Fault Lines
Posted: Sun 2 September, 2012 Filed under: Bankruptcy, Domestic, Introspective, Thoughts 1 Comment »This last few weeks I’ve been thinking a lot about fault, about responsibility, and about change.
I’m not perfect – thank the Lord, I’ve never claimed to be – and the recent events are a wonderful example of that. I’ve made mistakes, and plenty of them – bad decisions and bad judgement calls. And I take the responsibility for that. Even the bankruptcy isn’t absolving me of that responsibility, I’ll still be paying, except it’s through the Official Receiver.
I’ve made bad decisions, and I’m learning from them. I won’t make the same ones again.
Sure, I’ll make other ones – I’m not perfect. But I do at least try my best to not repeat the same ones.
I’m not trying to lay fault for my actions and choices, I’m not absolving myself. The bankruptcy is ‘just’ a more affordable way of taking that responsibility – one I can actually live with, and manage. It’s made a major change to my life, in a good way, but it doesn’t mean things are easy. Not by a long chalk.
30 Things
Posted: Mon 20 August, 2012 Filed under: Bankruptcy, Change, Depression, Domestic, Getting Old(er), Getting Organised, Introspective, People, Thoughts 4 Comments »via Blue Witch , I came across Black Dog Tribe‘s “30 things to stop doing to yourself“. It’s a great list – I think probably most people don’t do all of them, but most do some of them, at least.
I’ve copied it here for posterity, and so I can come back to it when I want/need to. It’s particularly relevant for me at the moment, with all the other stuff that’s going on, so I hope it helps others too.
- Stop spending time with the wrong people. – Life is too short to spend time with people who suck the happiness out of you. If someone wants you in their life, they’ll make room for you. You shouldn’t have to fight for a spot. Never, ever insist yourself to someone who continuously overlooks your worth. And remember, it’s not the people that stand by your side when you’re at your best, but the ones who stand beside you when you’re at your worst that are your true friends.
- Stop running from your problems. – Face them head on. No, it won’t be easy. There is no person in the world capable of flawlessly handling every punch thrown at them. We aren’t supposed to be able to instantly solve problems. That’s not how we’re made. In fact, we’re made to get upset, sad, hurt, stumble and fall. Because that’s the whole purpose of living — to face problems, learn, adapt, and solve them over the course of time. This is what ultimately molds us into the person we become.
- Stop lying to yourself. – You can lie to anyone else in the world, but you can’t lie to yourself. Our lives improve only when we take chances, and the first and most difficult chance we can take is to be honest with ourselves.
- Stop putting your own needs on the back burner. – The most painful thing is losing yourself in the process of loving someone too much, and forgetting that you are special too. Yes, help others; but help yourself too. If there was ever a moment to follow your passion and do something that matters to you, that moment is now.
- Stop trying to be someone you’re not. – One of the greatest challenges in life is being yourself in a world that’s trying to make you likeeveryone else. Someone will always be prettier, someone will always be smarter, someone will always be younger, but they will never be you. Don’t change so people will like you. Be yourself and the right people will love the real you.
- Stop trying to hold onto the past. – You can’t start the next chapter of your life if you keep re-reading your last one.
- Stop being scared to make a mistake. – Doing something and getting it wrong is at least ten times more productive than doing nothing. Every success has a trail of failures behind it, and every failure is leading towards success. You end up regretting the things you did NOT do far more than the things you did.
- Stop berating yourself for old mistakes. – We may love the wrong person and cry about the wrong things, but no matter how things go wrong, one thing is for sure, mistakes help us find the person and things that are right for us. We all make mistakes, have struggles, and even regret things in our past. But you are not your mistakes, you are not your struggles, and you are here NOW with the power to shape your day and your future. Every single thing that has ever happened in your life is preparing you for a moment that is yet to come.
- Stop trying to buy happiness. – Many of the things we desire are expensive. But the truth is, the things that really satisfy us are totally free – love, laughter and working on our passions.
- Stop exclusively looking to others for happiness. – If you’re not happy with who you are on the inside, you won’t be happy in a long-term relationship with anyone else either. You have to create stability in your own life first before you can share it with someone else.
- Stop being idle. – Don’t think too much or you’ll create a problem that wasn’t even there in the first place. Evaluate situations and take decisive action. You cannot change what you refuse to confront. Making progress involves risk. Period! You can’t make it to second base with your foot on first.
- Stop thinking you’re not ready. – Nobody ever feels 100% ready when an opportunity arises. Because most great opportunities in life force us to grow beyond our comfort zones, which means we won’t feel totally comfortable at first.
- Stop getting involved in relationships for the wrong reasons. – Relationships must be chosen wisely. It’s better to be alone than to be in bad company. There’s no need to rush. If something is meant to be, it will happen — in the right time, with the right person, and for the best reason. Fall in love when you’re ready, not when you’re lonely.
- Stop rejecting new relationships just because old ones didn’t work. – In life you’ll realize that there is a purpose for everyone you meet. Some will test you, some will use you and some will teach you. But most importantly, some will bring out the best in you.
- Stop trying to compete against everyone else. – Don’t worry about what others are doing better than you. Concentrate on beating your own records every day. Success is a battle between YOU and YOURSELF only.
- Stop being jealous of others. – Jealousy is the art of counting someone else’s blessings instead of your own. Ask yourself this: ‘What’s something I have that everyone wants?’
- Stop complaining and feeling sorry for yourself. – Life’s curveballs are thrown for a reason – to shift your path in a direction that is meant for you. You may not see or understand everything the moment it happens, and it may be tough. But reflect back on those negative curveballs thrown at you in the past. You’ll often see that eventually they led you to a better place, person, state of mind, or situation. So smile! Let everyone know that today you are a lot stronger than you were yesterday, and you will be.
- Stop holding grudges. – Don’t live your life with hate in your heart. You will end up hurting yourself more than the people you hate. Forgiveness is not saying, ‘What you did to me is okay’. It is saying, ‘I’m not going to let what you did to me ruin my happiness forever.’ Forgiveness is the answer- let go, find peace, liberate yourself! And remember, forgiveness is not just for other people, it’s for you too. If you must, forgive yourself, move on and try to do better next time.
- Stop letting others bring you down to their level. – Refuse to lower your standards to accommodate those who refuse to raise theirs.
- Stop wasting time explaining yourself to others. – Your friends don’t need it and your enemies won’t believe it anyway. Just do what you know in your heart is right.
- Stop doing the same things over and over without taking a break. – The time to take a deep breath is when you don’t have time for it. If you keep doing what you’re doing, you’ll keep getting what you’re getting. Sometimes you need to distance yourself to see things clearly.
- Stop overlooking the beauty of small moments. – Enjoy the little things, because one day you may look back and discover they were the big things. The best portion of your life will be the small, nameless moments you spend smiling with someone who matters to you.
- Stop trying to make things perfect. – The real world doesn’t reward perfectionists, it rewards people who get things done.
- Stop following the path of least resistance. – Life is not easy, especially when you plan on achieving something worthwhile. Don’t take the easy way out. Do something extraordinary.
- Stop acting like everything is fine if it isn’t. – It’s okay to fall apart for a little while. You don’t always have to pretend to be strong, and there is no need to constantly prove that everything is going well. You shouldn’t be concerned with what other people are thinking either — cry if you need to — it’s healthy to shed your tears. The sooner you do, the sooner you will be able to smile again.
- Stop blaming others for your troubles. – The extent to which you can achieve your dreams depends on the extent to which you take responsibility for your life. When you blame others for what you’re going through, you deny responsibility — you give others power over that part of your life.
- Stop trying to be everything to everyone. – Doing so is impossible, and trying will only burn you out. But making one person smile CAN change the world. Maybe not the whole world, but their world. So narrow your focus.
- Stop worrying so much. – Worry will not strip tomorrow of its burdens, it will strip today of its joy. One way to check if something is worth mulling over is to ask yourself this question: ‘Will this matter in one year’s time? Three years? Five years?’ If not, then it’s not worth worrying about.
- Stop focusing on what you don’t want to happen. – Focus on what you do want to happen. Positive thinking is at the forefront of every great success story. If you awake every morning with the thought that something wonderful will happen in your life today, and you pay close attention, you’ll often find that you’re right.
- Stop being ungrateful. – No matter how good or bad you have it, wake up each day thankful for your life. Someone somewhere else is desperately fighting for theirs. Instead of thinking about what you’re missing, try thinking about what you have that everyone else is missing.
Enjoy.
Breaking Point
Posted: Sun 24 October, 2010 Filed under: Depression, Domestic, Introspective, Norfolk, People, Thoughts 14 Comments »Roughly this time last month, life came to a bit of a crunch point. I haven’t written much about it so far – and won’t write much more about it after this – but a number of things bubbled up at the same time, and I feel it’s worth adding in some thoughts with a bit of hindsight etc. I’m not going to be going into the whys and wherefores of any of it.
Basically, I had a bit of a breakdown. Going home on the Thursday night plunged me into a huge dollop of depression, which isn’t exactly great at the best of times. I thought I could get over it, that it was a “bad day” thing, but the next day was actually worse, to the extent that I simply couldn’t face going home for the weekend. It was a real physical reaction, that I just couldn’t do it. So instead I went away for the weekend- went back to the house, sorted things there, got some clothes, and left again. I didn’t even wait for Herself to come home- I sent her a text message to let her know what I was doing.
I’m not proud of myself for that, not even slightly. It was completely unfair, unreasonable, and downright shitty. There are no excuses, no glossing over it – it was an utterly unutterably crappy thing to do to anyone, let alone a partner of five years, a friend of twenty years.
What it was, though, was a way to survive. If I’d stayed there for the weekend, I don’t honestly know what would’ve happened, or where I’d have ended up. Some people have called what I did cowardly – and fair enough, maybe it was. I can’t say I was honestly in my right mind. But at that point, where you physically and mentally can’t face going back somewhere, I don’t think “being in one’s right mind” is ever going to happen.
Again, I’m not proud of what I did. It had to happen, but I should’ve/could’ve done it one hell of a lot better.
So a lot’s changed since then, and I’m working on all the necessary changes. I don’t know how they’ll work out, I don’t know how any of it will work out. But I’m not going to put myself in that situation again if I can possibly help it.
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Failed Recall
Posted: Thu 26 August, 2010 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Old(er), Introspective, Thoughts 1 Comment »For once, I’ve got a situation where my memory is failing me. I wasn’t even aware of it ’til today, but now it’s driving me mad.
On Radio One this morning, Chris Moyles mentioned having been in Hanley, near Stoke-on-Trent. And I know I went for an interview there many moons ago. It’s just that I can’t remember the name of the place- which is odd, because I normally can remember these stupid useless details.
I know it was some kind of jazz bar/restaurant, but that’s it. I can’t remember much about it – something about the location, but not much.
It’s really bugging me. What’s worse is that I know it shouldn’t annoy me – it was something for half a day, back in what must’ve been 1993/94. I shouldn’t really even recall that I’d been there, so little does it matter.
But up there in my head, for whatever reason, it does matter. I’ll figure it out, I’m sure.
Missing Pink
Posted: Thu 1 July, 2010 Filed under: 1BEM, Charm School, Domestic, Driving, Introspective, Stupidity 2 Comments »Following on from yesterday’s post about Pink, Portman Stadium, and signs in general, some extra thoughts…
1) I can be a total arse. I know that’s not really news, but all the same, it’s worth re-iterating.
2) I fucking hate getting lost, being late etc.
3) If I’ve had a crap day, my tolerance for 2) is particularly low, leading to qualifying even more for 1)
Tuesday was, however I look at it, an exceedingly crap day. Stuff had come up at work that had affected me – nothing seriously traumatic of negative, it’d just been one of those days. In all fairness I really wasn’t in the mood for a late night – particularly with the knowledge of an early start in the morning. (For a number of reasons, last working day of the month is a big day in the current job, and requires coming in earlier than usual)
So the afternoon/evening didn’t start off all that well, and my mood wasn’t the best. Not being able to find the stadium just pissed me off a lot, and I didn’t do what I should’ve done, which was either
- Stop and think a bit
- Call someone else already there and find out how to get there
- Use the iPhone to do the same as 2
- Stop somewhere and ask someone.
I should have done one or more of those. Instead I got locked in to trying to find the place by driving along the A14.
Admittedly, I also didn’t expect the stadium to be in the town/city centre. All the other stadia (stadiums? I dunno) I know of are on the outskirts, not in the centre. Manchester, Norwich, Oxford, Crewe, Stockport – all on the outskirts. I also kind of expect there to be signs to say where the hell to go – after all, it’s not like a stadium is somewhere that no-one ever goes to.
But anyway, I did get pissed off, and went home. It wasn’t my smartest move, but it was the one I did.
No excuses for it at all, just sometimes an extra explanation is worthwhile.
Hey Ho.