MY SNIPER LIFE IN THE DANISH MILITARY

I don’t know if you can actually call it “my life” in the Danish Armed Forces, as it was only a span of three years. I’m not really sure how the Danish National Guard (Hjemmevaernet = Home Guard) is looked upon in the overall strategic Danish military picture, but I remember a lot of giggling and finger-pointing by the ‘real’ (actually drafted) military personnel when we showed up on maneuvers. But we didn’t care – really. 

For your information, Denmark was not attacked by any major powers during those three years; I must have done a good job – don’t you think?

Not to confuse you, but I did not have grandiose illusions of trying to be a Rambo kind of hero by ‘joining up’, as it was solely a cold and calculated action by me to avoid being drafted into the military. Yes, I know – a rather ironic situation…

I have always been against any kind of wars. The idea that we have to kill each other to solve issues, has never appealed to me. When explaining to my two sons back then that “nothing can be solved with violence”, they would just look at me and say two words (to shut me up, I guess): “Why wars?” I have never been able to come up with a logical explanation.

So in this feeble effort of mine, trying to avoid the draft and possible military duty, I thought: ‘Hey, Peter, join the National Guard and perhaps they’ll let you off come draft-time’; at least that was the general plan.

It was 1965 and I was an apprentice in a small department store in Holbaek. One of the department managers was a member of the local National Guard so he helped me sign up. At the first meeting I was issued what seemed like a lot of left-over equipment from World War II, but since I had always had a huge interest in that war, the helmet, the uniform, boots, bags and other equipment, was actually really cool. 

I cannot remember the precise model of the carbine riffle I started out with, but it was something like an 1889 8mm, bolt action. (Issued in 1940, I believe). I had never ever held any kind of real weapon in my sweaty hands before, other than the occasional pointed stick while imitating King Arthur; so this big and heavy rifle was a first – a big time first. 

The following weekend was spent on a shooting-range near Frederikssund; my first chance to gear up and in the mirror I almost looked like a real warrior. We were issued live ammo and down in the dirt we went, looking at a target seemingly a million miles away (that’s 1.6 million kilometers). There was no way I would ever hit that little piece of square paper down the range.

We were instructed how to load, aim and pull. They also said something about breathing correctly and some other stuff, but I don’t think I listened as I was so eager to fire that first shot. I adjusted the sight, though I had no idea how to; I lined up the target as well as I could – by pointing the weapon somewhat in the general direction. Then I closed my eyes as I slowly squeezed the trigger. The noise was deafening as my right shoulder was torn off – at least the violent recoil made it feel like it was totally gone.

Returning to consciousness, the instructor was hopping up and down next to me, pointing down range, where a small white plate was swirled around the middle of the target. ‘I missed’ I thought, but no, I had hit bulls-eye smack in the middle.

The instructor looked at me with a smirk: “you can’t do that again – like in never”. I loaded another bullet, aimed at the target, closed my eyes (not really, I did keep the shooting eye open – just in case), softly squeezed the trigger and the instructor did some more hopping as the plate-thing twirled around yet again – bulls-eye.

I quickly found that I liked shooting, as I was rather good at it. Why? I have no idea. Some months later we were equipped with a Springfield M1 Garand and I wondered if it would perform as well as the first one; it did even better. I had to fire a few hundred rounds to adjust, but soon settled in and the bulls-eye results continued.

At a competition (which I won, (he brags)) I was approached by some high-ranking dude with a lot of salad on his chest (isn’t that what you call medals and things?) He sternly informed me, that I needed to sign up for sniper-training. As I was a stupid kid I eagerly said “Yes Sir”. My life in the Danish Military changed – a lot.

A month later I was equipped with all kinds of even cooler stuff. The ‘sniper’ uniform was different, and a bunch of additional equipment made me go: ‘na na na na na na’ in front of my band-of-fighting-brothers, who were consistently teasing me about the sniper-thing; ‘big shot’ was often mentioned, no matter how lame it sounded – because I was a ‘big-shot’. But the real evolution was the new weapon I was issued; an M16 rifle with a scope. 

When I received the M16 (brand new and out of a cool box), the much lighter weight compared to the Garand, made me look for a hole to pour water into (the ‘water-pistol’ syndrome), but found none – so it was actually a real weapon. 

As part of becoming familiar with this new wonder, I was ordered to take it apart and reassemble it many times over. I became an expert in the ‘taking apart’ bit, but reassembling back to its correct working condition was only attempted with several leftover parts, parts I was sure had something to do with the weapon’s functionality. 

My ‘sniper-group’ consisted of a navigator (to find the way into the target and especially to get the Hell out of there) as well as a supporter (someone had to carry the beer, duh). Egon, the navigator was a real nerd; I mean the dude actually knew how to use one of those compass things, which I could never figure out how to do. If you left me in the middle of a forest (anything bigger than 12 trees) with a vast selection of compasses, the only way for me to get out, would be by screaming: “MOM?” really loud…

But I was superb in taking the weapon apart and Egon reassembled it in no time, for the most part with his eyes closed, for some challenging reason. We never had a problem in that department, as we never had to do that exercise in the field, ever.

Though I was an ace on the range and dead targets (not moving much), being on maneuvers, crawling around looking like a bush, hunting down actual war-game targets, was another story all together. The first major test of that was a week in sniper school. No, not like summer-camp, very far from. This was hard-core training and the stupid smirk on my face from being a big-shot-shooter on the range disappeared the second we arrived at the train-station. From that very moment till I was home in my own bed in a fetal position, sucking my thumb and finally stopped shaking, it was Hell – as they say. That moment I decided that being drafted would have been a much easier way of serving my time in the Danish Military after all – how ignorant I had been.

The things we were going through that week were horrendous compared to my normal everyday life. I had considered the sniper-thing fun and games, but the drill sergeants didn’t see it that way. All the stuff we had to do in a very short time made my body extremely sore in places I didn’t even know I had.

After 48 hours of punishing drills and exercises, with only a total of 8 hours of sleep (‘coma’ comes to mind) we were issued a map, a day’s food ration, a canister of water and then we were sent into a large forest (a lot more than 12 trees).

The order was to eliminate 8 different targets; we had 4 days and 4 nights to accomplish that. I then realized that I had to sleep outside and not in a cozy bed and when the little bit of rations were gone, we had to survive on ‘what kind of worms again?’ And off we went.

It was Hell in this Danish jungle, but Egon guided us securely from one target to the next and we nailed all 8 of them – within 4 days and 4 nights. But it was all the stuff in between, surviving on our wits and the fortunate load of food products Egon had smuggled into his back-pack (Thank you, Egon). Personal hygiene was zero, except tooth brushing. We literally spent most of the time crawling. The long periods of inactivity just waiting for those right moments to make our moves, were tedious and extremely boring. But the boredom was certainly broken by the acceleration and utter excitement when we stealthily had located the targets, eliminated them and safely got the Hell out. 

We were a very good team and were not spotted even once by any of the many observers or any of the other sniper teams (we won, by the way – but you knew that, huh?) But all the stuff in between targets was a huge uncomfortable ordeal. We often talked about what many (real) soldiers had gone through in real wars – and we were always in total awe – how could we even dare compare our misery with theirs… I survived sniper school; we did it a few times more and it got somewhat easier – except the part of sleeping outside, but we did make food-smuggling an art-form.

After three years in the National Guard I was finally called in to face the draft-board. As my plan had been to completely avoid drafted military time, by serving time in the National Guard instead, I was sure they would dismiss me. 

Wearing only my underwear and a confident smirk, I finally faced the draft-persons. They looked me over, made some notes and one asked: 

“You are flat-footed, aren’t you?” You had to be blind or in advanced Rigor mortis not to notice that my feet were as flat as could be. 

“Yes, Sir” I answered - in Danish. 

“You are dismissed…” he said. “Cannot use flat-footed soldiers…”

At that very moment I realized that I had spent three years and a lot of weekends for nothing? No matter how ironic (pathetic?) it was that I had joined one military faction to avoid another, I was still a bit hurt and disappointed as they never gave me a chance to tell them about my life as a sniper in the Danish military – oh, well, I also survived that one.

SMART PHONES – smart people?

I’m sure you fully realize how addicted we are to techno-gadgets today and especially to the somewhat pathetic dependence on our cell phones. The term smart-phone was invented as a marketing gimmick back then, but in this rare case it is certainly true as advertised; these phones are very smart. Of course they are only as smart as ‘we, the people’ want them to be, simply by the way we use them. So considering the way we use as well as abuse these smart-phones, can we honestly call ourselves smart-people?

Many years ago, I was stuck for 8 hours in Helsinki-Vantaan lentoasema; mechanical problems they told us. For those very few of you who do not understand Finnish, that would be Helsinki (International) Airport - in Finland, that is. I was on my way back to California from a visit to Denmark and Sweden.

Passing time, I placed myself in a restaurant that had a great view of the terminal from above. The myriads of travelers below made it all look like a high energy ant-hill, which by itself is rather normal for a busy airport. But what really caught my eye was that all the ants had a cell-phone glued to an ear. Quite an eye-opening sight – really.

Sure mobiles were up and coming in the USA at that time, but most certainly not to the extent it presented itself that day in Finland. Then I realized that through my travels in Denmark and Sweden it had actually been very eye-opening already, but I had not fully acknowledged this trend before the moment of viewing the ant-hill. And here we are, years and millions of smart-phones later.

We didn’t even have a phone in my early years. Due to my father’s job (police-work) we finally ended up with a land-line party phone. 'No', not a designated phone to find out where the nearest action was, but a phone-line with two subscribers. At times I would pick up the phone to make a call and the other party was chatting away – for the most part some really hot stuff. My Mother told us not to listen and hang up at once; which I rarely did if my Mother wasn't home. I even remember our number from back then (60+ years ago) SO:3182U, yeah, really.

69 43 08 was our phone-number when we got a rotary unit. Yeah I know, this is all museum-style information for most of you, but please go with it. Many years later it was key-punch. So a lot of verbal communication was attached and depended on the availability of land-line phones; we survived and conducted business and private lives without a problem.

When I arrived in the USA in 1975, it was still land-line phones and a computer would not be able to fit inside my house - even if I could afford one. 10 years later (please don’t quote me) car-phones were introduced and I was first in line - seriously. They weren’t cheap, but they were so bloody cool. Had one installed in my huge 8 cylinder Ford Station-wagon and on the way home from the shop I desperately tried to get the connection going to make that first historical (hysterical?) call. I’m a right-handed phone chatter, meaning holding phones (and cute kittens) to my right ear. But as I was driving home from the shop, I kept holding the phone to my left ear, so people driving by could see that I had a car-phone; the na na na na na na syndrome; and then I eventually grew up...

I remember at a trade-show in New York that one of the exhibitors had this huge box, like a really big thing, that he hauled around. It was an early cell-phone and he obviously needed to look important. When I asked him if the phone came with a fork-lift, he didn’t smile at all, because he was busy looking cool. 

My first cell-phone was not little either, but after heavy training and arm-muscle build-up I handled the weight well – didn’t tip over that often. I believe there were very few cell-towers and to get a really good reception, you pretty much had to sit on top of one, while hoping the person you called was sitting on top of a tower as well – (sigh) those were the days, my friends...

So we finally arrived in super-gadget land of amazing computers, tablets and phones, smart-phones. It took me a while to catch on, as I was satisfied with flip-phones and the fact that they could make and receive phone-calls; I mean wasn’t that the idea of a phone?

The time had arrived for Peter to meet a smart-phone and I opted for an iPhone (3, I think it was, some years back). I was so totally against all the crap it could do – stuff I most certainly would never need. The multitude of applications I couldn’t see anybody would have the slightest interest in – except for the ones with dysfunctional brains or no brains at all. And there seemed to be so many of them... (not you and I, of course).

Now I have about 44 apps on my phone that I seriously use on a regular basis. A fitness app, soccer apps (Manchester United follower), bank accounts app, apps for setting TV programs to record, dictionary, quotes, several travel apps (flights, hotels, car-rental reservations), and so forth. But I don’t do social things apps, other than using texts, E-Mailing and then of course that novel thing called telephoning...

So we have all acknowledged the extreme uses available for our smart-phones, and I hope, also all the crap that doesn’t really do anything practical – is not even entertaining. My point is that I have certainly embraced a lot of what this little gadget can do for me, but I am not controlled by it –at all, like some I see around me on a daily basis, staying around here or out traveling.

Smart-phones are really that: smart, but only as smart as we want to make them, because the choices of applications are close to infinite (perhaps even longer) but we need to be in control of every single one we apply and use, otherwise we are really not that smart, are we?

My beef concerning how these gadgets are used, the way they interfere with common sense, ethics, respect and consideration, is another thing – and not a pretty one. My brief history concerning where I started fitting in with phones, and the experiences I went through, explains my overall ethics with respect to how, what, where and when to work these gadgets.

As with anything in a functioning society, we must be considered and respectful.  With that in mind, I find it utterly rude when spending time with friends, family, just about anybody, chatting along and having a great face-to-face communication, that we let a phone-call, text-message, anything beeping or vibrating in our back-pocket break that moment, by pulling out the damn thing in mid sentence. Yes, to me that is utterly rude, because it makes me feel unimportant; what’s on the phone is more important than our moment together face-to-face?

Some people chat away and socialize, but suddenly they find a need to check sports-scores or what the heck else this smart-phone demands them to react to. To me there is NOTHING more important than you and I, socializing, communicating and do that real human thing – not hiding behind a monitor or cell-phone. To let that special moment be broken by anything is extremely offensive to me. I mean, it is not even a rare occasion when people are sitting in a restaurant with their damn phones up their noses, communicating with something or somebody other than the person sitting across the table from them. How rude is that? And I see it all the time – are you one of those people? Yes, I’m of the old school, where courtesy and respect rule – and I'm proud of it.

Oh and let us not forget the irritating loud-mouthed on-the-phone persons next to you and/or in a crowded area. I don’t know about you, but are you interested in what they have to say – so loudly? Where’s common sense and consideration?

Today, most people are walking around with phones in their hands, having them readily available anywhere. Yes, I checked. They are constantly staring at the damn screen as if their life depended on it. That’s a sad realization, because it seems as if they did not have that (*&^%$) phone in their hand, they were not wanted, needed and/or important or at least not looking important, wanted and/or needed. To me, that is so utterly pathetic. And this is where we need to ask ourselves who the smart part is: the phone or me – I already know my answer.

I embrace the fact that many people, especially anybody with insecurities, anxieties, social disabilities, etc. actually do communicate by phone, where they perhaps wouldn’t communicate with anybody at all if such phones were not available. But I really hope that they also seek real human contact at times. But for the most part we carry it to the bloody extremes of ignorance – and that is so sad.

By day’s end, done with dinner and ready for some down-time with a movie or some TV or reading or music, I turn my phone off. I love and fully enjoy the company of my best friend ever (my wife of 30-plus years) and I don’t want to be interrupted by anything that comes from my phone – because it is normally NOT that important. Our kids know how it works and in case of any supreme emergency, they also know how to get hold of us. Anything else can wait till tomorrow - it really can.

It is so utterly awesome to be part of all this gadget stuff, and I do take advantage of what I want to profit from, by being in control. Early on I got into a lot of application-fluff, but all the fluff is now gone and the apps I use today, actually seems to make me a smarter consumer, a smart people – so how are you doing; are you being smart? 

PROMISES –part two...

A bit more on the promise-subject:

     I promise that this blog-post will be informative, entertaining, eye-opening and another ‘wow’ piece by yours truly (that would be me). And even as I wrote that one sentence, I was wondering how I could get out of it – and fast. And that is for the most part how we ‘promise’ things of all kinds, as we are not truly fully truthful concerning following through on many of the promises we make; those kinds of promises smells like the ultimate kiss off.

  
     A promise is a commitment for us to do or not do something. As a noun promise means a declaration, assuring that we will or will not do something. As a verb it means that we commit ourselves by a promise to do or not to do. It can also mean a capacity for good, a positive value that is to be realized in the near future, as in: ‘it looks / sounds / feels’ promising. When we sign a contract, it’s an exchange of promises that is legally enforceable by law (including spanking) – so watch very carefully what you sign, huh?
     
     And then we have the vow (slightly different from wow) aspect of promises, as in “I do” and “till death do us part”. Promises can also appear as an oath, which to me is the much more serious rendition, compared to our everyday handy variety version of a promise.

     Of course there is the Mother-of-All promises, which starts with: “When I’m elected…” Yeah, political promises are for the most part laughable (and disappointing – to say the least). The positive part is that we all acknowledge these soon-to-be broken promises, which in itself is very sad, of course… and let’s not forget the classic in promises: “I’ll respect you in the morning…”
     
     We make promises as a precursor to pleasing somebody, to make them feel and trust that whatever is promised will come true, whatever the promise entails. I think that for the most part the ‘promisor’, the one making the promise (silly person) initially believes the promise made is a promise that will be kept (still a silly person). The ‘promisee’, the person who receives the promise, momentarily trust and embrace the comfort that ‘it will be done’, whatever it is that is promised. Of course, if somebody promises to beat the crap out of you, ‘embracing’ might not be part of the equation – at least it shouldn’t be.
     
     I need to clean the house; should have done it last week. As my wife leaves for work I try to look the most charming, though ‘guilt’ is plastered all over my forehead; I smile that seemingly irresistible smile of mine and in a deep, exotic voice utter: “I promise to clean the house today, sweetheart…” The very moment those words fly out of my mouth I think: “oh crap…”
     
     But it’s not because I’m against cleaning the house or pleasing my wife; I’m okay with both, of course. It’s the commitment in that promise, in any promise I make that I’m not so happy about. You see, I do not, for some strange reason work well when being asked to do trivial everyday tasks, where house-cleaning is one of them. I prefer to do those things without using a promise or commit myself to a specific time (day, month or year!) thereby eliminating the pressure to perform and therefore avoid spreading disappointment.

     It took me too many years to finally realize that I should not run around and promise this and that, left and right, up and down. I should just keep my big mouth shut and instead of promising to do something, simply just do it (Nike was right after all).
     
     So it doesn’t take rocket-science to quickly find that instead of promising to clean the house, I just clean it and the response is (pleasant) surprise and thank-you instead of disappointment and: ‘he’ (yet again), didn’t keep his promise. Don’t you think that’s a much better way to do it?
     
     For the most part our promises are ‘easements’ to resolve situations, emotions, practical aspects and the list of promises we make is long – very long. Promises are also used as a means to extent due-dates, heavily fiddling with procrastination. We promise things will never happen again, cowering behind the P-word. But when in a more rational and realistic mode, don’t we realize that we are speculating in the future where there are no guarantees, no matter how much we try to follow through on a promise? The sun rises and sets, taxes and death, yeah, those are more so guaranteed; any promise is not even close.
    
     But we keep on making promises, when instead we should consider action without promises; a much better way to go. I am sure we all mean very well when we stutter: “I do – and till death do us part (or at least till we get a divorce)”. Maybe it’s because in that very moment we do want to believe that to be our future – no, not the death and divorce, but you and I, like forever, or perhaps even longer. But there are no guarantees. So wouldn’t it be much better that instead of ‘I do’, we say ‘I’ll do my best’? At least we are realistic; but of course it doesn’t sound very romantic, does it?
     
     Promises are made all over the map; in the workplace, at home, to ourselves, between friends and family and so forth. I don’t see any limitations, but I certainly see a lot of misuse of an otherwise honorable intent – because I trust that we do for the most part make promises that we intent to keep. But in most cases, we are way too quick to use and offer promises as a quick-fix, a loosely applied momentary Band-Aid, that unfortunately will make the promise falter and disappoint, more so than it will succeed; and that’s a pity.
     
     Of human emotions, disappointment is huge. I believe and hope that we all have an innate and in some cases, blind trust in each other – no matter how many times we have experienced disappointment. Though we are also resilient buggers, I strongly suggest that we try to eliminate as much spreading of disappointment that we can. Not making promises we know before we even spit them out will not materialize, will be a superb start. It will open up a lot more happiness and pleasant surprises, while kicking some serious disappointment-butt out the door.
     
     So remember next time a promise seems to be the quickest solution to appease somebody into a false sense of trust and expectations, hold your tongue (also known as: shut up) and do that other thing: 

DON’T PROMISE IT – JUST DO IT

And please promise to thank me later, okay?

MERRY 2015

&

THANKS FOR READING

PROMISES – making & breaking

A promise is closely related to expectations, as we always expect something when somebody makes us a promise. Other emotions involved are joy and disappointment, results of a promise kept or broken. Joy is easy and a relief compared to disappointment being a lot more complex. Remember that we set our own expectations, so getting disappointed is therefore our own fault. And you thought it was easy, huh?

Promises are a huge issue in our lives, as they carry not only expectations that include issues of trust, beliefs, faith, honesty, friendships, respect, hope and so forth. But the technical core concerning promises is the simple matter of either doing something or not doing something. The simplicity of promises is scary, because of the vast harm and disappointment broken promises can cause. Okay, if somebody promises you a dose of bodily harm or other nasty stuff and they break such promise, disappointment surely doesn’t apply in those cases – duh!

We hand out promises left and right and we have unfortunately gotten to the point where broken promises are part of life. We even know beforehand when it’s not going to happen as promised; doesn’t matter if we make a promise to somebody or we are being promised something by somebody. It’s a pity because what I’m concerned, a positive promise should still be a valiant and honorable effort to do something good, something right, making somebody happy – certainly not to disappoint.

Has it become a saintly deed to actually keep a promise, making it an exception to the rule? That would be sad, but unfortunately I find that to be somewhat the truth – not the saintly part, but the fact that we are perhaps breaking more promises than we keep. And it’s not just you and I, but look around – and I’m not pointing at politicians as an example, because that’s way too easy. But since you pressured me, broken promises by most politicians start with: “when I’m elected…” I told you it was too easy.

To me, in the very center of the promising land, is the way we make promises to ourselves. On a daily basis we promise ourselves to do this or not do that or whatever and it’s not only a few things we promise ourselves, it’s really a lot. And we must realize that promises we break are not good for us to any extent. We are setting ourselves up for failure again and again – and that is not what we want to do. No, it’s not that we have to say: “I promise me to do…” to make it count. “I should do…”, “I must do…” etc. are promises as well – in case you didn’t know.

We promise ourselves a lot of things daily, weekly, monthly and so forth. From exercising regularly, eating healthy, be on time, remember this and that, and clean up the garage (now in its 22+ year – the longest promise I ever made). I promise to walk the dog twice daily, shave when my wife is off work, be friendly to strangers and the list of “promises-to-myself” is utterly long.

We feel the task is half done the moment we promise ourselves that we will do it. But unfortunately that’s only an illusion, a fake security making us believe that we will actually do what we promised ourselves – but in many cases we won’t. So why do we keep making those promises?

But I have seen the light and I have found a way to never disappoint me again, simply by never promise myself anything anymore. No, Dear Reader, that doesn’t mean that I’m lying on the floor letting life pass; I simply changed the way to do things – or not do things, in the promise-department. You can thank me later…

I’m a list freak, meaning that my calendar is full of mundane and daily stuff to do, from drinking enough water to remembering birthdays, appointments and a million other things. My calendar is my third brain (assuming I have two real ones). And I even make additional daily to-do lists (where ‘freaky’ pops up again). None of this stuff is attached with any promises what-so-ever; it’s simply a list of suggestions. This is stuff I need to do whenever it fits into my daily schedule and does not interfere with my napping agenda. Following this ingenious plan, I truly avoid failures, as I eliminate disappointment by not involving promises to any extent; you should try it.

I am also in the process of changing my philosophy concerning promises to people around me; I am simply trying not to promise anything anymore. I am heading in the direction of my own mantra: “I won’t tell you what I’m going to do – instead I’ll tell you when I have done it”. That way I am helping (such a saint) people around me to forget the promising bit, and they will not be disappointed due to silly expectations they may have had otherwise. So you see, I have changed my attitude and now achieve less pain for myself and those around me – I feel like Mother Teresa…

We all want to please – it’s in our nature. I strongly believe that we all mean something to each other, and though we are selfish in so many ways, the selfishness ends the second we see an opportunity to please somebody else. Perhaps that’s a selfish thing in itself, as it makes us feel good – egotism at its best.

But though we are all so nice and want to please, we must be careful about what we promise, to whom and where. As an example, broken promises in the work-place can be devastating to us, our coworkers and careers. We must remember that a broken promise can be more damaging than we think (except for those “bodily harm” things); increase relying on each other more so would be nice – don’t you agree?

We have unfortunately gotten rather numb to the ideology of what a promise is supposed to be; consciously making promises pathetically unimportant is not cool to any extent. Broken promises chip away on how people around us perceive who we are, liking us less and relying on us even lesser. Is that what we want? Didn’t think so…

Nowadays when I have to get even close to a promise, it’s presented more like: “…I’ll attempt my utmost” (whatever that is), “I’ll try”, “should be possible, but I’m not promising anything…” etc. Yes, it might seem a bit wishy-washy with a lot of maybe and perhaps attached, but the thing is that this way I will not crush your expectations; I won’t break any promises, because I didn’t make any. Also known as “covering my buns of steel” (read: butt) – and you can quote me on that.

One of the biggest promises most of us make (and some break) in our lives, some of us several times, is the “I do” in front of friends, family, our conscience, great expectations, choice of a god or not, the caterer and perhaps a clergy-person. Due to my exceptional mantra-based philosophy, I highly suggest that we change the “I do” to “I’ll do my best”. That is a promise that cannot exceed any expectations and will therefore not disappoint. I can promise you that when this is applied, nobody will get hurt and if they do, it’s their own damn fault - Amen.