The post that was asked a question

I was walking along with my father and I don’t know what we were talking about but then he asked:

And what’s your long-term plan?

And there it was. A question that I had no good answer for. I didn’t realise it at the time (this happened a week ago) but this question hit me hard and has been chipping away at my mind ever since.

I woke up this morning and I was really out of sorts. I was very distressed and I didn’t know why. Then in the following few seconds, the dream that I had been having came flooding back to me. In my dream, I had been in a war situation. I was being physically attacked in a battle and I was running and hiding and trying to fight back and trying to escape.

Then this afternoon, I had kind of a realisation and I can’t help but see this dream as a metaphor as to why I have not made progress in life from a professional and personal perspective. In the dream there was no clear enemy, all I knew is that I was under attack. But now I believe the enemy was myself.

Deep down, I do not believe I have anything of value to offer anyone. I create distance between myself and everyone else because, underneath it all, is a crippling fear that if I were to be my true, authentic and genuine self with other people, then I would be rejected. Social rejection fires up exactly the same pain receptors in the brain as physical pain so it’s not exactly a feeling that one goes chasing.

When I look at my life, distance is everywhere:

• I live in a city that’s a long way from any family members
• I have a job where I am working alone and not as part of a team
• I do not have a group of friends I see regularly, rather 1 or 2 I see on an individual basis
• I have not had a romantic partner for years
• I avoid situations in which I may be required to collaborate, whether professionally and personally

Some of these may be conscious decisions and some may be subconscious but the bottom line is that when it comes to something important that requires joining forces with someone else, I would rather say no than risk getting close, revealing my true self, and being what I’d term as ‘found out’. I constantly seek to avoid risking disappointing someone and consequently being rejected.

At work, I can hide behind a job title,  with friends I’ve hidden behind humour and other things for years, and with new acquaintances I do the same. Put on a mask. Create a facade. So why do I (and we as people) do this? I can only think it’s because we don’t like our true selves, and we reason that if we don’t ourselves, nobody else will.

So to save ourselves from that pain, we engage in a simple self-preservation technique in the form of not getting too close to anyone. Whether it’s a work colleague that may realise you’re incompetent, a partner who may realise you are an idiot, or a friend who may realise you’re boring.

When these feelings of low self-worth are so entrenched and the habits that form around them are so established, it is very difficult to break the mould. Which is unfortunate because it’s clear to me now that these are major obstacles to self-development, growth and, ultimately, fulfilment.

The post that wonders

I’ve been watching lots of YouTube videos lately about the universe, how the universe started, the big bang, how long ago that happened, and the theories about what there was before the big bang.

They say it’s about 13.8 billion years old.

They say our universe has 2 trillion galaxies in it.

They say they can trace the universe back to a time when it was a billionth of the size of the nucleus of an atom.

Now, I don’t know about you, but that made me feel like my life was pretty damn insignificant. 13.8 billion years and we live for about 80 of them. Human beings are little more than a blip on the radar.

This got me thinking about how short our lives our. Particularly in comparison to 13.8 billion years. Now, I’ve never worried about, or been afraid of, death. But for some reason, this all really got to me. It hit a nerve or something. This idea that I am going to die and there is going to be nothing and things will continue but I will never know about them.

It’s the first time I’ve ever considered my own mortality before. I didn’t like it.

And now I am kind of afraid of death. Well, afraid of life really. I’m worried. I’m worried my life is going to be shit. Worried I will get to the end of my life and will look back and think, that was rubbish.

If this were the last night of my life, I would be deeply dissatisfied. But at the same time, I would know that I went through my life not knowing how to do some of the basics and therefore probably did the best I could with what I had.

Things like not knowing how to form meaningful relationships. That would be a big one. The more I read and watch on the subject of happiness from an emotional wellbeing, physical wellbeing, health and scientific perspective, the more I see that the studies reach the same conclusion: regardless of their other life circumstances, having strong and meaningful relationships are the single biggest influence on happiness, health and wellbeing.

So, with our teeny, tiny amount of time in this universe, what should we do with it?

It’s often said people should do what makes them happy and not worry about what others may think? It’s easier said that done a lot of the time.

But really, what would you really really do if the shackles were off and it didn’t matter what other people thought?

N x

The post that’s five months on

Five months have gone past since I last wrote a blog post.

Where has that time gone? It makes you think, doesn’t it?

Not much has changed with me. I’m alright.

How have you all been?

Thank you to the person (if you’re reading this) who wrote to me asking for an update. I only just read your message. Apologies for the delay.

I’ve got a roof over my head. Food on the table. Money in the bank.

I’m still working full time and studying part time.

I don’t really know where I’m going though. There’s no grand plan. No big target. Nothing I’m particularly trying to achieve. I’m trying to find a purpose in life really.

Something that makes me want to get up in the morning other than the knowledge that if I don’t I won’t be able to pay next month’s rent.

I was thinking about time and life. Five months have gone by and I suppose the reason nothing has much changed is because I haven’t really changed anything. The weeks fly by so so quickly. If I had a purpose then I would feel like the weeks were at least paving the road towards something.

But at the moment, they’re just flying by, I’m plodding along and that’s it. If my life were on TV, you’d have changed the channel by now!

I’m alright though. I’m fine. I’m sort of just accepting that things could be worse and I’m grateful for what I do have.

I don’t know how to make things better because I don’t really know what I want. That’s the problem with a lot of people, they don’t know what they want until they have it.

I’m still single. I’m okay though. I’m used to that now. Of my 12 adult years, approximately 20 months of them have been spent in relationships. And in only about 5 of those months was I actually happy with the person I was with.

Whatever it is that people have that make them able to get into, and maintain, relationships I think is absent from my being. I think once you start thinking that about yourself, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and the confirmation bias (Google it) comes into play until it really is true.

So I don’t want to consign myself to a life of singledom prematurely but I tend to think it might be better to accept something like this rather than go through life striving for the unobtainable. That would be no fun whatsoever.

But I’m fine, really. I’m a solid five out of ten, sometimes even six. And for that, I am grateful.

N x

The post that’s been meaning to write this for a while

I’ve been meaning to write this for a long time. I took the decision to stop writing the blog some months back. I was concerned that what I had hoped would be a cathartic exercise had become a cesspit of doom, gloom and misery.

I would only take to my blog when I had something negative that I wanted to get off my chest or something to moan about or if I was feeling lonely or depressed or any number of any negative emotions.

As such, my writing became a reminder of my misery. Of negativity. Of things I wasn’t happy about. Yes, I would feel better after ‘letting off steam’ via my blog but there became a sense that I had become the person, or persona, that I was portraying online.

Each thought, each word, that spilled from my mind through to my fingers and onto your screens was confirmation of unhappiness. Of discontent. Each post that was written, read and re-read embedding these feelings further, each one another nail in my coffin of dissatisfaction.

It had become a self-fulfilling prophecy and I was actively contributing to a negative spiral. I was my own enemy.

This was a suspicion I had and it was at this point that I decided to take a break from blogging. Completely stop as opposed to blog about something else. Come away from it. I wanted to give myself the opportunity to see if my suspicions had any foundation.

I can tell you without any uncertainty that I am a happier human being now than I have been for some time. Is it because I stopped the aforementioned negative spiral? Perhaps. Would I have gone on to feel happier anyway? I can’t possibly know for sure.

It is, however, difficult for me to imagine that the two things – removing this blog from my life and feeling happier – are not connected. It feels like too much of a coincidence.

So, what’s changed?

In many ways, nothing.

I still have the same job, which I loathe, but I am making more money now and it’s now a reliable, consistent source of income.

I still live with random people in a house share, but it’s cheap and I like the quietness of the location.

I’m still single, have heavy bouts of loneliness and (embarrassingly) the desire just to be hugged from time to time.

But some things have changed.

I am exercising more now. I’m running three times a week. And I love doing it.

And I have a major new focus in that I’m a part time student now and I’m studying something that I really enjoy, that fascinates me and that I really want to be good at.

I am hoping it will facilitate an exit from my current job but we’re looking at potentially 3 years for this to become a reality. But I’m willing to stick with it due to the potential reward on offer at the end of it. Without this new focus, I genuinely worry what my state of mind would be like and where I would be right now.

So, what is the point of this blog? Why have I been meaning to write it? One reason is that I kind of left things a little unfinished. Hanging in the balance. I had to return and talk about my hiatus and its impact. Perhaps someone else out there has had similar feelings or maybe having read this they’ll have a ‘holy shit’ moment realise they’re blog is not the cathartic, helpful tool they thought it was and is actually having the opposite effect.

I joke about my followers and readers but it blows my mind that this blog has been getting traffic despite the fact it’s basically been dormant for so long. Perhaps I shouldn’t be though. Misery loves company, after all!

What’s next for me and for this particular post? Honestly, I don’t know. I want to do what’s right for my wellbeing. That doesn’t necessarily mean no more blogging and it doesn’t necessarily mean I’m going to write metaphorical bowls of sunshine day in and day out.

But it does mean the type of content that I produced in the past will remain exactly there. In the past.

N x

The post that needs to sort out tier 3

I first came across this when I was a psychology student. I place a lot of stock in it. Start at the bottom and move on up by addressing the things within each level of the pyramid.

I’m stuck on the third tier. But at least I know it.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs