Tag: life

Asking For Help?

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

I have always lived by the ideal, that if you need help you ask for it. If you are struggling with something, go and ask advice off someone you know that has had similar experiences to yourself. Get thoughts and opinions, to help back up what you think, and to help get you get out of whatever funk you are in.

But I do have a problem. And it comes into play, when people ask ME for help. As soon as I feel someone looking to me for guidance, I get nervous, my brain panics and scrolls through 100 thoughts in a minutes. And yet, I don’t know how to react. It is the one thing I go ‘rabbit in the headlights’ over. Since my stance on sharing thoughts, it seems a little strange that I can over-react to what is sometimes a straight-forward situation. But I do.

Whether it is asking for directions (something I suck at, avoid asking me this AT ALL) or advice on general, I panic. I try to be objective, and give useful advice, but I get a bit iffy when I know that information is not what that person wants to hear. It mostly happens when someone is being treated like shit by their partner, and I try to speak my mind, but don’t want to hurt the person. Love is blind, and it also takes away all common sense as well, it seems.

So I struggle over the words, mostly because I have to figure out how to say things. I am a fan of the ‘positive sandwich’, where I say something nice, then nasty and finish with something nice. It seems to not make me feel so vicious.  In theory anyway. But after I give out my comments, I then think that if I had said the negative on it’s own, would it have made a bigger statement? Would the message have hit home better? Sure it would hurt, but sometimes the most beneficial things in the long term, do involve some pain.

I mean, I would hope people would be honest enough with me. Life sucks, but it would suck even more if every person was sheltered from the truth. What do you think? How do you deal with giving or receiving advice?

Listening to- Rancid- Ruby Soho

Thinking- Xbox update? Go and hurry up please.

 

To be inspired

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

Reading books, watching TV, listening to music, everyone has something that makes them want to better themselves. Something that makes you want to take on the world, and feel like you can win whilst doing so. This is something that is certainly not lost on me, as I try to gain inspiration from a lot of sources.

I am coming up with a problem though. I don’t know if it is a case of seeing ‘too much’ around me, or if it is because I just think too much. When you read a book you like or listen to your favourite album, they spur you on, as you try to emulate their success. But for success to be valid, there needs to be failure, to balance it out. Just like how you can’t get light without dark, you can’t get success without failure. And after thinking about this, I have been lead down the path that has me wondering if the balance between success and failure is applicable to the one person’s life, or if it is people who are deemed success or failure.

I guess it could be either, but my head tends to liken it to being a person by person kind of thing. So if someone is a failure, it means someone else can be a success. That always sounds a bit of a ‘glass is half empty’ kind of logic, and I guess that is always how I have thought. I have always preferred to look at the worst case scenario, rather than the best, as I feel it is a cushion for the disappointment I feel when things don’t go my way. Except, it isn’t a very good cushion,  because it still hurts when I don’t do well in something.

There is a school of thought, that teaches you, that if you are thinking of the negative, you will not see the good things, for all the negativity. Now whilst I think that is a very valid point, is something that is very difficult to get round, when you are used to thinking in a certain way. To step away from the negativity, you need to re-train your whole way of thinking, and that is no easy task. Especially if you have been thinking in said way, for almost the whole 27 years of your existence.

I guess, I keep on trying. I keep on trying to be inspired, and change my mindset. I get days where things change for a few days, maybe even a week, but then it changes back, and I find myself back at square one. This back and forth is one of the hardest things for me to accept about myself. It’s like everytime that I reach a landmark, and really feel good about myself, something happens and I just fall back into a pile of self-doubt.

The good news is, that there are more good days, than bad days right now. Having a lack of motivation to be creative is a big weight on my shoulders. It has happened over the last few years, where I struggled hard with depression. It is a situation where I find myself, that I can’t be creative. I get ideas, but then think ‘what’s the point’, it’s not going to lead anywhere. And I think that is the thing that is derailing me the most. The fact that I can’t see where I am to go. I feel stagnant, that I am not moving forward, so what’s the point?

When you have thoughts like that in your head, it’s really hard to try and see the positive out of anything.

Music: Left Alone- City to City (feat. Tim Armstrong)

 

 

Monday Madness

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

The start of another week. Already. Sometimes I wish that the time would slow down a little, as it seems to go too fast. It feels, especially at the moment, that I spend most of my time procrastinating or lying in bed. Lying in bed, procrastinating. *sigh* I have no idea why I am like this, but it means that I feel the passing of time so much more. Mostly, because I have these ideas, which go nowhere because I am too lazy to put these ideas into action.

There is a good thing. I am currently very energetic (possibly thanks to the coffee). So I am painting things for my Christmas cards, drawing sketches for a project I am helping a friend out with, and I even tidied up a little. This is crazy. I am NEVER that motivated, so I have to make the best of it whilst it’s here.

So I am watching Rosianna and wishing that I had friends who used the internet and valued it as much as I do. Yes, I value the internet. It is there for every purpose. It is there when I need to let any aggravation out. And, if needed, I will get feedback from the internet when I want it. And the thing is, I don’t know anyone who thinks that me having two blogs is a good idea, they don’t see why I would want to record myself for youtube. Sometimes I would like to spend more time with people so that we could encourage each other to make better web content. Because, that is what most of what we do online is. Creating content.

Even if you post a Facebook comment once in a blue moon, or you write a daily blog, you are packaging a piece of yourself for the world to see. To me, I think it is great, but I know a lot of people don’t think outside their own profile page. I think it is amazing that we can document our lives through these avenues of expression, and that other people can see what we have to say. I created my original blog over on LiveJournal, way back in 2005. And it came with me, on a large portion of my life. I know that if I had written such thoughts down in a book, the book would be lost as would the thoughts. So it is nice to have them to document who I was at that point.

I think that is where the perception of ‘time’ hits me. I look back at what I have done, and it doesn’t feel so long ago, and then I look at the date. I realise how much I have done between then and now, and just reflect on it all. Which is great. I mean, I blogged about when I used to self-harm. And as uncomfortable as it was to read all that, it is great to know that I can deal with things a lot better these days. It makes me feel like I have achieved something fairly major in my life. And that although, I had shared my feelings over the internet, it really doesn’t mean anything to anyone other than myself.   It shows me that I can do things, if I stick to it. And that, is sometimes just what I need to hear.

An Online Life?

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

Coming under the realisation that everything from watching TV to keeping a note what book I am reading is done online, I am trying to think if I am spending too much time online.  I guess the realisation was part of watching this video on youtube.

It is from 2009, so the issue with over saturation may be worse. In fact, the people who I know, who now use sites like Facebook, have increased since 2009.  OK, a lot of people don’t seem to use these websites that much, and use them as another way to contact friends and relatives. And there is nothing wrong with that. The services that are used, tend to be free, and are so much more appealing than paying a phone call or meeting up, where you need to buy food, coffee, etc. But the issue is, which is what is covered on many avenues both online and off it, that we get so much more information from people that we may not be of particular interest anymore.

It makes it harder to decipher what is important, so that we should care about it, and what should we be ignoring. Everything from estranged school friend’s photos from a night out and alerts about browser games to heart felt messages from a friend in need. They are all posted with the same level of importance. And with the high volume of information, would a person look into their Facebook timeline enough to get the information to help their friend?

Probably not. We just blend all the nonsense into one thing, and if it isn’t at the top of the page, we just don’t see things. So, there is truth in what the video above states about our attention span. But the one thing I do disagree with, is the dislike of reading which is lengthier than the average status update. Maybe it’s because I fell in love with the internet, through using forums and blogging sites. And that is still what I do. *shrugs* So I guess, I am part of the exception.

I use social networking A LOT. Seriously, think I am kidding, follow me on twitter. I like the fact that I have different things on different sites. A lot of things get shared on Facebook. But that is easy, because Facebook is very good at linking together with other sites, such as YouTube, GetGlue and well, WordPress. So it adds more personality, in that it shows my blog posts and what videos I like, but it is, ironically, less personal. I don’t have to access Facebook to post things, and a lot of the time, I don’t go near the place.

But then you have Smartphones, with access to all the social networks.  It makes it even easier to tweet what is on your head, and use FourSquare to show where you are. It sounds strange to most people, but to some it is great to meet people. Why? When in Blackpool over the summer, I went into a bar and checked in using FourSquare. FourSquare posted through Twitter, that I was at such and such pub. And the next thing I knew, Tanny, a girl who saw my tweet, came and introduced herself, and said that she, like me, was alone in this pub as her friends were passed out at her hotel. We had a drink, went for food. I made a friend.

Yes social networking gets bad press, but used well it can bring people together. It goes beyond function, and becomes magical. My relationship with the internet, is as well rooted as my relationship with music, which is the love of my life.

It Disney Make It Better?

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

It’s a day where I have nothing notable to do. So how do I occupy my time?

The same as every other person of a certain disposition, who has an internet connection. I browse the internet for useless information and obscure things that  no one really cares about.

Well, noone except me. This involves me looking up dumped plotlines from the Lion King movie, and why they were abandoned. I mean, as intriguing as it is, I am glad Disney decided against killing Simba along with Scar. It was traumatic enough seeing Simba kill himself in a fake game (see previous post) without him dying in the official stuff.

But this looking into the Disney archives, and viewing the Vault releases, makes me happy I got to enjoy the Disney renascence as a kid. I mean, getting to see Beauty & The Beast, Aladdin, Pocahontas, Oliver & Company and obviously The Lion King, were big parts of my childhood. Seeing those movies growing up, helped push me to being more creative, painting backgrounds, drawing characters, it took me where I am today. The stories that we watched as children, help form the opinions and ideas that we take through to our adult life.

Disney has always got a lot of bad-press for making everything seem like a fairy tale, and that things will always end up ok. That isn’t an unhealthy thing to teach anyone. It is basic positive mental attitude, I mean if you think the world is all doom and gloom, how do you even get up in the morning. The truth is, you can’t. Disney teaches people that obsticles will come into your path, but if you power through and be honest with yourself, it will get better. That is a brilliant ethos, an ethos that people want to take away from Disney, because it is one of the biggest companies in the world. Surely, it doesn’t matter how big someone is, if they encourage people to live good lives, then why take the good aspect away from them?

Increasingly, there have become adults, very much like myself, who delve into the world of Disney on a regular basis, to bring light into their lives. Much like religion, people pick out the parts of Disney’s rich history, to give them encouragement in living life, especially when it gets hard. The idea, that a lot of the plot lines, and song lyrics clarify that a person is never alone, and they will always have someone who needs them, is comforting Even if it is a small monkey, named Abu. Disney focuses on friends, on family, on how doing the right thing will always be the better option. I don’t care how old you are, these are morals to live by.

Everyone gets influence from different places, and for different reasons.

Cheers for that.

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

So, technology has decided to fight against me in my daily battles. It is irritating. I have attempted to post two entries before this one, and they both failed miserably.

It’s bad enough I am coming to the realisation that this blog a day thing isn’t preparing me for NaNoWriMo, as I expected. And now I have this overwhelming sense of impending doom. I think what the issue is that I try to post up to 300 words a post. Which is fine, when I remember I have to post. But then my thoughts turn to NaNoWriMo, and I realise that all the wordage of a weeks worth of blogging, doesn’t even hit the daily average I need to write in November, of 1,500 words.

That has me panicking whilst November is still so far away. -.- Well, a matter of weeks away. 3 weeks. Maybe I should focus on the number of days, as the higher number fools my brain into thinking I have more time.

The things people do.

A Brave New Day

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

There is nothing worse than waking up to a day, where you feel lost, depressed and alone. A day where you look outside to a cold, wet world, and all you want to do is stay in bed all day. And the fact that you have to get up and force yourself into the day doesn’t make things much better.

This is a bump. A blip on the radar. Some people get more bumps than some, and it can be uncomfortable and hard. But when the sea calms, everything becomes settled and a person can feel a lot better about themselves. There is a sense of accomplishment that comes from powering through to the ‘other side’. And if you can battle through it once, you can do it again. That is one of the hardest things I’ve had to do, find a belief that things do get better if you can lift yourself through the turmoil.

And once you know that you can power through moments of uncertainty, and you do it regularly, you generally get less overwhelmed by the bumps in the road. It takes a strong person to ride out the bumpy road and get through it without the feeling you are in a black hole. Looking at others sometimes doesn’t help, because you may fool yourself that they have never had any storms to try and pass through.

So what I am trying to say is, don’t look at others. Look at yourself. You are a great person, and that alone should give you the strength to power on. Especially of you have been bothered before by issues. Only you can make a difference, and believing you ‘can’ is the best way to start. It seems scary, it seems different, I know it does. But be brave, and find out how fantastic the world is.

Feeling Enslaved

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

So this post a day think came into a blip. Where I am unable to access WordPress through my work computer, and my phone decided it didn’t like being online. So everytime I accessed an app which needs an online connection, I just got a plethora of error messages. And then the ‘internet access’ PCs couldn’t connect online. But it’s ok. O2’s dodgy 3G connection came back on. *cheers*

But this is a challenge. I have to make the effort to post. Which makes me feel like I have achieved something, because I have overcome something. I think that as soon as effort is put in, you feel more distinguished because of that effort. It doesn’t really matter what the thing is. Or I don’t think it does, not to me anyway.

Besides, the effort I need to make, stops my mind from wondering, and that’s where issues come into it. I overthink, and seem to dig up drama which isn’t there.

Feeling of Sollitude

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

When you need to relax, what do you do? What do you do to switch off, when you can’t escape?

I have always used music as a method to escape. It helps me because it allows me to ignore my surroundings. And that is what escapism is about. Being able to ignore the distractions which are near to you. And its crazy how much, just making yourself not have to listen to what’s going around you, makes a difference. I am sitting at the canteen at my work, and despite being surrounded in groups talking to each other, my ipod is helping me not bare them any attention. If you feel alone, listening to music can also give you company, in that it stops you from feeling so alone.

Another thing I like to do, is read novels. I love the idea of experiencing a completely different world, just from reading a few pages. If you have a good imagination, and the right story, you can escape into the story. I have always read on my own, and I describe it as being a solitary activity. Because you read at your own pace and experience this new world. I can easily spend hours being lost in a book, and its the best feeling in the world. I feel that I can actually experience the plotlines, and that the characters are people I meet and get to know.

So right now, I am reading The Crimson Petal and the White by Micheal Faber, and listening to the Broadway recording of the Lion King musical. And, honestly, I feel so happy and at peace. I don’t feel alone as I have so much things here, that gives me so much joy. Reading and listening music is something that has gone hand in hand, for me, for most of my life. And I don’t see it being a habit I will drop very easily.

‘Team’ work

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

I always thought there was.

I am currently taking part in 3 different projects, where in taking part in a team was essential. Because I have not organised any of these projects, there are obviously people taking part that I don’t know. Something I am fine with. I like getting the opertunity to meet new people, and get to know them. To be honest, it is one of the wonders of the internet. It brings people together.

The issue is, when you get involved in some kind of group project, you have to appreciate other people’s opinions and learn to work together. But there is always something that gets in the way. Usually it involves people trying to force their point of view across. I am a compromising person,  but it gets to the point where rather than the group being a collaboration, someone wants to be boss.

Usually ideas are fine, but it is when these ideas transform into changes. Changes that were never mentioned previously before the project started, but have suddenly became the main agenda, and causes a rift between the team members. People feel a bit taken-aback by how the original plan seems to be changing, that things are being taken over. They feel threatened, because this is no longer a bit of fun. Changes are ‘proposed’ and people feel out of place. Something that has started as a friendly project to bring people together, has become formal. As if it is a competition to push the project quicker than all the team members are ready for.

And if you feel it is like someone is making a change, and rushing ahead, is it right to put your feet down? Surely, that is why things are discussed. So that people can talk about things. And if someone is harsh, and gets a harsh reaction, who is in the wrong? Is anyone? As long as they can understand each others point of view, should there be any animosity? To make a change to original plans, all team members should be agreed on a particular idea.  And if someone percieves your idea as wrong, don’t run off scared when someone does oppose it. It’s give and take.

—

And that’s off my chest. 🙂 I always seem to encounter the same issues when I work in groups. Maybe I am just not fit for working in a team. -.- Has anyone encountered any issues when working with other people? What would be your advice on dealing with it?