Celebration Of Life

FOCUS FOR CHANGE 2015 INTO 2016

This is the final day of a great year in which I have learned so much about myself. By keeping a daily blog/diary, I've already grown to be a better version of myself. I've dedicated my time every daily, to learn new insights on psychology to better equip myself with tools and knowledge for successes and for identifying areas where more work is needed. This day marks not the last day of change for 2015, but sets a marker for yet another year of continual development and growth. This day is not only a celebration of what's gone before but also an enthusiastic cheer for discovering much more in 2016!

Becoming A Better Person
At the start of the year, I made a pledge to improve on some of the things that were either lacking or needing fixing. I took a more critical look at the areas for improvement, mentally, physically, financially and better ways to use my time to daily learn ways to become a better, more healthy, wealthy (in more ways than just money), charitable, centred and loving individual. In many ways, so much has already been gained and I will continue to look for ways to build on these accomplishments and make more daily improvements in the coming year. These are the areas I've had success in:

Physically - I have fixed some ailments through my consistent home physio programme, daily Qi Gong, committed Yoga and wisdom gained through reading so many inspirational books.
Mentally - Through self reflection, knowledge gained form reading, mentors & teachers, meeting and speaking with others who are seeking enlightenment and change, I've identified and improved my ways of thinking so they are pre-thought rather than reactive decisions making my day go a certain way.
Financially - Understanding the value of money, spending less, earning through different types of work that I enjoy doing and a strong resolve for tackling large organisations that seek to take or withhold from me - I have become credit card and debt-free. I have greater restraint, better planning and tighter management on finances. Ways and means for moving money around have become more creative and rewarding.
Spiritually - By following the teachings of eastern based philosophies in Yoga and the dedication to the 'one' true path, I have been able to remove myself from many of the problematic, health and wellbeing issues that I've been suffering with. By denying these thoughts the brain time, I've diminished their power and stopped them from interfering in my live. I've also passed on my learnings to others, so they may benefit too.
Intellectually - I've learned to speak another language, touch-type, write more creatively. I understand more about nutrition, physiology and other health enhancing skills through taking a Personal Trainer's course. I have extra skill sets for taking on other roles and a clearer understanding of myself and how to manage my personality to fit with other personalities and situations for harmony and mutual benefits. I've also been far more active with taking notice of political corruption and making a stand, plus encouraging others to do so too.

In all, there's been so much to take in. I will now have to re-look at the 365 days of writing, evaluate what it all means and begin putting everything together in a more comprehensive format. This will be my focus for 2016, so that I may be able to pass on this wealth of knowledge and the concepts that have helped me along the way.

Not Such A Lonely Journey
This year could not have been so great without the support of my significant other - my soul mate, Cathy. She has been my advocate all along the way and my support for what I'm doing. It would also have been a lot harder to stick to the daily writings without the many mentors I've discovered on the journey. My father's unexpected illness has also been a reminder of how life can throw things at you that make planning for the future a far less important factor, when really, we should all be making the most of the time we have to live in the moment. There's no point getting caught up in 'what if's?' from the past or future. It's the steady pace of conviction moving in the right direction that determines the journey's worth and ultimate worthy destination.

So all these positive influences (my dad is thankfully feeling a lot better again) have really helped - but, arguably, without having such a strong negative turning point which motivated me to action - a colossal sign, that has truly inspired me, I may have lost my way pretty quickly. It's an ironic fact, that death, as sad as it is, can inspire us to embrace life.

The Straw That Broke The Camel's Back
I have to give thanks to the individuals (no names given here, but I have you all in my minds eye right now) and the organisation you and I work/worked for - with your actions/non-actions that prompted me to say 'no' and 'I've had enough'. News UK, I wish you and your people every success. Please try and inspire others as you have me, to follow a truer path.

A Reminder Of Life 
Two people that need my greatest thanks, appreciation of their life and recognition of the significance in their untimely deaths - Toby Allnut who died 15.12.15 and Adam Whitehurst 31.12.15 - both, who I worked with at News, who sadly took their own lives. Toby, as I mentioned before on my 15th December post, brought it home to me, immediately after my holiday, at a time when I could have so easily been swept up in the drunken December/Christmas mayhem to lose sight of my holiday resolutions, and Adam - your timing, on the last day of 2014 was for me a bizarre twist of fate. Very likely, around the time I was making my mind up that 'tomorrow, the 1st day of the New Year', was going to see a significant change for happiness and fulfilment in my life....you were making a decision to end yours.

RIP Toby & Adam
You won't be forgotten

Memory Retention

SHORT INTO LONG TERM 

When trying to learn a new skill, remember a name or just retain something important, we need to go through a process whereby the brain switches from short term temporary input of the new information into retained memory for recall, where it can effectively be stored as knowledge in the right parts of the brain. 

In order to improve memory storage and enhance our capacity for memory recall, we need to better understand how the brain works. Learning techniques for storing/retrieving memory will also give us a greater chance for learning.

Apparently, certain foods and supplements can also enhance brain function. Therefore, making beneficial lifestyle changes as well as creating life/mind-enhancing habits such as posting a personal mindful blog or writing a daily diary, will further improve our memory function. Having a daily recap on the day's events at the end f the day, will help to cement our memories. This daily practice of giving a 'work out' to our minds, will help us to improve the storage capacity for learning too.

Becoming Who We Choose

SELF AFFIRMATION

We make lots of decisions about our lives. If we chose to tell ourself we are great, then we have a better chance of doing great things. Likewise, if we make negative statements about who we are and what we're capable of, we can end up making these beliefs a reality. 

Positive Affirmations 

We need to deflect negative information from others as much as possible and attach to the positive thoughts for defining who we are. The more we can focus on doing this, the better the chance will be of becoming that positive person. 

Our lives unfold over time like the building of a house. The foundations are our childhood. This is when the strength of the base for the mansion we construct will be determined. It is very important to get this right for supporting the rest of the house and keeping it from sinking later on. 

We can't choose our parents and we have no control over what information is put in early on in the build process of our lives. So we have to rely on the work put in to hold up our stately homes later on down the line. 

We all have issues - either superficial ones built up from our adult lives or deep rooted ones from our distant childhood. Likening this back to the house analogy again, these can be minor cracks in the cement or major subsidence under the house. Quite often this will show up as a crack in the wall or dangerous movement and partial collapse. 

Houses with subsidence can be underpinned. This is a major job. Just as dealing with our deep rooted issues will be. Even minor foundation defects can result in some long, hard work to repair if we leave them too long. 

The thing is first to recognise the work, because we can't keep living in this shabby or dangerous abode. The second thing to understand, is that the house can be fixed. It may not be possible to keep everything the same in all cases but in many instances, the hard graft could actually fix and make the foundations even stronger. 

We have the power within us to deal with these problems. They are not us. If we tell ourselves 'we are broken and sick and never going to be better', we affirm what we believe. But, if we can say - 'we are broken, we will fix and can be fixed', then we've acknowledged the issue, made attempts at the repair and know that time invested - albeit hard - will get results. We can use these positive affirmations to make ourselves great. 

Having a poor start in life can affect us in very negative ways. But we just need to detach ourselves from the baggage of life. Don't like the hand we've been dealt? Deal another one. One of the greatest music legends and an inspiration for me of somebody who refused to accept a poor fate - James Brown. He grew up in a brothel, disowned by his parents, yet turned out to be one of the greatest music stars of his time. 

Back In The Rat Race

THE LURE OF MONEY

Today marks the first day back in the race for me in 7 months. While I never wanted to get back on the corporate wheel,I just can't earn enough money from doing manual work and odd jobs on the side. As much as it pains me, I have to get back on the hamster wheel to earn more money. I wonder now how the majority of low income earners can actually survive in this town, let alone have a good time with what's left of their meagre earnings?

So, my bank account and credit cards are all looking pretty dire at the moment. My mental and physical state has been benefitting from the rest I've had away from the grind, but needs are a must.

So how did my first day go? It was a real eye opener. First of all, the London Underground at 8am is hell and I'd forgotten how bad travel is at that time. It's a terrible way to start anyone's day. Stressed, tired and generally fed up Monday morning commuters all trying to squeeze on to the train at the same time is no fun. How do we do this five days a week? The early starts are much better. 6.30am tube travel is a lot my relaxing, so I'm glad that's going to be my journey time tomorrow and likely for ever more.

The real eye opener was at the place I worked today. I had a similar job back in February. I spent five years at the same place and today highlighted just how bad that other place was in comparison. I felt like I was operating at a snail's pace compared to the speed worked at in the previous establishment. So, although I'd made a decision to opt out of the commercial rat race, I now know it's possible to stay in it. I just need to work at the right places, with the right amount of money and less responsibility. The money that I earned today will be more than I earned all last week. I'm amazed to say this: I'm actually looking forward to working again tomorrow and taking the money.

Knowledge Is Power

THE POWER IS IN OUR HANDS

The power to gain knowledge is within reach for us all. Great scholars and free thinkers have dedicated their lives to gathering information and writing it down for all to read. If we want to get our hands on these great writings, it's all out there - thousands upon thousands of words waiting for us to look at in books and on the Internet. If we want that knowledge & power, it just means reading and digesting a lot of information. 

There's so much great stuff out there to learn and I could quite happily do nothing but soak up knowledge every day, except there's so much else that also needs to be done and it's about finding the quality time to go it. 

20 Pages Per Day

So, the smartest way to get through so many of these books, is to allocate time around the other important tasks and chores. I've been making a pact with myself to read at least 20 pages of a book a day, which can be tough at the crack of dawn and equally at the end of the day when the eyes are tired but if we stick to certain times - it makes it easier to stay on track with a daly routine.

Training The Eyes

One trick I've learned, is to train my weaker eye. My left eye does most of the work and my right - which is perfect but lazy, cannot see the words as easily or as clearly so it doesn't get much use. To get it fired up in the morning, I bought a beautiful aged leather eye patch off Etsy and wear it in the mornings when reading my 20 pages. I now have a much stronger right eye and don't have to squint my left eye shut - avoiding headache-inducing tension from holding one eye closed.  

Robot Reader

Another technique I'm using is to turn on the built-in iPhone dictation tool. There's a better quality version that you can download called Alex, which adds the breath and pauses, making it seem more natural. It's not perfect, but considering the audiobooks are usually over £10+ you can get the iBook, ebook, kindle or web pages read out while cycling, on the tube, in the car or lying down resting your eyes - that way the daily total pages go up considerably and the quest for genius becomes ever more closer!

Sugar Sunday

THE GREAT EASTER EGG HUNT

Not being in any way religious, Easter Sunday to me is just another day to enjoy with family and friends. For the kids, it usually starts with an egg hunt. I love this game and can remember playing it when I was a kid. The eggs, being large and with extra packaging - were and still are, pretty easy to find in the house. So I've stepped the game up a bit as it's my turn to hide the chocolate now.

This year I've devised a game that involves searching for chocolates using a metal detector on the beach. I was a bit ambitious with the size of the area for a couple of youngsters to properly search in before the sun went down. Consequently, they weren't as thorough as they should have been and I ended up finding quite a few myself - it was a lot of fun! I think I enjoyed it the most...and by the end of the day, there was a lot of chocolate from the earlier large egg hunt from around the apartment coupled with the ones we'd planned for the beach. How do the kids manage to eat so much chocolate? Is this good for them (or us adults)? Maybe we need to have more healthier options - here's some great ideas on Pinterest - maybe next year, hey?!

Unpopularity

STANDING UP FOR WHAT YOU BELIEVE

Every day, I'm looking critically at myself - physically, mentally and spiritually. I look to others for new teachings, learnings and affirmations that I'm on the right path. In the last 6 weeks, I've already made some significant changes to my habits and improved my output. I've identified areas for improvement and I know that it's going to be a daily, ongoing challenge for me to fight back the urges, stop the old habits creeping back in and stay true to my new lifestyle.

It takes courage to face up to our shortcomings, inadequacies and failings. The small tweaks can be achieved in a short time frame but, to evaluate ourselves properly, we need some quality time to address and deal with any deep rooted issues we may have. Firstly, we need to identify the traits and parts of ourselves that could benefit from some attention in order for us to improve - and as we can be blind to our ways, identification of these facets to our personalities often comes from those closest to us. It can be hurtful when criticism comes from others and we have to assess if it's constructive and a benefit to follow it. We're all affected by what other people say and think - and in the quiet pre-dawn hours (and some middle of the night hours), I've been playing conversations over in my mind and analysing what, why and how to respond and act accordingly to criticism. I've looked at different viewpoints and reasoned. I've chided myself, then countered, assessed and set what must be done. The outcome from all this thinking is, when I can see something is right based on sound judgement and logical reasoning - I must stand up for what I believe in - even if it goes against what others believe in and consequently, makes me unpopular.

Boethius wrote a book entitled The Consolation of Philosophy, which was written in a time when he'd lost his wealth, social standing/power and was condemned to prison, awaiting what he knew to be a violent death. He was in this situation because he'd stood up for what he believed was right. He came to terms with his fate and his writings from that time about 'The wheel of Fortune' were considered to be one of the most important texts to be studied from the middle ages right up to the renaissance period - references to his work can be found in lots of important works including modern day books and films too. Although Boethius had fallen out with the powerful while defending his principles. Even with his possessions and freedom taken from him, he still faced his executioners with the one and most important thing remaining in tact - his integrity.

There is another even earlier example of someone famously falling foul to the powers that be. Socrates was an early classical philosopher who stood up for what he thought was right. He also came to a grizzly end because he refused to give in and compromise what he truly believed in. This guy is another great source of inspiration to me - because he questioned assumptions, rhetorical ideas and the establishment, using philosophical reasoning & deeper logical thinking to find truths. 

I've been reading more of Alain De Botton's books lately - and this one entitled: 'The consolations of Philosophy is a great source for learning about the fates of both Boethius and Socrates. There is a six part series of short documentaries based on this book called: Philosophy: A Guide to Happiness, which can be found on Channel 4 - also written and narrated by Alain - they can also be found on Youtube along with Alain's other great short docs like 'Status Anxiety' but you may need a VPN or Zenmate to watch if you are based in the UK due to copyright issues.