I wrote this nearly 3 years ago. Nothing has changed. I’ve done nothing about it. I’m in the same shit situation as I was then.
Except maybe now I get paid a little more at work.
What does it take for someone to finally grab life by its arse and start making changes? I watched the film `Wanted` the other night – the theme of which is just that. Some guy, living a meaningless life and things eventually change. OK, so it’s because he’s apparently son of some legendary assassin – right – but ignore that and look at the bigger thing for a second and it helps with some perspective.
The only person you’re kidding, is yourself. YOU KNOW the issues. Yet you mislead yourself. How pathetic is that?
The only way things will change is when you make it happen.
So do it. Now.
you need to put yourself out there. you take a risk. maybe it’ll pay off.
most of the time it won’t, but at least you tried. hey, it’s better to try and fail, than to not try at all.
so i end up back at square 1. start again. from the beginning.
but new starts are a good thing.
Why do people smoke? What possible benefit is there? There is no benefit. It costs a lot of money, it’s stinky and it causes cancer. But people continue to smoke. Why?
Because they can. Because people don’t want to care about negativity. This is why the advertising will never work. We’ve all seen the horrific adverts all over the place that use scare tactics to try and stop people smoking. There’s the increased taxes, there are even the bans to try and stop people of smoking. In the majority of cases, none of it works. When I see the adverts on the TV, I think yeh, I shouldn’t smoke, but it doesn’t stop me smoking.
People don’t want to know about the negative side of things. People don’t care. Actually, it’s not that they don’t care, but they’re not bothered enough to do something about it. Subconsciously, they do react to certain things. For instance, when the government force the price of cigarettes up, they simply continue to smoke by spending less on other things. They substitute out of certain things so they can smoke. Elasticity. Interesting.
People are weak. If a change in lifestyle requires some sort of effort to change then it won’t happen. If you can simply ignore a problem then people will do that before making an effort to make a change.
Discuss.
A philosophy professor walks in to give his class their final. Placing his chair on his desk the professor instructs the class, “Using every applicable thing you’ve learned in this course, prove to me that this chair DOES NOT EXIST.”
So, pencils are writing and erasers are erasing, students are preparing to embark on novels proving that this chair doesn’t exist, except for one student. He spends thirty seconds writing his answer, then turns his final in to the astonishment of his peers.
Time goes by, and the day comes when all the students get their final grades … and to the amazment of the class, the student who wrote for thirty seconds gets the highest grade in the class.
His answer to the question: “What chair?”
Never underestimate the power of confidence in your ability to do something. It sounds like a bloody obvious thing to say, it really does, but it’s true. Confidence affects everything and is a key factor, regardless of any actual skill or ability in the particular task. Case in point, I play cricket. When I was a lot younger I had some talent, and heaps of confidence and I played well. I was selected for a county side, I scored runs like there was no tomorrow, and there was nothing I couldn’t do. A couple of seasons passed where I didn’t play, and then I started again. I’d lost a little form, but there was no doubt, that being older, wiser and definitely a lot stronger and more powerful, that I was actually a better player than I was when I was younger. But having not played in a while, I was low on confidence. And needless to say, it’s been a real struggle. I keep playing, but even now, I’m not playing anything like my best. I’m better than I was, but I’m not getting the results. I have no confidence.
And confidence is a tricky thing to analyse. Again, it’s obvious, but with confidence, confidence continues to grow. Without confidence, confidence dissipates. In this example, when I was younger and had confidence, I’d play well, and my confidence grew, so I played better, so my confidence grew, and so on. Nowadays, with no confidence, I’m playing badly, so I never gain any confidence, so I continue to play badly.
I believe confidence works on a kind of greyscale, that has a lower bounds, but no upper bounds. That is, there gets a point when you are simply not confident. If cannot get any worse – you are at the bottom. However, you can never be totally confident – that is, you can grow in confidence indefinitely. At some point, though, you might become overconfident, which is really a different topic. But it leads to arrogance and complacency, at which point your fortunes can change, which ultimately might lead to a drop in confidence.
But how do you get confidence? It’s difficult, because it’s another circular argument. One way, is to force your own hand, by taking some risks. If you’re already not confident, then it can’t get any worse if you fail again by taking risks. If it succeeds, you might gain some confidence.
However, this theory essentially contradicts the argument of this article – that is that you need confidence to perform. If you’re able to do something to get confidence when you don’t have confidence, then surely it holds true that you don’t need confidence at all? That, I suppose depends on the type of person you are.
I was in London a couple of weekends ago. I was catching a tube across London to get to Gatwick. In the crowded, sweaty carriage I stopped. I looked at the other people in the carriage. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many frowns and scowls on peoples’ faces. Everyone looked miserable, stressed and angry. People were silent. Idly staring into space. As their lives drifted away.
I was later walking through Knightsbridge. Everything moved so fast. People buzzed about. All in pinstripe suits and expensive shoes. It seemed fake. People were trying to be what other expected they ought to be. What they had been conditioned to be. Whether or not after a while you just become that person, I don’t know.
I just got a sense of something – that I was’t designed for that sort of lifestyle. I’m not saying I have all the answers, and I’m in no way judging the people I saw in that train or the other people on the streets of London… but it made me realise that there’s a lot more to life.
People are naturally jealous. Jealousy is a perfectly healthy emotion. It shows you care about something – that you’re prepared to be vulnerable, to have desires and dreams. Jealousy is a sign that there are parts of your life you feel you could improve. Most commonly, jealousy is in relationships. Jealousy shows that you have trust issues. That some emotional scar is inhibiting your ability to fully open yourself for emotional commitment.
Jealousy isn’t a bad thing, but it can be very destructive if not controlled. Sadly, controlling it is an extremely difficult thing to do.
The irony of jealousy is that it’s an internal war of your mind – versus your own mind. You know that jealousy is a dangerous thing, and that it’s probably irrational, and that it has the potential to destroy your relationship. Yet the gremlins (the ‘green-eyed-monster’) has a say too – and often overpowers your natural inhibitions.
I hate jealousy.