The Bi-Weekly Personal Development Ezine from Gurdy.Net

Seventy years research confirms that we are controlled by our minds - not the other way around - as sure a definition of madness as I've ever come across.

So-called normal people display this madness in all sorts of weird and wonderful ways - from the many parents I've seen push their beloved infant's buggy out onto the road into the path of oncoming cars as a means of crossing the road, to elderly people beating each other up in the supermarket queue over who was first in line! You'll find, at this stage, hundreds of stories - from the bizarre to the bizarrer - of normal behaviour in the back issues of this Ezine.

But what I'd like to know today is this - do the inventors and designers of many everyday products ever try to use them themselves? For instance, have you ever tried opening a tin of corned beef with the key that's provided? Or why do pre-packed cold meats' plastic packaging never, ever open in the suggested corner but, instead, tears right down the middle?

Why, for example (I'm doing a little woodwork on my new home at present) did the designer of the electirc screwdriver that I'm using put all the various screw heads in a neat looking compartment that's perfectly placed if you want to impale yourself every time you put the handset back on its charger?

Or - and this is the best one that I've come across so far - a friend of mine bought himself a very large sleigh-bed. Looked lovely in the shop but it had to be assembled on delivery. Having spent two hours putting together dozens of pieces of wood, he got to the final page of instructions which said "Turn the bed upside down and fix the round feet to the base" - a physical impossibility in any bedroom!