easy to leave climbing them for some other day.

There is no other day.

There is only today!

And don’t believe that you’ll climb them once you’ve met a woman. You can’t hope that someone else is going to change you. If you’re not climbing and she’s not climbing, what makes you think you’ll start now? What if they’re expecting to change because of you? They probably are. Don’t believe that you’ll be the reason someone else will change either.

Or on the other hand, there’s a woman you desire but she’s at 2,000 meters. You think “she’s out of reach”, and you’re probably right. But perhaps the only reason she’s out of reach is that she’s climbing and you ain’t. She’s put effort into getting up the mountain and it’s going to take a very interesting man to make her turn around and climb down to sea level. She’ll only come down or wait for you if she sees you climbing.

Start climbing.

The easiest way to measure how high you’ve climbed in life is by how much those around you support each other. Many measure your height by your monetary worth. But money can’t fix everything, believe me, I used to try. Many times it didn’t work.

Now I’m climbing.

I can’t breath.

My chest hurts.

My heart aches.

I can’t always see where I’m going.

Soon (I hope) I’ll be holding her hand (never to let go).

I love people who climb mountains. They generally can’t be bought. They’re not at the top yet, and they’re focussed.

And we can’t buy those once they’re at the top, for we’re still at sea level – those at the top don’t like the view from sea level any more. Maybe we’ve more money, status, fame, or whatever…

…but the view from the top, the company and the satisfaction at the top are priceless!

You won’t let yourself be bought once at the top.

This is how a woman should make a man feel.

When little, I thought I knew a lot.
Now big, I know my thoughts are little.

Like Mark Twain said “When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished by how much he’d learned in seven years.”

I love to give my opinions away. It’s a cheap gift, I know. But giving others my opinions gives me self worth (sorta like keeping a blog).

Unfortunately, others also like giving me their opinions – even when I don’t want them.

But, I do like to receive someone’s opinion when I’ve already got the very same opinion. I feel they are smart because they’re clever enough to have an opinion that’s the same as mine.

So I have thousands of my own opinions and I collect yours as well (provided I’ve already got my own variation of your opinion).

Often I wonder where I got my thousands of opinions in the first place.

Naturally my opinions come from all over the place and it’s difficult to keep track of them.

On occasion I have caught myself giving an opinion away when halfway through, it occurs to me that I have no idea where I got that opinion or why I have it at all.

In these cases, I must lost face. I’ll usually say “Actually, don’t listen to me, I don’t really know.”

Hopefully I’ve only lost half my face because I was able to retract half my opinion.

Surely I’d look a bigger fool if I’d given away a stupid opinion proving my ignorance.“It’s better to be thought a fool than open your mouth and remove all doubt” was how Abraham Lincoln said.

Even stranger than this, is that over time, my opinions change. If I’ve given you an opinion and then change it one year on; the opinion I gave you loses its value.

And now I’m going to end with two opinions

… before I give any opinions away, I should know where I get that opinion in the first place, why I kept it and be sure that it’s not an opinion that’s going to change.

Really; shutting up is the best option

In my opinion.

I know ironing!
(559 words)

This is odd I know. Most men iron terribly.

My ironing skills are unmatched in the non-gay men’s ironing arena (possibly because I’m the only competitor).

On the odd occasion where I have to iron my own shirts, it amazes me how handsome I can make myself feel!

Seriously… well ironed clothes can make you feel handsome! I never take my ironing skills for granted and usually take my handsome self out on the evenings where I have personally ironed my clothes.

No one should ever take their abilities for granted.

But most men do not have this ability to iron well. This is something easily corrected.

Ironing is actually quite simple. It only requires a little thought. Read further for my advice on ironing your shirts.

Hang correctly

Most clothes when difficult to iron, is only because they were not hung out to dry correctly. Hanging your clothes correctly is 90% of the ironing done. Men, generally, don’t hang their washing well - and so hate ironing.

Hanging your clothes correctly will let your clothes straighten out, leaving less creases and leaving old fold lines much the same as they always have been.

Like washing dishes, everyone knows that pre-rinsing your dishes will make it easier to wash them the following day (something else, men rarely do).

When hanging clothes pre-ironed and post-ironed, always do up the top-most button to help keep the shape of your shirts.

General makeover

Time to iron… Do the back first, and don’t worry about it too much. The back is the first place your shirt is going to start getting creased once you put it on anyway.

Then do your sides. These should initially be done from the inside, just make sure you iron the seams behind the buttons and button holes well. The rest, just do briefly.

Turn them over and do them from the front. They should look mostly OK by now and should only require a few seconds. From this side you need only concentrate on the pockets and the side seam. The side seam should always face the back so it’s not visible from the front.

Keeping shape

There are only 2 areas that need particular attention to retain the shape of your shirt; the collar and the armpit seam.

Do the armpits first, as this will pull the collar roughly into place. Make sure the seam is at the back so it’s not visible from the front. Hold the armpit with your thumb and finger and pull up from the shoulder seam until the sleeve is flat.

If ironed here well, your shirt should hang on your bodice nicely, if you have the correctly sized shirt – or correctly sized body.

If it’s not working properly, your shirt is probably sewn incorrectly. This is also something you should check when buying your shirts.

Now do the collar. Iron the collar flat from the inside first making sure the top collar fold is correct. Then proceed to iron the two folds (some don’t like to put folds in a shirt collar, but it keeps the collar standing taller rather than falling flat onto your shoulders). Do the top-most button up and hang your shirt. Make sure the creases are aligned along the coat-hanger; else you may distort your carefully ironed shirt.

End.

You should be able to iron each shirt in less than 2 minutes.

Most importantly! Ironing should be fun, don’t let it ruin your day.

Dear God,

After all these years of praying to you and asking you to make me rich so that I can help others, it has become patently obvious that to me that me becoming rich isn’t very high on your list of priorities.

I can’t believe that helping others isn’t high on your list. “Love your neighbour as yourself” was Jesus’ second commandment in the New Testament after all.

So I must conclude that helping others doesn’t necessarily require wealth.

So God, my prayer is this; help me to bless others, love others and help others despite my finanial status!

  ~ Nathaniel

There’s really only one problem with asking a man to do something.

The problem is this: if you ask a man to do something, he won’t do it.

Pretty straight forward.

This article is my exploration into how a women can get her man to do something.

The most obvious answers are of course, threatening to commit suicide, throwing your shoes across the room or keying his car. But I’ll skip these today.

Direct Approach |

There’s another article floating around the internet that teaches women about men. It says “If you want something, just ask for it, we don’t get hints.”

I’m sure that all you women out there know that this doesn’t necessarily work. “Yes” will always be his response “I’ll do it” but you know that door isn’t going to get fixed. Not this year.

The problem with asking ‘directly’ is that it’s similar to an ultimatum. Both parties can very easily lose. If you’ve asked your man ‘directly’ to do something and he says “yes” but doesn’t do it, your only recourse from there is to yell and scream at him for not doing something he said he would.

This is all bad.

No good is going to come from this.

If you don’t yell and scream, you can always ask directly again or give a gentle hint, in which case you’ll get a touchy reply of “Yes! I said I’d do it didn’t I?”

And still it won’t get done. Then you’ll have to yell and scream at him anyway.

Like I said. All bad.

Forget about asking ‘directly’, it’s not gonna happen.

Indirect Approach |

There is always the ‘indirect’ approach. But as mentioned above, men don’t get hints. I don’t believe this is entirely true. Sometimes I think us men just like to pretend we didn’t understand as an excuse for not doing it.

“The rubbish is full Honey” you say, and I’m pretty certain your man knows that you mean “Empty the garbage, you lazy stinking pig.”

He’s still not gonna do it though.

The good thing about the ‘indirect’ approach is that when your man doen’t do it, you don’t have to end in a screaming match. See the truth is, you want to love him and buy asking ‘indirectly’ you’re giving him an ‘out’. So nothing happens (unless you do it yourself), but you can both still love each others.

So I guess that’s good.

3^rd Party Approach |

Another option often suggested by a friend of mine is what I call the ‘third party’ option.

Your door still needs fixing, your man still hasn’t done it (surprised?), so you say “I’ll see if Bob next door is free to have a look at our door.”

No-can-do! Believe me. This sounds reasonable to women – Bob comes around, fixes the door, sees your man couching, thinks he’s a jerk, your man realises that he’s an ass and starts doing stuff.

No no no no.

That’s how a women would see it happening but the man sees this as manipulation.

Manipulation is the number one way to ruin a relationship with a man. Don’t manipulate your man. Unless it’s a life and death issue, leave this option on the other side of your broken door. Use this option, and you will receive the silent treatment or the disappearing act. And you women know that this is the number one way for a man to cause you pain.

Playing Hero |

Surely I’ll get in trouble for what I’m going to say next, but as a guy, I can’t see any other alternative. You see, I’m like your average guy who won’t fix the door when my women asks me to fix it.

But here it is. I figure that men need to be trained much like dogs. If you want your dog to do something, you offer a treat, or give him attention.

In the case of your man needing attention, I want to substitute this with ‘feeding his ego’. Ever heard of a man without an ego problem?

No?

Neither have I!

A friend of mine does it this way. She grabs the tool kit, she goes to the door, and she starts making mistakes. She says “Hey there Man, I can’t get this screw undone” or something lame like that. He comes over and tells her how she’s doing it allllll wrong. “You have to do it like this and this and…”

So the door is fixed and he gets to play hero.

I love playing hero. It’s just like being in primary school again (men never really did grow up – we only call ourselves men instead of boys because women got a name change from girl – we wanted one as well.)

Problem is, the woman still has to get the tools, and put them away because her man isn’t going to put them away if she’s the one who brought them out in the first place. But chances are the door will get fixed.

So that’s the ‘hero’ method.

There’s also the ‘treat’ method. You’ll need to know what it is your man wants. And this can become quite costly. You don’t want to be paying for a ferrari every time you want your door fixed.

But anyway, I don’t feel I need to be explicit on this point. Women are smart enough to know how to prepare a treat for their man. But do remember that you need to leave him enough time to fix the door between promising the ‘treat’ and the realization of the ‘treat’.

The easiest way to do this is perhaps say you need to shower (or bath) and you’ll give it to him when he’s fixed the door. All men know that you’re going to be gone for nearly an hour, so he’s got an hour to fix the door while he’s waiting for that ‘treat’.

And thus concludes my article on ‘Making Men Do’

Really, I think it’s much easier if the women just did everything and let us sit on the sofa. Then everyone would be happy.

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