Sometimes it’s good to stick with what you know and not try to dabble in stuff that you know little about – especially when it can be life threatening!
Last week we decided that the kitchen was too dark and we needed better lights, so, off we went to B&Q, selected our replacement lights and then returned home to fit them.
It should be an easy thing to do, take the old light down, fit a different bracket for the new lights and connect them – voila! After my electric shock, the downstairs lights went out and my scream nearly gave my wife, kids and mum heart attacks.
Note to self: Always turn the mains off and don’t worry about TV’s, Play stations, WiFi going off and upsetting people – look after yourself!
Now I had other things to contend with, the fuse seemed to have blown so I replaced that but it didn’t have any impact, the lights stayed off. Now I knew I was out of my depth so I called my next door neighbour (Anton) as he seems to know a thing to two about DIY. After falling about laughing at my ‘schoolboy error’ he identified it was beyond his pay grade and suggested that I get a real electrician. I called a professional and arranged for him to fix everything on Monday (Today). We had lights plugged in and didn’t sit there in darkness. Everything else worked so no real emergency, but a big lesson learnt!
Sometimes it is worth getting the expert in to do certain things but the temptation to save a bit of cash can often drive you to try things or have a go, “Whats the worst that can happen?”. This can cause more damage, in the long term, and end up costing more, maybe even your life.
Those of you who know me, also know I don’t mind taking a few risks. When I look back on my life, most of the ‘downs’ were due to risk taking and, also, the highs were heavily linked to that side of things. Over time, I have learnt from my mistakes and normally balance things up in a more rational way, but, there is still a bit of that “Let’s have a go” inherent in my personality.
What can be deemed as a strength can also become a weakness, if it is overused and we see this being played out in all walks of life. For example: If I am a perfectionist, the benefits are amazing, but there are also downsides that I need to be aware of. I get things right and have high standards but, I can’t trust that other people will do the same, so I end up doing things myself or even re-doing what other people have done – just to make sure!
What is your ‘super’ strength and what are the benefits of this? What are the downsides to overusing your ‘super’ strength? What impact does it have on other people?
I have some wall papering to do, what do you think, should I have a go?