2014 - The year of contemplation and self analysis

I saw what Facebook did with 'my year' and I just felt it didn't do my year any justice at all.

This year has been one of the most interesting years of my life. For those of you who know me well, you know that I smile in the face of defeat, you know I can withstand the weathering affects of daily struggles and I have the heart to keep trying when most might give up.

I have spent a lot of time out of work, planning my business and trying to figure out where I want to be. The self analysis phase is common for me when I am not happy with something. This year I took a complete sidestep tried something new, even considered moving to Australia with a girl I'd not long met. These were most likely desperate acts to escape, but things turned out the way they were meant to in the end. The job I took in tele-sales really wasn't my cup of tea. Body language is a key ingredient to proper sales, and that lack of human connection was like someone sending me into a boxing match with an arm tied behind my back. It wasn't true sales, it was just luck of the draw, a game of numbers.

So after I left I went on to the idea of setting up my own business. I lived alone so there was no safety net except the earnings from my previous job, which were limited at best. I found a business management course that came with financial support. So instead of using Job Seekers Allowance benefits, I took advantage of this opportunity to learn and potentially move in the right direction!

I spent the summer outdoors with no worries at all, my life was being covered by the financial support while I was on the course for one day per week. It was probably the most refreshing break I have ever had in my entire life. Months of no responsibility or worries. It was just what I needed so I could finally give my mind the time to analyse everything.

I came to the conclusion that I would not find a job that pays enough basic to cover my lifestyle so I should forge my own destiny.

Just as I finished the course and I was beginning to set up my own business, I got a phone call from B&Q recruitment.

I passed all the interviews with flying colours and I am now a design consultant (again) for B&Q. The last time I worked for B&Q as a consultant was in Jersey and it was the greatest job I EVER had. There is a long story about a girl that almost took everything that made me who I was away from me, forcing my decision to leave Jersey behind and start again. It wasn't a mistake, it was a lesson. I have learned a lot from my history and I will continue to learn and adapt until I die. Change is good, and change is the way of the world. if you can't change with it you just fall behind.

So anyway, this sudden barrage of good fortune lifted my spirits to a new level. I have never been happier. Being head hunted in this day and age, not even looking for a job and someone comes to find you?
It's the best gesture I could have hoped for. I feel needed in my job, I feel important. I feel like what I do makes a difference. Most importantly, I am truly happy.

I didn't reach many of my goals or even consider them, simply because I went with the direction of the winds of destiny. I didn't fight it, nor did I want to. This year was a year of letting go, and allowing change to have it's place in my life.

The grass is never greener on the other side, the grass is greener where you nurture and water it.

A special thank you to the people who supported my decisions and trusted my judgement.

Thanks to my family for always being there, all of my uncles who have been like brothers the whole way.

My Nan! With her heart of pure gold no one could ever speak a bad word about her (Except 'Big nose' and 'Nanny Nut'). She has always been there like a second mother.

Thanks to my Grandad who has been more like a father to me my whole life. He is the man I always looked up to the most. Even if he is crazy!

My mum who is the most caring and amazing person on the planet. My mum is a treasure and has always picked me up and supported me even when she might not agree with my decision!

My brother, always a best friend and a proper legendary muppet. Love him more than he knows! Even though he is seven years younger than me he is a massive inspiration to me and my life. He talks proper crap though don't listen to a word he says! ;)

I could keep going forever with my family as it's sooooo big and we are all close, even though we are spread around the world.

I'll say thank you to all my friends no matter how often I see you.
This year I made new friends that aren't so close but... these people helped me without even knowing it, whether it be a chat that I really needed or something to get off my chest, or whatever it might have been. So here's a mixed list of all the people that I feel helped make my year what it was!

• Gareth Bathgate
• John Liot
• Simon Webster
• Michael Greenslade
• Claudia Neil
• Elena Jones
• Rachael Miller
• Samantha Richards
• Ian Cropper
• Gary Bagley
• Anna Macdonald
• Danielle Brady
• Rob Parry
• Tilly Parry
• Andy Lampkin
• Amy Jones
• Anita Nielson
• LJ Davidson-Smith
• Megan Roberts
• Netty Doyle
• Joe Hornagold
• Liz Gibson
• Jay Fitzgerald
• Gemma Edge
• Sue Parry
• Sarah Louise Smith
• Jamie Head
• Mark Sumner
• Wait... pretty much all the roller derby people ha! (so if your name isn't here just count yourself in if you think you should be here! :P)
• My Roll20 group (Ade, Jase, Russ, Marc, Steve, Gareth)

You're all legends of 2014 - so thanks again.

Opinions, Perspective and Conclusions

Everything you see and the way you see it is just information that has been passed to you through your own perspective.

If I write the singular word ‘Asses’ in a message to you, what would you think?

I want you to open your mind and think about it and all the possibilities that  single word could mean.

Perspective 1

An easy interpretation, due to the perspectives of most individuals, would be that I meant I am in fact pissed off at a particular group of people. Perhaps I am calling them all asses and I will elaborate on the subject in my next message or later on in person. Your response might be, “Who are asses? Are you ok?” or if you have seen me rant about asses before you might think..”Not this again…”

Perspective 2

Asses, so, he means he is looking at pictures of hot girls on the internet. Particularly women with nice asses? Your response might be, “What???? Why are you telling me this?!”

Perspective 3

That could have been a typo, perhaps he meant to say assess. Assess what? Did you mean you were going to assess something?

Perspective 4

Is he talking about the animal? Has he just come across some wild asses?

The way you respond has everything to do with the information you have collated throughout your own experiences. What knowledge you have gained about me and what you think you know about me before I say that single word will affect your apparent conclusion. For example, perhaps you didn’t know I was in Africa, so you most certainly wouldn't have picked perspective 4 as a conclusion. But let’s say I was. Your conclusion would be wrong. In just a few moments you have misjudged a simple situation because you didn't have all of the relevant information to come up with an accurate conclusion.

My point is that there are many ways of looking at the same thing no matter how simple it may seem. Just one word that gets misinterpreted can change the conclusion your mind might try and establish. Once it becomes established in your mind, your emotion might have trouble letting go. Be it stubbornness, hurt, hope or anything like that. Try not to let those feelings take hold too much, even if you think you are sure of your conclusion.

Now apply this thought process to more complicated situations involving emotions and multiple personalities, for example a group of people arguing about violent video games. It makes it almost impossible to collate enough information to truly know enough to come up with conclusions; because everyone is looking from a different perspective according to the things they have heard, seen, read or experienced.
If we don’t try to understand more than one perspective we can never truly be open minded. If you close off your mind because you allow your own personal perspective or opinion of disagreement to be too strong, then you lose the opportunity to understand and gain knowledge and experience.

Don’t close people off because your perspective is different. Once you have tried to understand someone you previously didn't like, you could realise that they were in the right all along or that you actually just misunderstood them before. So don’t limit yourself, and learn to understand.

A Leap of Faith

30 years of living in other people's shadows and today I finally decide to cast my own.

Taking a leap of faith in yourself to set up your own business that could make or break you is a big ordeal. Especially when you don't feel like you have money to back you or a safety net to catch you if you don't succeed.

I have come to the conclusion that I HATE being drip fed a wage like a hatchling, squealing with it's mouth wide open, desperate for another worm. The daily grind is rotting my mind. It's time I grew into a creature bold enough to jump from the nest in a life or death fashion. Take the leap of faith and make something my own.

I have so many things I want to do before I am 40 years old. So, I am setting myself the challenge of a lifetime. Success isn't becoming the robot your employers want you to be, conforming to their ways so they can make money from you efficiently. Success is not kissing your bosses ass or becoming a jobs-worth to get a 20 pence per hour pay rise. Success is when you can honestly say you are proud of your life, when you can say you are reaching your full potential as a human being.

These are the challenges I am setting myself. These are the things I will achieve in the next 10 years:

1. Set up my own business
2. Get at least one of my books finished and published
3. Get back in to the ring/cage and win some MMA fights.
4. Buy my own home.
5. Be awesome at Roller Derby.

So, for anyone who is feeling down in the dumps, I just want to say I have been there for a few years and this is me picking myself up and making a go at something. Don't just go home and watch TV, learn a new skill, take an interest in something. If it's art right down to learning a new language... the time we have is our own. 

Here's a little clip from the awesome film Fight Club to remind us what really matters and what doesn't!

"I AM GOING TO LIVE...

...OR I WILL DIE TRYING!" 

David Pearson

Remembering the days

I remember when health and safety wasn't such a big deal. Building sites weren't fenced off, danger was fun and video games were for rainy days.

This is a story about me and a friend I grew up with, living opposite each other in the 90's as young lads.

We used to knock each others door daily to ask each other if we were playing out. Back when technology and phones didn't define our friendships. Although, I did have a pager so my parents could tell me to be home for dinner. Ben, a great lad, but teased too often, I myself was guilty of some of the teasing but we were always best friends.

We used to go to 'the fields', a large collection of public fields with bushes and tree sections to build hideouts in. Brooks to jump over. Farmers fields to get chased out of by cows. It was great. They have built on a lot of it now which is a major shame.

One day we decided to climb in to the water drains via a manhole cover in the fields. We got our torches and boots and I sneaked out my dad's mini crow bar to open the drain cover. We estimated a path to the brook within the system, I mean, it couldn't be that complicated... right? Well after climbing in at a junction, there were some pipes we just wouldn't fit down and a couple that we could. So we chose one and made our way to the brook. We came to a second junction with a manhole above us.. but we carried on straight. To get our bearings we stopped for a moment, switched our lights off and listened for the sound of the brook. A feint light could be seen coming from the end of the tunnel. A sound came from behind us, and we froze. The lights were switched on immediately. The panic set in and we scurried towards the light, completely frightened out of our minds! To this day Ben would say he didn't cry, but when we reached the brook there were bars covering our escape. I was a year older, and I really wanted to cry too but I put on my brave face for Ben and went back into the pipes towards the strange sound and the darkness. Ben followed closely behind me, laughing awkwardly to hide his fear. We both knew, we were both scared, and yet we both pretended to be unafraid. We reached the first junction and had to guess which pipe led back to the manhole cover we left open. The noises were coming from the pipe that I thought was the correct way, and Ben insisted on going down the other. As a leader I made my decision and took the scariest route, towards the strange sounds. Then we saw it, the light at the end of the tunnel. We made it safely back to the opening. The noise was just the wind catching on the manhole cover after all. Feeling pretty dumb, we hoisted ourselves out and kicked the cover shut. We burst out into laughter and both said "That, was awesome!".

But we never went down there again...

Don't just exist, be alive!

Me, Leigh, Cropper and Lou decided to have a last minute barbecue, but it was almost 'game over' before we started. Upon arriving at the supermarket, we went about getting a trolley full of things we needed; plates, cups, cutlery and the like. But when we reached the meat aisles... the emptiness devoured our souls. The shelves were completely vacant. Not a burger in sight. So we picked up a few sausages hoping there may be some frozen burgers further down. We reached the frozen section and there was not a single item on the shelves. The place had been cleaned out by the more prepared members of society. 

The sun was setting on us, and we were still in the supermarket.

"Wait what are these ones... Gluten free? What's wrong with these?" The voice said behind me. Our saviour managed to find packs of frozen burgers in the 'free from' section that nobody else had seemed to notice.

We went through the checkouts and picked up some huge garden candles to ward of mosquitoes. After a quick stop at the local shop for lighter fluid, we set up our barbecue and candles whilst the blood hungry mosquitoes tucked in to their four man banquet. The smoke seemed to help a little but we could only imagine the hordes of flying vampires that waited beyond our protective circle of citronella candles.

The darkness crept up and we began our night time barbecue. 

By the end of the night, both myself and Cropper had several mosquito bites on our hind cheeks. Oh how they itched.

The food was so delicious that we decided we would do it again the next day.

So this time being a lot more prepared we set out on our second adventure early in the day. The weather was stunning, not a cloud in sight. We took our barbecue kit to Helsby Hill and upon our arrival we were again dismayed by our disorganisation. We had no drinks. So Cropper and Leigh went to find a shop while me and Lou marched up the hill to get the barbecues going. We got to the top and spent a good 20 minutes setting up and finding stones to protect the hill from any spreading flames. I took out my lighter and tried to light the first disposable barbecue. It was no good, the lighter would not ignite. Cropper and Lou were already nearly back at the hill and we had no way to light our barbecue, or so we all thought.

Then the idea jumped around my head like an exited puppy. "I KNOW I KNOW!" I shouted.

Without further delay I took apart the broken lighter and removed the spark mechanism. I then doused the end of a dry twig in lighter fluid. Using the spark mechanism to ignite the twig, I was then able to light both barbecues comfortably! 

I did the chef work again and we all enjoyed an awesome lunch on Helsby Hill.

Following the barbecue, we decided we would go to Delamere Forest with the children's pedal Go-Kart that we modified and then named 'Johnny One'. 

Here is the video of the carnage:

The death of 'Johnny One' left us with great memories of fun times. I was determined to find his successor pretty soon after his death. The time had come and I searched everywhere for a replacement. I started to give up hope. Then out of nowhere, a curious looking vehicle edged it's way towards me. It was the one and only 'Zipp Nine' the Go-Kart of Destiny.
He needs a little work before the weekend arrives, but it's only a few things like removing pedals, increasing tyre pressure, tightening some bolts e.t.c.

The Go-Kart of Destiny
'Zipp Nine'

When the earth is dry and the sky is blue, the trials for Johnny One's successor will begin.
I believe in you 'Zipp Nine'. You are the Go-Kart of Destiny!