Positivity is the Key to a Better Life

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If you live in South Africa, you know how easy it is to become negative. All you have to do is to wait for the power to go out, checking the Rand Dollar exchange rate or, even faster: Listen to a news bulletin.

What does this say about us as a nation? Even worse: Is there still hope for this beautiful country?

But enough said. The whole idea behind this post is to be positive and, by being positive, to have a better life.

But how do you become more positive??

I’m not going to sugarcoat it. It’s hard and extremely difficult. Just like any top performing athlete, you need to constantly work at it. The one light at the end of the tunnel is that, like anything in life, the more you do it, the easier it becomes.

This is how I did it. Try it for yourself and, if necessary, change the recipe until it works for you.

Less is more

I used to read the news and listen to the news a lot, but I quickly realised that it makes me negative. Then I started listening to the news less. I also listen to shorter news bulletins like just the headlines and if there is a story that interests me, then I will follow up on it. I removed the Google News app from my phone, and I also deleted my news list in Twitter.

Remember the heading of this section? I’m not saying stop reading the news at all; I’m saying less news brings more chances to be positive. Don’t stop reading the news at all; you shouldn’t become an Ostridge by sticking your head in the sand and pretend nothing is wrong. Be aware of world happenings, because they can affect you directly or indirectly.

Don’t Worry ~ be Happy

This is entirely your choice. My mother-in-law constantly worries about things: What if this? Or what will happen if that? We have often asked her to stop worrying about things that she cannot change or control. It really is as simple as this: You can’t change it, so why worry about it.

I mean, I can’t always solve my own problems; why the fuck should I expect it of myself to solve other problems like the war between Russia and the Ukraine or the fact that the rand is currently at R18.41 to the US Dollar. I know about these things, but I deliberately choose not to care.

Yes, I sound like a total dick, but I’m getting to a point where it all becomes too much. We are bombarded (bad pun intended) by social media posts telling us to care for this or care for that or to donate our money to this or that cause or to buy tickets for a virtual concert that will benefit the Ukraine… It’s just too much and I chose to care less.

Honestly, I don’t care if Putin is crazy or if Zelenskyy is seen as the next best thing since sliced bread…

I chose to worry less and be happier. I am beginning to realise that I can’t solve the world’s problems all by myself. I am not superman. I must learn to know my own limits and learn to love myself — not the myself that I would like the world to see, but the myself that I am — boots and all.

Choose what you talk about

What is the first thing people do after they greeted you in South Africa? They start in on “the terrible state of the country” or “how expensive life is getting” or “the war in the Ukraine” or perhaps how your Neighbour’s house was burgled last week.

Smile politely and start working out a plan to run like hell, because a negative person will try to drag you down to his level — not to be alone. Don’t do what I did once: I told a lady straight that I don’t care, because I can’t change it. There was this shocked silence and then she told me that I am a very rude person. I told her again that I don’t care, and she walked away. Needless to say: We haven’t spoken since, and I can’t say whose more relieved about it.

The attitude of gratitude

This one is easy: Sit down and start making a list of things to be grateful for like your food, your job, your health, your hearing, your sight, your house, your partner and the fact that you are still alive. No matter how you twist and turn, you can’t turn this list into anything negative.

Soon you will realise how much you have to be grateful for and, if you are really smart, you will realise that you are complaining with the white bread under the arm.

Staying positive takes tremendous effort, time and energy. It’s one of the hardest things to do, but it’s a choice. Only you can make that choice and, yes, it is easier to be positive if the outside influences are positive as well. So, surround yourself with positive things and positive people. Constantly strive for positivity and as you go on, it will become easier and easier. But remember: Nobody can run this rase for you; only you can do it and the fact that you are reading this right now tells me that you are willing to give it a go.

Last but not least: Believe in yourself. You can do it, because I am busy doing it.

Enter and you can win (not really)

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It’s the oldest scam in the book, but people still fall for it — which proves my point that people are stupid.

Did I offend you by saying you are stupid? I am so not sorry. I said people are stupid — including me.

Just the other day I heard about a competition where you could win fifty thousand whatever. All you had to do is to buy a certain product and SMS your name and the product’s serial number or some shit to a number at five whatever per SMS and your name will stand a chance to win fifty thousand whatever currency your country uses.

Do the math: If only ten thousand people buy the product and SMS the information, there is a tidy profit of forty thousand whatever left. Yes, the company has to rent a phone line and an SMS service, but we haven’t even look at sales profit from the product that ten thousand people bought.

And did you ever hear of someone who actually won such a competition? I have not.

Try calling the company and they will hide behind all kinds of laws lies and excuses not to disclose the name of the winner. It makes sense for them not to disclose the name, because that person could become a target for money-hungry family members, the government (ours is very good at money-grabbing) or anybody who feels they can get money from the winner.

But this leads me to another question: Do people actually win these kinds of competitions or is it just a clever marketing strategy to sell a product? If you can’t find out who the winners are, how are you supposed to know if someone actually won the competition?

This strategy is, without a doubt, successful. Just listen to the radio or read the newspaper. You will see lots of competitions like this with either money or holidays to be won. Feel free to enter, it’s your choice. Just remember what I said about stupid people…

For the Love of the Game

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Time is a funny thing. Often people complain that they don’t have enough money. Money is something you can generate by selling something, finding another job or by becoming a politician…

Time, on the other hand, cannot be generated. There is no printing press for it, we can’t go back and we don’t know how to read the future. If you do, please send me the lotto numbers for the next draw?

When you work in the disability sector, like I do, it often happens that people expect you to do things in your own time that will bennifit the sector. No problem, you need to be different than the rest if you want to work in this sector.

But my question is this: Where do you draw the line? How much of your own time should you give away to work of any kind?

Is a human being like a bar of soap that will slowly melt away if you give away too much of yourself?

Is that why burn out occurs?

If you are in the unlucky position where you have to listen to SABC radio or television, you will know the advertisement where the lady croaks out: “For the love of the gaaaame.” This happens at the end of the advertisements for sports games. You know the one, where she sounds like she has tremendous indigestion and trying to take a dump? That slogan.

You know, sometimes you just have to shut off. No matter how much you love the game, spend time with yourself and your family. It’s well and good, but if you go home, leave your work in the office. Mute Whatsapp groups that remind you of work. Don’t take calls from colleagues — even if they are your friends. Switch on your do not disturb function. The world can cope without you for a few hours or a few days. Trust me, nobody is indispensable. If you don’t believe me, somehow manage to dy. People will morn you, but life will go on without you.

I cannot say this enough: Spend your energy where it matters most. If it’s at your work, so be it. But don’t cry when you start losing people and when you slowly disintegrate in the howling maelstrom of “for the love of the gaaaame.”

The Power of Perspectives

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I come from a culture where we are taught, from a very young age, not to question things —  especially if a grownup tells it to you. There is even a saying in Afrikaans: Children should be seen and not heard. This attitude stays with us throughout our lives, and it cripples us as clear-thinking Human beings, because we don’t question. In other words: Wê get told something by someone calling themselves an expert and we don’t question it.

Experts are valuable, yes, but you don’t need them to vorm an opinion or to question and think for yourself. Whenever something is Published on Facebook, most people take it for the truth – especially the older generation. It was published somewhere, so it must be so, because it was SAID by a so-called expert – an expert of what? Masturbation, perhaps?

At the hand of the following quotation, I am going to show you just how powerful a different perspective can be. I Came across this quotation on Facebook: “Life Has No Remote, Change It Yourself” I believe this quote is from a person. Called Ben Francia.

A Small Disclaimer

I feel it necessary to first point out to those with limited mental capabilities, or to those that do not understand how to read properly, the following: I am not disparaging this quote. It merely serves as an example to make a point – namely that we can think for ourselves if we choose to do so by questioning everything you read or hear.

Perspective 1

“Life Has No Remote, Change It Yourself”

These are powerful words indeed. You, and you alone, are responsible for your own life. If there are things you don’t like, do something about it. If you want something, work and save for it. There is no such thing as a free lunch – even success needs to be worked for.

Perspective 2

“Life Has No Remote, Change It Yourself”

What absolute excretion of a male animal of the bovine persuasion. Life cannot and should not be compared to a television or a HIFI system that can be operated remotely. Life simply is. And does working a remote not also, by definition, entails an expenditure of energy? First, you have to look around to find the remote, then you need to stick out your hand. After that, you need to pick it UP. Once picked UP, you need to find the correct button, point the device somewhere and then press the button. All of this entails energy expenditure and is therefore work – the same energy and work as in perspective one.

Some clever people refer to this process as “putting on a different pair of glasses”. I call it “the other side of the coin”. If you start to look critically at life, the universe and everything around you; if you question and learn to look at the other side of the coin; if you don’t take things at face value – especially the news media, you will broaden your horizons and you will break the chains the so-called experts and gate keepers of information enslaved modern society with.

The Superbly Tailored, but Ultimately Meaningless Language of AI

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/This article is going to be long. Get something to drink and happy reading. Oh, by the way: It’s not written with the help of AI and all the mistakes herein were made by a human, but the meaning and the words of this article comes from that human’s heart. So, it’s true magic.

Artificial intelligence is all the latest rage. Everybody is jumping on this bandwagon to make money, test it out, use it to write their grade 12 essays or simply to spread false information — I am amazed that the wagon did not collapse yet under the weight of its own importance.

Before you start shouting and howling at me for being an AI hater, please Google “Virtual assistant for the blind” and read some of the articles on there. By reading, I mean actually taking time and reading them — don’t read them like you would kiss your mother-in-law’s cheek. AI can do good and it is already doing good.

I don’t have a problem with AI — in fact, I sometimes use it to get image descriptions and ideas when composing some kind of documents. I have also used the Bing Image Creator to create an image that you can have a look at below, but that’s where my use of AI stops. When I am writing blog articles, Tweets, Toots or Facebook posts, then every thought, every word and every feeling is mine — mistakes and all.

AI Generated: Lion Standing on a Rock at Sunset

According to people with vision, it is almost photorealistic.. and it was created using AI. I am, therefore, using AI as a tool. I have seen books written with the aid of AI. I have seen people use it in business proposals — not to create ideas, but to write an executive summary. Well, guess what?

I can immediately see the style differences. Look at the formal language something like Chat-GPT from OpenAI uses.

I imagined myself as a manager in a company. I then asked it to help me to compile an email to Mister XYZ to apologize for an imaginary faulty product. It did an excellent, excellent job, but there was one issue so serious for me, that I have decided not to use Chat GPT in a business context ever again: The language.

The language it used was of a very, very high register. It used lots of hyperboles and overly flowery language to say the following: We are sorry for the bad customer experience you had as well as for the faulty product. We hope you will give us a chance to improve and that you will enjoy your free replacement product.

But it used about a hundred and fifty words to profusely apologize to this client — almost licking his ass and begging him to please give us a second chance to prove that we will and can do better and that we are sorry we pissed on his bedroom carpet, but he must please understand that we are just a small puppy and that we are, truly, deeply, unchangeably so, so very sorry.

I almost had to replace my computer keyboard as I had to fight to keep my last meal from leaving my body violently, suddenly and all over the place, via my face. The taste of that fawning, meaningless apology stuck in my throat like the smell of cheap perfume on your skin after you hugged your mother’s eldest cousin’s daughter at your last family reunion. You try to wash it off under the shower, just like you’re trying to wash off the self-guilt from your soul for not contacting her more, but scrub as you might, the smell lingers…

The language that came from it was so formal and stiff, that I doubt that even the king of England could have done better. In fact, it sounded more like a PHD in linguistics than a true apology. Or, perhaps, the manager hired a professor to write his correspondence. How can this ever be believable?

I have seen AI posts on many other places and, especially when I know the person behind the words personally, I can immediately tell if this text was AI generated, partially or not. I am not claiming to be the world’s expert on spotting AI-generated text, but I was a lecturer in translation studies for five-and-a-half years before coming to the accessibility sector. Style and register are baked into my DNA and it’s something I still pick up on ten years down the line…

Yes, it’s true that you can tell Chat to lower the register. You can even tell it to do a lot of other things. But it’s not magic.

Whenever I see posts written with the aid of AI, I don’t take them entirely seriously — especially if I know the person behind the text — from the way he or she dresses, smells and speaks..

But why?

AI is a tool. It is up to us to choose how we will use it. It’s like a gun or a knife. It could rescue or it could kill. It could feed or it could deprive. It’s the human behind the tool that makes the difference. It is for this reason that I take AI-generated texts a little less serious.

True creativity, true magic, comes from the heart — not the head. Any fool with enough skills can ask a computer to write an executive summary, a poem, a story or an apology. But it comes from the head and not the heart.

AI can do what we can do is less time than the blink of an eye. It can save you a huge amount of time, if you use it correctly. But don’t overuse it. Don’t become so dependent on it that you will miss it when it’s gone.

If you need to write a simple Facebook post and you find that you can’t do it without AI, you fucked yourself over. If you haven’t written the executive summary for tomorrow, because AI will help you tonight, but the internet is down, then let me congratulate you on fucking yourself and your company well and truly over. Don’t blame AI; it’s a machine. It doesn’t have feelings and it doesn’t have original ideas or creativity. What it does have, is its controller’s or programmer’s view of the world with their idea of morality or immorality.

While using AI, look at its language. Is this the way you would speak to your friends? So stiff and formal? Do you think they will believe that it’s you — should you present the text to them in printed form — making as if you were the only person who wrote it. No, they won’t.

I would rather have a mediocre piece of human-constructed reading — with all the stylistic, grammatical and spelling mistakes — than a machine-generated piece of superbly tailored unfeeling and non-magical shit.

Be proud of your writing — mistakes and all. You are human, just like me. Humans are known for their mistakes and their fallibility. Look at your house built of words and know that it is well and truly yours and that you meant ninety nine percent of it.

Look at the example below. First is my query, then the responce. It assumes that I am a manager. If one of my colleagues were to write me an email like this and wanting me to report back to them, I will certainly be the hell in with them and ask them, in a kind and controlled manner, just who the fuck they think they are?

Help me to compose an email to a colleague, Rose, asking her to contact a prospective customer by the name of Mister Kotlavski who expressed an interest in our training. His contact number is 0123456780
Dear Rose,
I hope this email finds you well. I wanted to reach out to you regarding a prospective customer who has expressed interest in our training program. His name is Mister Kotlavski and he has provided us with his contact number which is 0123456780.
I was wondering if you could take the lead on reaching out to him and providing him with further information about our training program. If he has any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to address them and provide him with the necessary assistance.
Please keep me informed of any progress made in this matter. I am looking forward to hearing from you soon.
Best regards,
[Your name]

Duolingo – Great for Learning Languages, But Needs Better Accessibility

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Please note that this article was written with the help of AI. I kept the structure, but changed a lot of the word choices. It is therefore not entirely just my own work. The contents is, unfortunately, true. The platform is still usable for screen reader users, but for how long is the main question.

Introduction

Learning new languages is becoming more important as people connect worldwide. Duolingo is a popular app for learning languages that was started by Luis von Ahn and Severin Hacker in 2011. It has millions of users because it makes learning fun and easy. However, Duolingo has some problems for people with visual disabilities who use screen readers.

What Duolingo Offers

Duolingo has grown a lot since it began, with over 35 language courses and more than 300 million users. The app uses a game-like approach, giving users points and rewards for learning. This makes it fun for people to learn new languages. Users can start with basic lessons and then learn more words and grammar as they go.

Accessibility Problems

Even though Duolingo is popular, it has not done enough to help people with visual disabilities or those who need screen readers. Accessibility was fixed, then broken during the next update and so the journey continued until the platform is hard to use with screen readers. As someone with a visual disability, I have had trouble using the iOS app and the website. One big problem is that it doesn’t work well with screen readers.
Screen readers help people with visual disabilities use computers and websites by reading text out loud and giving audio cues. But Duolingo’s design makes it hard for screen readers to work properly. Things like images, buttons, and progress bars often don’t have the right labels, so screen readers can’t give the right information. Also, some exercises that require dragging and dropping items are hard to impossible to do with a screen reader. Some of the typing excersises, is now only clickable. This means the screen reader user have to use the tab- or arrow keys to navigate to each word, think if it is the correct word, press enter on it to move it up to the sentence being built. All of this takes in an unnecessarily long time to complete even a relatively simple sentence.
To make things worse, Duolingo took away the keyboard and forums, which were important for people with disabilities. The keyboard let people type answers using normal keyboard commands, but now they have to use the app’s design, which doesn’t work well with screen readers. The forums were a place where people could ask for help and share advice, but now that resource is gone.

Why Being Inclusive Matters

In today’s world, being accessible to everyone is very important. When a product is designed to include everyone, more people can use it and enjoy its benefits. By not helping people with visual disabilities, Duolingo is leaving out a large group of potential users.
There are about 285 million people with visual disabilities around the world, according to the World Health Organization. If Duolingo made its app more accessible, it could reach more users and be seen as a more inclusive and user-friendly platform. Plus, making it easier for people with disabilities to learn languages can help break down communication barriers and bring people together.

How Duolingo can Improve

To make Duolingo better for people with visual disabilities, the app should make these changes:


  1. Make sure it works with screen readers: Duolingo should team up with screen reader developers to make sure the app works well with popular screen readers like JAWS and NVDA. This means adding clear labels to all images and buttons, and making sure interactive parts of the app can be used with screen reader commands.

  2. Bring back the keyboard and forums: Adding the keyboard and forums back would make a big difference for people with visual disabilities. The keyboard would let them type answers more easily, and the forums would give them a place to ask for help and share tips on using the app.

  3. Offer different exercises: Duolingo should give users who can’t do some exercises, like dragging and dropping items, other ways to practice. This would make the app more inclusive and help people with disabilities learn languages just like everyone else.

The four-letter word that will doom Africa

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There is a word in English starting on “F” and ends on “E”. And this word will be the doom of Africa.

I’m talking about the word “Free”, not as in “freedom”, but as in “free” without cost. Some languages also use the word “gratis” for this.

Perhaps a bit of over kill? Let me tell you why I feel the way I do about this word.

This word is going to be the doom of us all, because there is no such concept. Whoever invented this idea should be shot, drawn and quartered, his body parts spread all over the world and the ground where he lived should be salted so that nothing can grow there ever again.

The idea of “free”, “gratis” and “without cost” is misleading as it does not exist. Perhaps it exists to the end-user or the receiver of whatever is “free”, but somebody somewhere down the line paid for it. This idea also creates an illusion and anybody who believes in it is therefore dilusional.

Let me demonstrate: You buy a new vehicle. Included are lots of “free” stuff like a “free” service plan, no payments for the first three months and “free” coffee whenever you bring your vehicle in for servicing. Do you think for one moment that the salespeople like you so much that they give these away for “free”?

It’s a sales tactic — nothing less and nothing more. And now I’m going to reveal a big secret about sales: It’s included in the price. That “free” stuff you’re getting, is not free. You are paying for it and if you don’t believe me, ask the salespeople to remove it from the final price. Surprise, surprise, they will not.

Why not?

Because to do so will prove that it’s not really “free”.

Last, but not least: The idea of “free” creates entitlement as in “the right to something”. Entitlement in the below context is wrong, plain wrong and nobody else is going to convince me otherwise.

I spoke to a disabled person who told me that my services should be “free”, because this person grew up in an orphanage where they got “lots of things for free”. This person clearly was feeling entitled to something either because he was disabled or he felt that the world owes him something.

The idea of “free” in Africa has gotten so out-of-line that we were ordered by my previous employer, to stop giving away freebies at events as the attendees clearly didn’t give a fuck about the event, but only about the freebies. If there were no freebies, they simply didn’t attend.

Even the politicians make use of this tactics in our country. They give away freebies in the form of t-shirts, caps, flag and food — just to gather votes. They don’t care if the people need to sell their souls or not, but they never cared anyway.

Remember: Someone somewhere is paying for freebies, and it may even be yourself.

You are not special

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I have some really bad news for you: You aren’t special.

The world will not stop turning should you die. A few people, perhaps a few thousand, may miss you, but you don’t count in the bigger scheme of things.

Too often people are led to believe that they are special: That they are owed something by the world; that life owes them something.

It could be that someone told them that they are special; it could be self-deceit; it could be that they achieved something special. But they are not special; no-one is.

Let me illustrate with an example: That of Helen Keller.

Many people will now be too pissed off to continue reading and that’s fine. The truth sometimes hurts. Helen Keller was not special.

She was def and blind and, during the era in which she lived, disabled people were mostly seen as a drain on society. What she did was special. She overcame her disability and she did the people around her much good, but she wasn’t special. The day she passed on, the world did not stop turning. If she did not do and achieved special things, nobody would have remembered her today.

If you go through life with the idea that the world Oes you something, forget it now. You will be seen by some people as a leach or a beggar; someone who always stands with an open hand to just receive what comes to their side without giving a crap for the people around you. You will have very few friends, because you will never be happy — no matter where you go or what you do and achieve, because they will get nothing from the world and you will keep expecting that elusive “something”.

Why? Because you are not special and life does not owe you anything.

Respect: Does it still exist?

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I come from an era where a church elder, a pastor, a teacher, a doctor and a pilot were all positions that demanded respect. You automatically gave way when they come walking towards you so that they can easily pass you by.

I also come from an era where the state president was almost a god, a police officer was a bastion of safety and people older than you automatically had your respect.

But all this has changed. Now you phone your private armed response before phoning the police; a doctor is just another person on the street and the state president is just another politician with political dirt on his hands. Respect has vanished like a free meal during election day. An all this happened so slowly that I didn’t notice it at first.

I am old school and proudly so. I know that I am slow, but even I get it now.

With age doesn’t come wisdom and people are fallible.

But what is respect?

I will demonstrate it at the hand of a story I once heard.

A lot of people were cuing at a government department in South Africa. It was a hot Friday afternoon after 13:00 and everybody wanted to go home. Those who were there, were either there because they got paid to be there, or those that needed something from that particular department.

Around the counters were a collection of wilted and dying potted plants. It was clear that nobody cared for these plants.

At the very back was an old man who left the cue and went to the reception counter. Everybody was upset at him, because they thought he was jumping the cue. But what he did, was to ask for a bucket. And, with this bucket, he started to water the plants.

Many people looked at the old man dressed in his old suit with his old ty and wondered. why he was doing this. Nobody offered to help him carry the heavy bucket, because nobody wanted to be in the building longer than absolutely necessary.

When he finished watering the plants, the old man returned the bucket to the person behind the counter and went back to his place at the end of the line. But the line took two steps backwards and people started gesturing the old man to the front of the line. He shook his head and said: “These plants are God’s creation. I watered them, because nobody else did it and because I still have strength enough to be able to do it. I didn’t water them to get a spot in front of the cue. I will take my old place and wait with everybody else, because I’m not special and neither did I do a special thing. I did the right thing.”

How many people are still doing “the right thing”? Is this the reason why respect disappeared? What can we do to get respect back to its former glory or is it gone like Escom’s promises to keep the lights on?

The Subtle Art of being Offended

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Giving offence, either knowingly or unknowingly, is part of human nature. It’s going to happen at some stage, whether we like it or not. And it’s even easier in today’s world than ever before. Think of it: You get people who see themselves as animals, men trapped in womens’ boddies (and viceversa), blind people, people with visual impairments, differently enabled people — the list goes on and on. How do you know what to call each individual without offending him, her, it? You can stay away from any titles, but it sounds so rood: “Good afternoon ,” instead of “good afternoon, sir.” And there is the possibility of offending the individual again: “This bastard is kind of curt, isn’t he?”

This happens all the time, because we cannot read minds yet and without the ability to read minds, how will we know what offends a stranger and what not?

So, how do you change this? The short answer is that you can’t. The only thing to do is to accept that you will be offended by someone, because it’s human nature. You just have to learn how to accept it without immediately getting up on your hind legs and grabbing the other individual by his, her or its tail.

If someone who doesn’t know me calls me “visually impaired”, I have two choices:
Either telling them that I would like to be called blind or keeping quiet. Keeping quiet is wrong on so many levels: I will feel offended, but not do anything about it. Keeping this person in the dark about how I feel about being called visually impaired. Visually, I’m not impaired. I have everything a normal person have; I may be more (or less) handsome than people around me, but I do not have a visual- or a vision impairment. I have a sight impairment — hence I see myself as blind and not visually impaired and I may just teach the person something.

We are so scared of giving offence that we forgot how to take being offended…

As a member of a minority group, I noticed that especially minority groups are the most easily offended. It could be that they feel that they stood at the back of the line for too long — I don’t know. What I do know is that they forgot how to deal with being offended, because they forgot that humans aren’t perfect.

I’m not saying turn the other cheek if you are offended. There are assholes out there who simply love to offend other people. It’s a drug for them. You will know them by their behavior and the way they talk to their Lessers. You don’t want them in your life anyway. Trying to educate them is a wasted effort. Save your energy for where it can do the best. What goes around … and all that. Ninety eight percent of people will listen to you. Rather be an educator than a pathetic human being with a sorry-I’m-alive attitude.

Accept that you are human and that you will give offence at some stage or another.

If you gave offence, do the right thing — the grownup thing: Stand up and say sorry. Remember, you are not always wrong, but neither are you right all the time.

If the person you gave offence to doesn’t want to accept your apology, fuck them. You don’t want them in your life anyway. At least you did the right thing, and you have nothing to lay awake about at night. You took responsibility for your own action, and you didn’t blame it on someone else.

It’s hard, but like all things in life, the more you do it, the easier it becomes. Give it a shot and see if it makes a difference.