I’ve often wondered if we acknowledge everyday “life lessons” purely because we’re sometimes more receptive or if they are presented to us in concentrated batches on occasion to ensure that the message is driven home. Many years ago I saw a chap on Oprah talking about the fact that every incident in our lives has a message for us, it’s simply up to us whether we chose to take it on board or not.

Now many things I’ve watched on Oprah over the years I’ve forgotten and some I’ve desperately tried to put out of my mind in order to be able to face food without feeling nauseous (particularly Tom Cruise describing his love for Katie Holmes whilst jumping up and down on her sofa like a monkey). But this chap always stayed in my mind for some reason. I can’t even tell you his name but his message rang loud and true. Even if an event is uncomfortable it’s purpose is to tell you something.

Take earlier this week, for example. Someone from my past emerged from the murky shadows even nastier and more bitter than I last remembered. The person in question has made an art of blaming everyone else for everything that is wrong with his life and this week I was squarely in his firing line because I appeared to be getting on with my own, it seems.

So what message lay there for me?

Simply this: Some people don’t take responsibility for the mess their lives get into, and sadly when faced with an echo of that truth they go on the attack. They like to circle their prey, taking surreptitious chunks out of them because hurting someone else directs the spotlight away from their own pain. No contrived insult or venomous bile is spared. Not the sort of person you want to wake up next to.

Now, for the record let me state unequivocally that I’ve got a lot of things wrong in my life (that would be “a lot of things” as in “way more than your average Lincolnshire lass”) but my attitude is this: I’m not perfect. I’ve never professed to be perfect and I’ll never be perfect because the word isn’t in my personal glossary. In my case it’s been substituted with the term “unashamedly flawed”. I deal with life by being upfront, brass-necked and honest, and people who attack me for that (covertly or otherwise) only serve to demonstrate to me that I’m on the right path.

If I was going to wax lyrical I’d say that self-deprecation is the armour that’s protected me from attacks such as the one I’ve described above; put quite plainly it’s the old “sticks and stones” scenario.

That said I do perhaps stupidly still aim for perfection and little prompts to get me on track are always welcome. Sometimes however they have the force of a huge dig in the ribs as experienced this very morning; those “little prompts” not quite so welcome.

My little boy’s school is today holding a non-uniform day to raise funds for Sport Relief. Each parent was notified at the beginning of the week that their child could come to school today dressed in sports gear if they kindly placed a donation towards the appeal in the pocket of said clothing.

Could there be a day more exciting on a six year old’s school calendar? Apart from the school trip to The Deep submarium (the only submarium in the whole wide world ..) and the Christmas party, that is? Wearing sports gear for the whole day, in lessons with Miss Flintham and everything?

It’s a short two-letter answer ending in “o”.

The excitement does tend to get marred when you are a six year old with a mother that forgets it’s Sport Relief day though, and who dresses you in school uniform so that when you walk into the school playground you feel about as comfortable as John Terry at a women’s lib rally.

You look up at her and you say “you’re always forgetting things, aren’t you Mummy?”

Mummy at that point feels she could rate this moment in her bottom ten of all time .. and promptly legs it back home to pick up a change of clothes for you.

Being a mother is the best job in the world and it’s also the hardest, because the word “guilt” takes on a whole new scope of meaning when you try to combine any other activity with raising and caring for your child. Any mother who tells you otherwise is either in denial or lying for reasons best known to her.

My maternal ineptitude sucked this morning and it tasted of lemons.

On the flip-side I told my boy at least five times that I loved him between 7.00 and 8.30am and we both skipped to school.

I hope he doesn’t keep me long in detention later. Or drink all the lemonade for that matter.

I guess we can all point to times, people and events in our lives that we later credit with causing a seismic shift in our way of thinking. For me one of those times was my first job in field sales, the person was my sales manager, a lovable man who played the trumpet for the Salvation Army band at weekends and the event was a discussion we had about letting nerves get the better of us.

Now Gorgeous George was not the type of man you’d expect to see in a role of that ilk; typically I suppose these days we expect ruthless, results-oriented individuals to be leading sales teams. George was nothing like that; he was a “people person” in the truest sense of the term who instilled very early on in his team members that there is no such thing as inferiority when it comes to your fellow man.

And that worked both ways. In restaurants he struck up conversations with waiting staff and would chat for a few minutes with the vendor of a copy of the Big Issue as he handed over a pocketful of change. Similarly he explained very succinctly why nerves where often unfounded when it came to making a key sales presentation to a room full of decision makers.

“Deborah … tell me .. have you prepared for this presentation? I mean … have you really prepared? And don’t bullshit me …”

“Yes George”

“Then why are you so nervous? You know your stuff …. if you stumble a few times they won’t know because they don’t know what the “perfect presentation” should look like … you know that because you’ve written it!”

“But such a lot rides on this presentation George; I’m worried”

“OK, OK … then answer me one question …. what’s the worst that could happen?”

“Well … the worst that could happen is that I completely fluff it and we lose the deal”

“No … that’s not the worst that could happen. The worst that could happen is that one of them takes out a sawn-off shotgun and shoots you in the knee-caps because your presentation was so bad. Don’t you think? Surely that’d be far worse than us losing the deal because you fluffed your presentation?”

That was George’s skill; he instantly could bring a perspective to a dilemma you were facing that caused your angst to evaporate into thin air.

Now like many people I have laid awake at night worrying over the years. I’ve worried about relationships, about money, about work … and all my laboured efforts and sleepless nights I’ve chalked up haven’t made the slightest difference to any of the various outcomes. I still wake and avail myself of a bit advanced hand-wringing coupled with a toss and a turn from time to time, and it continues to not make the slightest difference. And then a few months ago a Facebook friend shared a nugget of wisdom offered by his first wife on the subject ….

“Worrying is like paying interest on money you haven’t borrowed yet”

I doubt anyone has brought worry into its allotted perspective quite as brilliantly as Janet Goodman did in that instance.

A little earlier today I swapped comments regarding my last post concerning positive attitudes and it led me to wonder why some people seem to get stuck in ongoing negative cycles that they can’t break. And this I find an odd quandary for me to roll around my head because I’ve worn the depression T-shirt a few times in my teens; I’ve taken antidepressants that made me feel like I was on another planet and I’ve woken up of a morning thinking “Oh God, not another day …”

But I guess the difference now is that I’ve lived to tell the tale. Several times over, and then some.

Confidence, positive attitude, call it what you will … it isn’t a skill, a quality or an attribute. It’s the knowledge that no matter what life has in store tomorrow, next week or next year I’ll deal with it. Good or bad.

I used to believe not knowing what the future held was a drawback, but now I see it as definite advantage. A canvas waiting for me to de-blank it.

I mean … what’s the worst that could happen?