Category: life

The power of knowing your rights

There is power in knowing your rights. Not many bother. Or they think they know them already. They purchase goods or services believing that certain protections are in place, only facing reality when they try to enforce them later.

There’s a lack of education in schools around consumer rights, or even human rights. If we are being honest there isn’t really much education around finance. Most school leavers don’t know the difference between a debit and credit card, or how to balance a bank account. Mathematics, reading and writing, a partial second language if you are lucky, and some science is all most leave school with.

You can educate yourself. The likes of Martin Lewis and Rob Moore offer free education on finance and your rights as a consumer. It’s worth taking the time to learn all you can. If nothing else you’ll learn how to make better purchases and how to look after your own financial health.

Knowing your rights is a very powerful tool that we should all acquire.

Peter Pan Syndrome

Men can suffer from Peter Pan Syndrome. It’s a thing.

You are forever a big kid. You never grow up. You don’t do adult. Toys just get more expensive.

One day you realise that you are as old as your dad was when you looked up to him as a grown-up. Yet you don’t feel like a grown-up. Not yet anyway. If you were to look in the mirror then you would realise how old you are, on the outside. But on the inside? You still feel like a big kid, but with responsibilities and bills to pay. You fake adult as best as you can hoping that one day you’ll get there, but not yet, not today. Today there’s a new Lego set to build, or an online campaign to look forward to, or maybe a movie marathon with your mates and pizza.

Tomorrow, tomorrow you’ll do adult. Today you are still a lost boy.

After ambition burnout

Ambition burnout. It’s a weird combination of words implying that it is possible to burn-out from ambition. But it is real and something that I’ve personally experienced.

I’ve always been driven by ambition. As a child I wrote a list of things I wanted to achieve by the time I was 18. I completed the list well before my 18th birthday. I wrote another to achieve by the time I was 30. It included things like to live in a nice home, have a nice car, a great job, and to travel around the world. I completed it by age 29.I wrote a few more, which I achieved. Then I hit the aforementioned burn-out. I ran out of things that I wanted to achieve. So I idled. With no more drive or goals I coasted along. I embraced mindfulness, journalling, meditation, and long walks. They kept me sane but barely.

Those of us driven by ambition can feel a real sense of loss when we no longer have ambition to steer us forwards. We merely exist like everyone else. With no measurement of progress, no sense of achievement. Just being.

It can lead to depression, and bad health. Ambition burnout can leave you hollow. A loss of drive, no mojo, no spirit.

So what comes after ambition burnout?

Work experience

Work experience is much about working out what you don’t want to do as much as working out what you do want to do.

Many forget that. They try to find the perfect position to elevate their CV. Not all jobs and experiences need to be recorded. Some just served a purpose. Even if that purpose was to work out what you didn’t want to do in life.

Everyone should try as many roles as they can at the start of their career. It’s a great opportunity to figure out what you enjoy and what you don’t. Otherwise you may study and study to be X and when you finally start working as X you discover that you hate it. Now what? Well try something else. It’s never too late to switch careers. Each role is experience, good or bad.

Perpetually moving between problems

Some days I feel as if I am perpetually moving between problems. As I fix one another appears, then another, then another, with no end in sight.

Some days you feel like you are winning. But it’s a brief moment, for shortly after another problem arises.

There’s a saying: More money more problems. It’s related to ownership and responsibility. The more you own or are responsible for, the more chances there are of problems arising for you.

If you own a house then maintenance or insurance problems can occur. If you own another property that you rent out then you could have problems with tenants, lettings agents, contractors, or insurance. If you are employed you could experience employment-related problems. If you own a business you could have problems with employees, customers, suppliers, and so on. You get the idea. The more you own or are responsible for in life the greater the amount of problems you will have to deal with. Such is life.

Instagram is full of tease pron

Instagram is full of tease pron. It’s one opinion. I can see where it came from after hearing it for the first time. There appear to be a lot of female users on there that use it to offer taster content in the hope that you will follow through to their paid links on Patreon, Only Fans, or such premium sites.

The posts push the boundaries of what is allowed on Insta. Simulated acts, revealing outfits, teasing questions. Nothing too graphic, but close. Some maybe too close resulting in account bans. The need for multiple backup accounts just in case you cross a line.

Memes are used to try to encourage more likes. Plus cosplay, roleplay, gaming, and product use. Anything to get more followers in the hopes that followers convert to paid subscribers. Masters of tease.

With hard content requiring full-on identification verification, accessing soft content via Insta is becoming more popular. Just use your imagination.

Balance with good

Some days just feel like everything is going wrong. Sometimes it may feel like weeks of nothing but one bad thing after the next. Work, home life, the bits in-between. Nothing but bad.

To prevent every day being as bad as the last I like to do something that I refer to as balancing with good. Plan things you enjoy to balance out the bad things so every day doesn’t feel like a big weight on your shoulders, that you have something to look forward to. Even if it’s just watching your favourite TV show with your partner, or beers with a few friends, or just an hour or two alone with your favourite book. Balancing the bad with these pockets of good will help make each day feel a little less bad.

Misery loves company

We British love to moan. We assert that right as often as possible. When we are unhappy about something we want the world to know. We seek out friends that we know will listen to our woes. Misery loves company.

We share our misery. Wear it like a badge of honour. When we feel slighted, wronged, cheated in some way. Or when we seem deluged with problems, the world is out to get us. We become angry, frustrated, vexed, needing to vent. To find others of a similar countenance. Not happy with their current predicament. A friend in a dark place. An ear wishing to listen, half-heartedly in return for the same in return.

Misery loves company.

We exist between two certificates

We exist between two certificates: birth and death certificates.

It sounds morbid. An oversimplification perhaps. But still true.

We are born, which is recorded, and we die, also recorded. Two certificates between which we live. Maybe we will acquire more certificates. From 500m swimming to professional qualifications. More records of our existence, and achievements.

If our moments were never captured on paper, did we exist? Did we matter? Will we be remembered, researched, noted. Did we count?

Living between two certificates.

Just turning up as opposed to booking

I hate booking in advance.

The deals are sometimes better, but not always. Don’t get me started on hidden fees and on-line booking fees. Shouldn’t it be cheaper as I’m not dealing with people?

With advanced booking you can secure your place or item, but then you have to consider changes that can occur between now and then. The weather, illness, availability, etc etc.

Booking just stresses me out. Sometimes I’ve gotten lucky and got a deal. Other times I’ve been burned, badly.

To book or not to book.

It’s like phishing scams. They use the same techniques. Seriously. Book now while there’s still time, still availability. So you book only to find there was plenty of availability all along and now tickets are half price. Dammit!

So I prefer to just turn up. To chance it. To pay the gate price, the door price, on the day. I don’t get burned. And occasionally I get a deal.