If I Were You

There are a great number of expressions in English that seemingly make no sense, while there are others that make a kind of half-sense. One expression that has been preying on my mind is the semi-accurate “If I were you...” It’s an expression we use when giving advice, which actually means “If I were in your place...” but we’re so familiar with it that we automatically translate it in our heads. Yet, taken at face value, “If I were you...” is quite inaccurate, and shows a symptom of one of our greatest struggles as individuals.

            When interacting with other people, on an intellectual level we know they are very different from us – their thoughts are different, their likes and dislikes are different, and their entire life experience has been different. Yet, when we tell them about something we have experienced, we instantly expect them to understand how we experienced. After all, it hurts when I stub my toe, don’t you feel exactly the same thing when you stub yours? But, for all we know, there could be someone out there who thoroughly enjoys the sensation of a stubbed toe, so they go around kicking things.

            For a more down-to-earth example, my brother loves cars – everything about them. He can (and has) go on at length about all the parts and how they work, and will generally do so every chance he gets. He knows when the people around him don’t share his interests, and he knows that they have different likes – but, at a fundamental level, he doesn’t understand why it is that other people don’t all love cars as much as he does.

            We all have a certain element of that in us, that little part that wonders how other people don’t like what we like as much as we do. I love bacon, how can you not love bacon? Yet, somehow, there are people who hate the taste of bacon. Intellectually, we know this, but deep down there’s some fundamental part of us that believes everyone else is just like us.

            So, when I say to my brother, “If I were you, I’d get a mechanic to fix the car,” I am superimposing my own self onto him, and making my statement completely inaccurate. If I were him, I’d love cars, because he loves cars, so that’s how I’d feel about them if I were him – and I’d then proceed to fix the car myself. A far more accurate statement would be, “If you were me, you’d get a mechanic to fix the car.” You see, then I’d be expressing what he would do if he had my interests, rather than what I’d do if I were in his place.

            It may seem a small change, and rather pointless considering the well-established expression, but the way we say things is important. It shapes the way we think. If we go around expecting others to conform to our life experiences, we’re going to regularly run into problems. On the other hand, if we go around expecting people to have entirely different views and experiences than ourselves, well, we may actually begin to make some progress.

            If you were me, you’d be amazed that this was the 300th blog you’ve written. And if I were you... well, I really don’t know, do I?

Check out my YouTube channel where I tell the stories of my D&D campaigns.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Lots of Crash

            This week, I witnessed my first ever collision. Well, sort of. Colleen and I had just parked outside the laundromat when we heard a loud bang from behind us. We spun in our seats to see that a collision had occurred just across the street – a car had been t-boned and had been spun off the road, luckily into the entrance of a parking lot and the striking car had fled the scene.

            Colleen immediately called it in to the police and, when they arrived, went across the street to see if we were needed as witnesses. Luckily there was an actual eye-witness who had remained at the scene. It was a complicated situation, though, because the driver who’d been hit (no injuries!) didn’t speak any English. It might have turned out to be quite a mess, except for one thing.

            The hit-and-run driver had left their licence plate behind.

            I had a good laugh when I found out about that. One of the first things I learned about collisions is that you stay at the scene until the police arrive.

            That was something very easy for the people involved in the three car fender-bender that followed to do, since the police were already right there.

            Seriously, what is it with humans? Why are people so interested in seeing a collision that they’ll cause one themselves?

            So, I went from never seeing a collision to seeing two in the same day, in almost exactly the same place. It’s a funny old world.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her life coaching website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Who Are They And Where Do They Go?

            I never really notice just how many people there are in the world until I take the time to pay attention to how many cars are on the road at any given time of the day. How does it tell me more than seeing a group of people? Because it points out how many people there are who don’t fit into an “ordinary” routine.

            To clarify, by “ordinary” I mean the typical 9-5 job that most people are assumed to have, although I've realized that assumption is very flawed. Being self-employed, I am often running my errands at the oddest of times. And no matter when I'm driving, the road is always filled with cars.

            It got me wondering – who are all these people? Where are they going and where are they coming from? Why aren't they at their 9-5 job at 2 in the afternoon?

            Naturally, it makes sense for some of the people to be there. Some are running errands for work, some (such as delivery and taxi drivers) are working, some are unemployed or self-employed with less strict schedules. Some work night shifts, others work evening shifts, so that time of day is the right time for them to be out and about.

            But there are so many! It is mind-boggling, at least to me, that the roads can be filled all day long. How can there possibly be so many people with so many places to go that there is always so much traffic?

            Sadly, it is one of the things I doubt I’ll ever know.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Education vs Intelligence

            About a year ago, I had an argument which I've kept on intending to write about and here I am finally getting around to it. The argument was, at its core, about the mass delusion in our world that education bestows intelligence and that intelligence cannot exist without education.

            The argument started with a conversation about my car which, at the time, made rather alarming rattling noises whenever it went over a bump. My brother (an avid car fan his entire life) had diagnosed it as a loose heat shield – a part he has frequently informed me is pretty much useless. No damage was being done, so it wasn't imminently important to fix.

            Now, the person with whom I was conversing took issue with the fact that I was trusting my brother on this for one – and only one – reason: my brother isn't a licensed mechanic. The argument went along the lines of him saying that, without the official training through apprenticeship, my brother isn't qualified to work on cars. My argument, of course, was that my brother took every possible auto course he could in high school and, beyond that, he enjoyed working on cars so much that he could practically take them apart and put them back together again.

            The reply to that was (in my paraphrased version): he hasn't got a piece of paper, therefore he doesn't know what he’s talking about. Masters train apprentices, who then become masters and train their own apprentices. The skills and knowledge are passed down.

            My argument continued to tracing that back to its origins. There wasn't always a master around to teach an apprentice. How did the first master become a master? By doing. The first master learned by trial and error, by taking things apart and putting them back together again – just as my brother had.

            The argument went on and I came to realise just how deep this concept is rooted in our society – more so in the older members, but, as with everything, it trickles down the generations. There is a very solid belief that, without a piece of paper proving your education, your arguments are invalid. Having an education has become synonymous with being intelligent and being intelligent has become impossible without an education.

            What is missed is that education is just training. That piece of paper is just an official statement confirming that you know what you know. That paper is bought with a tuition. It is also possible to cheat to get it. What good does that piece of paper do? Just look at how many people with degrees are working in the fast-food industry.

            Intelligence and knowledge, on the other hand, can come from anywhere – especially in modern times. You can learn anything on the internet. Yes, you need to be careful and ensure that the information you’re receiving is valid, but you can learn it there. There are also libraries full of books and a whole world full of experiences to learn from where knowledge and intelligence can be gleaned without a piece of paper to prove you know it. Some of the most intelligent and successful people in the world didn't even finish school.

            Now, I'm not saying that education is useless. Our education system is flawed, but it does a decent job. It’s the idea that education is the only valid source of knowledge and intelligence that is flawed.

            My brother ended up “temporarily” fixing that noisy heat shield by using zip-ties to hold it in place. When I took the car in for service, I was told, “What he did is working, so we’re going to leave it like that.” Today, those same zip-ties keep my heat shield from rattling around.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.