Hi, I'm Percy. Zee and I are having a chat about some day-to-day things, as usual, I'm trying to talk some sense into him!
Feel free to comment or ask a question. Don't be shy!
I have to disagree with you Zee. Certainly illegally hacking people’s phones is a criminal offence and morally abhorrent in situations like this, but aren’t there more important things to sort out: the credit crunch, the collapse of some European economies, the NHS is falling apart, the ministry of defense can’t find 4 billion worth of their stuff? And here is our government wasting time on the phone hacking scandal! I think it is a waste of time. What do people expect? When newspapers filled with gossip obtained from these phone hacks, sell like pancakes? Who should be in the dock and prosecuted? The journalist? Well they can honestly say they are answering the call of the public wanting information. Or should we charge the British public that simply can’t get enough of this nasty and gossipy news. But as far as the government goes, let them focus on real important issues and not gossip.
Isn’t it fantastic how everyone is standing up against the newspapers about this phone hacking business! At last something to be really proud off. You can say what you like about British politicians, but when it really counts, they do the right thing. How can journalists do such terrible things: hacking murdered people’s phones or hacking phones of family members of servicemen killed in action. It is only right and proper that the government devotes all it’s time in sorting this out.
I sometimes wonder if Zee will ever learn!
I sometimes get really exasperated, he is such a slow learner. Let’s analyse what he is saying from a rational perspective.
1) I started to panic thinking I had done something wrong! That must have been the reason for the message.
What Zee does here is ASSUMING he has done something wrong and then taking this assumptions as a fact.
2) Throughout the day I could not stop thinking about it: I imagined he would be angry with me, would shout at me and tell me I was being fired.
Because he takes his assumption as a fact, he then starts to ‘fantasise’ what potentially could happen IF HIS ASSUMPTION WOULD BE CORRECT. And then he again takes these hypotheses as facts. I have done something wrong—> the boss will be angry with me—> I need to find out what it was that I did wrong so I can prepare —> The boss will fire me!
All in all it results in Zee having an awful day and in the end only positive things happened!
Well dear Zee which thinking errors do you think you were using?
My boss had left a phone message for me to call him back urgently. I started to panic thinking I had done something wrong! That must have been the reason for the message. Throughout the day I could not stop thinking about it: I imagined he would be angry with me, would shout at me and tell me I was being fired. I could not concentrate on my work and made several mistakes, which of course confirmed that he was right in firing me. I put off returning his call until the end of the day. By then I was a nervous wreck. It turned out he wanted to congratulate me on my latest piece of work. I hadn’t been fired…this time.
Why am I so forgetful? Left my keys at work and had to wait for more then an hour for others to arrive home and it rained. I could have gone to the pub but that would have meant rewarding myself for my forgetfulness, which is of course not on. So waited in the rain instead. Why is life so difficult?