Author: Sue

I have been writing in various forms since I was a child. I write about what is going on in my life, what I enjoy, and the struggles of dealing with chronic illness and mental health issues. I love live music, football (Scotland and Dunfermline Athletic), reading, Formula 1, Stock Cars, and eating lots of vegan crap.

Failure

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Well, the last few months have been rather fail, in that I don’t seem to have blogged at all. Well, that is lies. I have blogged, just not very consistently.

As I have mentioned before I usually blog when I am feeling low. I guess it I a bit of a cliche of a person complaining about lack inspiration, when their satisfaction of life improves. The new task for myself is trying to balance these two things. Using blogging to relax some of the strain is great, it’s just makes it hard, when there is no strain to release.

But, I am going to persevere. I have been doing a lot of sketching recently, and that is awesome. It is something that I stopped for a while, but have really enjoyed getting back into. It also feels awesome, knowing that I have gotten over a creative block, which has plagued me for months. I am hoping that will rub off on my activity on the blogosphere. I mean I am even recording vlogs again. That is something.

Feelings Are Unpredictible

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Sometimes I am so happy at the smallest thing. Like I will laugh uncontrollably at something which isn’t funny at all. But I also have the tendency to cry without warning. It’s not something I dwell on too much any more. I used to analyse how I felt about things. It always ended up making me feel bad, because I never had any valid reason for feeling sad, so I would beat myself up over it.

It probably isn’t as strange as I think. Because everyone has up and down days, it’s just how you cope with these ups and downs. It is not something that everyone is born with, it takes time for you to learn to give yourself a break. It is hard, because people tend to try to think of things logically, and sometimes our emotional state does not work very well with logic. Basing logic on something which is ever changing, leads to over analysing of things.

It used to get me down that I had bad days for no reason. I tried to think of a reason, which lead me to getting worked up and lost about why I felt like that. But, I got to a stage where I accepted the bad days. And slowly, I noticed more happy days. This may have happened because l stopped dwelling on the sad, and opened me up to the better times. This was a turning point, and took a long way to get there. I just had to learn that it’s okay to have bad days, and they are only there so we can judge what are good days.

That Saturday Feeling

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It is the weekend, stereotypically the few days in the week, where a person can relax. Where you no longer have to associate with people that you are forced to spend time with during the week. Your time is your own. Or so we believe.

The idea of a weekend is getting more of an ideal, a concept, in that it isn’t as freeing as we are lead to believe. The majority of jobs in modern society do not stick to the traditional working week, so you no longer get the sense that the weekend is sacred. Which is not a good thing. What ever your job, people need time to log off and relax, something that in our busy lives it gets harder and harder to do.

I guess, that people have to make a bigger effort to make sure that they don’t waste their time off. So people play sports, go shopping or just spend time with loved ones. It helps if you do something that you enjoy, or with someone you like. I’ve found that If you have something to look forward to, on your time off, then it can make an unbearable working week seem a lot better.

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These last few blog posts may have come off as preachy, but I like to think of them as advice. I know that when I have had difficult times on the past, blogs giving advice has helped me. So in the hope that one person can make sense of my ramblings, I post these entries.

Look To The Other Side

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How many times have you acted without thinking about anyone but yourself? Be honest with yourself. People act without thought several times everyday. This is not meaning to disrespect anyone, or to make anyone feel guilty. It is just trying to get people to acknowledge that we are all selfish, more frequently that we’d dare to admit.

I was watching this new programme tonight called Prisioners’ Wives, created by the BBC, focusing on women whose spouses had been locked up. The episode centres around Gemma, a young twentysomething who is happily married and 6 months pregnant. It falls apart when her husband, Steve, is arrested for murder and Gemma’s life is placed into turmoil. To the the police who speak to her like a criminal, to her work where she may lose her job, everything quickly becomes a mess. It focuses on what the criminal leaves  behind.

Now whilst, it may seem that I am refering to the criminal, not thinking about his wife when he commits crimes, but I am mostly thinking of other people. You can feel the nerves as Gemma feels people judging her on what her husband has done. And it is realising that you will NEVER know what a person is like 100%, and doing so shakes the very foundations of everything you believe in.

It’s the fact that people automatically tag you as ‘bad’, despite never doing anything illegal, and being as innocent as any victim. But yet, people outside judge a person as good or bad dependant on circumstances thrown at them, which is none of their doing. It should be the dury that judges a person, not the press or public. But yet, the innocent family of a criminal, gets subjected to public scrutiny and the ruthless press, who all need to quench their thirst on breaking stories, no matter who it hurts.

It is easy to say that you would never treat a person with us much contempt as what any prisioner’s wife may experience, but it doesn’t need to be that severe. It could be an old woman that you push pass to get on the bus, that ruins her day. It could be the kid who is called fat, when he is trying to exercise. It is the person you said you’d help, but forgot about the next day. Everyone is guilty of hurting others, no matter how accidental it is.

All that is needed is thought. Think about how you would want to be treated, if you found yourself in the shoes of anyone you deal with. Would you want to be shouted at over the phone, as you try to help a customer? Would you want to be shoved aside, when you are struggling to walk as it is? Would you like to be picked out for every insecurity you have? It happens every day, to every person. If you took a second, and treated people with a bit more kindness, you will make a difference. And that difference will come back to you, as good-will is contagious.

Shouting Out To Echoes

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It doesn’t take much delving into my online life, to realise that I use the internet and social media a lot. I put a lot of ‘myself’ out there for people to see. Whilst this may be an over-exaggeration of some of my qualities, it is not as true to myself as it is sometimes made out.

I like to have a level of privacy about my life, despite the fact that I share it online, via various services. I have things that I have no problems with sharing because it is mostly just whining about something of no real importance. But, sometimes I think about it, and I am not really sharing. Whilst some of the input garners a reaction from maybe 2 or 3 readers, the majority of people who see what I read, just ignore it. And, it makes me wonder why I do focus on making input on a regular basis, if it is just to be ignored. If I post something big an emotional, and instead of the help I crave, the only vision I have is of tumbleweed blowing across the webpage. I think that is why I don’t post too much truthful aspects of my life, because I am not like that. Ironically I am quite introverted in nature, and have always been really shy. So the idea that some stranger knows the inner workings of my mind, kind of freaks me out.

I suppose, as much as I do things like blogging as a form of expression for myself, there is always the need for it to connect with someone. To get a response from someone who feels in  the same situation as I am in. It is not something that happens very often. But when it does happen, when I get a comment or email for someone who agrees with what I say, it feels great. It feels that my tendency for over-sharing has some kind of purpose. And it means a lot, that someone could not only be bothered to read the trash I write about, but they bothered enough to comment.

I guess, no matter how much I pretend this is ‘just for me’, it is always nice to feel get a shout back from the abyss of the internet.

You Get What You Pay For

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Whether it is reading Facebook updates or talking to people face to face, there seems to be a lot of people complaining about the situation that they find themselves in. As if pointing the finger to something else, makes it easier to deal with where they are now, and that they don’t find it satisfactory. Is pitting on the blame on someone else, really making a difference?

I’d say no. It is like avoiding the thing altogether. Pushing the blame of your current life may make you feel better about the situation, but it makes no difference to the actual place you find yourself. To change things, you can’t hedge your bets that someone will pluck you from your mundane workplace and make your dreams a reality. Because, be honest, that will never happen. Only one person can make your dreams come true, and it’s you.

So I’d advise on taking accountability on where you are, and start dealing with things. If you are not happy about your job, for example, find out why your not happy and change it. Don’t expect everyone around you to know you are unhappy, if you are not willing to voice it. People are not always as intuitive as we would like, so give them a hand.

If it is your workplace itself that is the problem, then search for something else. Or even find something that makes you happy, outside work. Sometimes we can be over stressed at work and it purely is because our only focus is on work. Whilst that is needed sometimes, when your life revolves around work, and work isn’t satisfying, it can be pretty damn depressing. So give yourself something to smile about, whether it’s getting a new hobby, or giving yourself ‘me’ time, it will help you feel better about yourself.

If you don’t make an effort to make your life better, it won’t be. You could end up stuck, and pointing blame elsewhere isn’t going to fix it. Be your own hero. Live for today, and make it your best.

Lone-Time Tasks

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What do you do when you are alone?

I usually spend time online, mostly catching up on videos and blogs, and sometimes creating my own content. I like the idea of communicating with people who are from different places in the world. It is something that feels even better when someone comments or passes on what you create. Whether they say something direct to you or not, it is a great feeling knowing that you may have made some kind of connection with someone else. And that great feeling spurns me on to both show pass on the joy with others (by commenting on blogs/videos) and it also inspires me to create more content.

The issue is, especially with the internet, you can find that your time will be eaten up rather quickly by doing things. I have easily lost hours at a time just faffing around online, and I am pretty sure that I am not the only one who does it. I guess I can feel guilty that I log on to the web to check a few things out, and I end up staying on for hours after one site leads to another, or I get in a conversation with someone.

But whilst it has become the most common way for me to spent alone time, there are other things I do. I guess the way I and most others chose things like reading, TV or the internet to escape is because we feel that we need something to focus on that can help reduce stress. Normally, I guess that ‘logging off’ into something that we have an interest has become normal. It makes everything seem a little brighter, if you can fill sections of your life with things that your really enjoy. I think that it a fairly new-age concept, that people even need to log off. But then, I suppose the self-reflection maybe used to happen when people would make their own things or tend their garden. Any project which is solitary, I guess, can be a time of reflection and thought.

This is what makes doing something on your own so freeing and good. The focus on something other than what is causing you stress, is good. Everyone needs a release, and it can be anything. As long as it is something that you enjoy, you will find that even spending a small period of time on it, will change your mood for the better.  And that is something that I encourage.

A Life Balance?

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I am in the middle of watching The Devil Wears Prada, which is a movie about a girl who is trying to follow her dream as a journalist. To get to where she wants, she works as an assistant at a fashion magazine, where her boss is ruthless. It seems to focus on  the story that as someone’s professional life gets better, their private life goes out the window. It is the consensus that it is impossible to have an equal balance of work and play, and the sacrifices that a person is willing to make to be successful.

The work and play thing, is something that I think is about where a person’s focus lies. If you focus on one particular thing, then everything else kind of pales in comparison, and it causes some things to fall away. It is natural, as there is only so many things a person can put their energy into. But it can be hard to find a balance between having a life whilst working at a career. It’s not anything that someone should feel particularly bad about. I guess that it can just happen sometimes.

My take on it is that work and success can lead to more money, and that is something that can lead to more opportunities. That, in itself, is something very freeing, that you can afford do things that you want to. That makes you happier, and I would like to think that would make me want to spend and try and push the rest of my life up to ‘speed’. But I guess, I am maybe looking at it with ‘rose-tinted glasses’, because my working life is getting better, I can see myself being able to afford to change my life in 2012.

That positivity is not something I normally feel at the start of a New Year, in fact I am normally very much the opposite. So I feel that I can take on the world right now, as stupid as it sounds. I have never had an exciting personal life to lose, so any change that happens is a positive outcome. I just have to cross my fingers that things work out in some sort of balance. I could do with a good year.

Countdown to the Weekend?

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I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you it’s Friday. It is the end of the normal working week, and a chance for a few days of relaxation. Except, is there such a think as a normal working week, anymore. I know that my shift I work now is ‘unsociable’ hours, and my new one is better, but still not Monday to Friday.

A large number of the general public work unusual hours, or hours which don’t follow the standard working week. As a working person, you are now expected to have flexibility with hours, and be able to work over the weekends. This is because the lifestyle of the average person has changed to being pretty non-stop. Partially this is because people are working more, there has to be more to accomodate these people, as they still need to be able to pay bills and do shopping. The more businesses start to operate during unusual hours, the more other businesses will follow suite.

And that can make it difficult if you are looking for employment, and aren’t aware of those facts. It can lead to people lowering their employability, without being aware of it. If you are not flexible, then it can lead to an opportunity passing you by. Which in this current climate, is not something any person can afford. I guess, people need to find out what is important in their lives.  And if finding work is your goal, you may have to make a few sacrifices.

 

Workity-Work

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You don’t need to read very deep into this blog, to realise that I planned more for my life than working in a call centre. But, sometimes, what you need outweighs what you want. I still try and do graphics work every now and then, but it is hard to keep up momentum, when everyone seems to want things for nothing.

It is hard, but I keep at it. I try to keep myself going with being creative, be it writing, photography or drawing. Sometime’s it is easier to get motivated than others, but I just have to keep going, and hope that I will get somewhere at some point. But the joy I get from creating something, and knowing that someone may take something from what I create is something that is magical to me. It is that, which keeps me going. It makes working a normal job, bearable.

I have good news, in that from the 13th January, I will be working full time hours. It means more money, which will hopefully give me more means to be independant. I still live at home with my parents, because I am finding it hard to get an affordable place to rent (buying is out of the question). Hopefully having more money, will help me get into the position I need to be in to be able to afford getting a flat, even with a friend. It will be awesome. And hopefully, I will be able to buy more art materials and be able to start selling things again.

So 2012 is already looking like it is changing for the better.