Category: life

Everyone has money problems. More money, more problems, right?

I tell myself it’s just a game. Life is just a game.

It will throw crap at you left, right, and center. All day long, every fricking day.

The trick is to just play the game. Earn a living, pay the bills, enjoy life as best as you are able.

I used to think that you must be able to reach a point where you have enough money not to care. To be financially secure enough that if a problem occurs, whatever it may be, that you can just pay your way through it.

But no. There are always problems that can cause stress, anxiety, even depression, no matter how much money you have.

So I continue to play the game of life and try not to stress about stuff. It’s only money. Mostly.

I grew up in a large town. There were a lot of people, buildings, vehicles, and light pollution. I worked in tech and worked at big corporations. I read Cyberpunk by Gibson, Sterling, Rucker et al. I used computers and gadgets daily.

Today I find myself in a city and I hate it.

I hate the noise, the people, the traffic, the hustle and bustle, and the light pollution.

It’s too much.

I miss the countryside. The quiet. The sound of the leaves on the breeze, the birds in the trees, the combine in the distance field. No light pollution, only stars as far as I can see.

I still love my tech. I have multiple gadgets on me at all times. I remain connected to the noise, but digitally, not in the analogue. It’s there when I need it. To identify a plant, plan a walk, or to sit down and type some thoughts.

I’m still a cyberpunk at heart, but one that hates the city.

Not off grid. On the edge. An edge runner.

I’m sitting here by an open sash window listening to the rain.

I booked a holiday let in a house built many centuries ago with the top two floors a luxury let above the high street of a historic market town. I have a glass of red wine in one hand and I’m listening to the pleasant sounds of the rain.

In my other hand I hold my mobile with the BBC weather app open. It proudly shows me that there is zero percent chance of rain at my current location. It’s wrong and I’m happy that it’s wrong.

This app is rarely right. I might as well consult the wise old elf from the Magic Kingdom for a weather forecast. He’ll be more right than this app. I don’t know why I haven’t uninstalled it. The amount of times it has predicted a good old storm with thunder and lightning, only for it to be clear skies with absolutely no activity. Oh the disappointment.

The cafe owner across the street starts to clear up as the last of her patrons head home. I hear a few merry people singing in the distance as I take another sip from my glass, the gentle cadence of the rain hitting the cobbles below is soothing. I put the phone away and toast the BBC weather app for being pleasantly wrong yet again as I listen to the rain that should not be.

This annoys me so much: The size of your average car parking space in the UK.

They haven’t updated the dimensions in decades, yet cars have gotten bigger. You have to be an expert at parking to be able to fit your car in a space and be able to get out. My car is so long that the front and back overlap the white lines and the sides are in, but only just. If anyone parks next to me I can’t open the doors.

Parking spaces are worth a fortune in many towns. So owners of car parks are happy not to increase the size of the spaces, as more spaces means more money. God forbid anyone should create spaces big enough for the vehicle and so you can open all doors and the boot. The amount of times my boot opens into a hedge or I’m forced to choose which side the doors should open on.

I’ve seen SUVs park in two spaces so that the occupants can get out. People leave notes under their wipers to point out the terrible parking, but what choice do they have? Cars have gotten bigger and the places to put them have not. Move with the times you vehicle real estate moguls!

Let’s start a campaign for bigger parking spaces.

It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I hate that term, but it’s true.

Anxiety attacks. You try to avoid them but the thought of them happening only sets in motion a path that leads to their happening. Self-fulfilling.

Watching your heart rate after a workout. It’s not coming down during cooldown. So you stress about it and your heart rate increases. Self-fulfilling.

Learning to derail self-fulfilling prophecies is hard. But it’s worth it if you succeed. To control yourself, your thoughts, your mind. Tell yourself it will happen and hopefully it will be self-fulfilling.

I knew a guy once. Long gone now. A gentle soul. He had a dream. Every time we would see him he’d tell us about his dream. One day he’d say. Forever planning. Dreaming of that one day.

He has been gone for some years now. I miss hearing about those dreams. His plans. He was so sure, certain. It would be, one day.

Always dreaming, never doing.

Living longer than someone is not the same as enjoying life as much as they did.

I’ve met people that say they outlived their friends by X number of years. They tell me that they ate healthy, didn’t drink, or smoke, or do drugs. They also never travelled, some never even left the country. They worked in jobs they hated, married the first person that showed an interest, if they married at all. They had no real hobbies or interests. They have no interesting stories, never left their comfort zone, never took a chance, or risks. They went for a walk every day after work and church at the weekends to make mum proud. They didn’t enjoy it but it was what you did.

I outlived my mate John by twenty years! They tell me. John was on his third wife and was the captain of the local snooker team. He was always off on a cruise or holiday somewhere. Always a smile on his face. His heart gave out in the end. Too much of a good life. Could have lived another twenty years like me they say.

There’d outlived and there’s out-lived.

It’s easier to be a millionaire these days.

With inflation a million isn’t worth what it used to be. It has less buying power in terms of a house purchase for example.

There are more millionaires around in terms of both asset value and liquidity totals. Getting to a million is just a matter of a decent salary, saving, compound interest, and avoiding as many taxes as is legally possible.

Once you are a “millionaire”, then what? It doesn’t carry the same weight as it used to. What with internet stars and influences being deca-millionaires. Being a deca-millionaire might be the new millionaire.

Still, it would be nice to have a million.

The Queen song comes to mind. “Who wants to live forever?”

But no one does. Live forever that is. In another century pretty much everyone alive today will be gone, replaced by new people. A refresh of sorts. Knowledge will be passed down, by word or pen. But the minds that thought them will be gone.

We are not permanent. We are merely transitional. We are here for a brief moment in the grand scheme of things. So enjoy it while it lasts. Make the most of it. Leave no regrets. No one lives forever.