On Gratitude, Guilt and Acceptance

[This was written and ready to be posted at the start of August. I was just going to insert gifs/images and then move on. It's now been so long I can't bear to spend any longer on it, so I'm afraid we're just getting a lot of text here. I also haven't re-read it since I wrote it, so I have no idea how it's going to come across.]

Song of the day: Something Good - alt-J (pretty much the whole album)

Currently reading: I don't think I can bear to say Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance  again, so I won't.

I worry as I start writing this post, having been considering the topic whilst watching south England zoom by out the train window, that parts of this entry may come across as annoying. I'm worried that it'll sound like I'm bragging, or this will just be taken as a case of "_____ people problems" (not entirely sure how to fill the _____ though). Whilst it is a little bit of the latter, I do mean everything I'm saying here out of the bottom of my heart, and I absolutely do not want people to think the below is a proper problem. It's not, it's just a case of what's in my mind at the moment that I need to work through. Let me explain.

As you can probably guess from the title of the blog, I am twenty-something. Specifically, my early twenty-somethings. Two weeks after I quit my MA course I had an interview for my current job. A month and four rounds later I was offered a place, and in February  I started on a very comfortable salary of over £30k per year, although I won't go into exact details. My job affords me a good deal of flexibility regarding hours and working from home so long as I get the work done, it's varied and project-based so I won't get bored doing the same thing for months on end, and provides quite a bit of responsibility and provision for moving upwards in the company. So what’s the problem?

[The problem is we've been stopped in Haslemere for nearly 10 minutes now… why aren't we moving? The guard is just walking around on the platform outside.]

I graduated from university last year with a 2.I in BSc Anthropology. I didn't know what I wanted to do, so I applied for an MA in Film and Philosophy that I thought would be right up my street. It quickly became apparent - in only a matter of weeks - that it wasn't the right course for me, and that combined with other factors made me drop out of the course in November. It was a big, scary decision at the time (I'd only spent a month telling everyone I was doing an MA, and there I was dropping out because I couldn't take it). One of the additional factors, although not the only one, was the cost. I couldn't really afford to live (in central London nonetheless) on what I was earning and spend over £8000 in tuition fees, even with housing benefit.

So in November I decided I needed to get a full time job. I didn't particularly want one, but the fear of being "homeless" was there. I should note that this is actually a pretty insulting thing for me to think. I wouldn't have been homeless by any stretch of the imagination. I would have just moved back in with my parents in Liverpool rather than living in a nice place in central London. My fear of not being able to afford rent and losing my flat, whilst very real, cannot compare to the fear felt by people who do not have parents/anyone willing or able to take them in who may be in similar or worse situations to the one I was in. "Homeless" should not have been a word I was using, especially not for the possibility of having to do what millions of young people in the UK are currently doing. The fact that I'd been able to live in London a whole six months after graduating university is more than a lot of people are able to do. I wouldn't have been homeless, I wouldn't really have been in any distress. I just wouldn't be doing exactly what I wanted to do.

Two weeks after I made this decision, and only one since I'd stopped messing around and actually sent out a lot of applications, I was informed that I'd made it through to the next round for a job I'd applied for only the day before. I knew nothing about the industry or what the job would entail, all I noticed to begin with was the benefits package. It was a city job - a type of job I always claimed I'd hate to do and would never apply for - but I was feeling a bit desperate. A week or so later, after an hour or so's research into what the career would entail and a re-read of my application answers, and I had an online interview. A week after that I was informed that I'd made it through to the final round of the application and went for an assessment day. I had a horrible migraine and told my interviewer I would probably be good at the job because I like playing computer games where I build empires through strategy and trade rather than war.  The next day, during my birthday tea (literally cups of tea - I holed up in a café for the afternoon and saw various friends at various times), I was offered the job. Two months later, I'm at a networking event making pizza having written a post on here about having to find an appropriate outfit. And I've been there ever since.

My first role was London-based, and quite nicely only 35 minutes journey from my house. The one I'm currently on, however, is based on the south coast, and requires me to travel down on a Monday and stay in a hotel, travelling back on Thursday nights. The hotel is often quite nice - it's a step up from the Travellodges that I'm used to for sure. And this is where the start of my "problem", or probably more truthfully, "yuppie-guilt" is coming from. I used to only order room service for dinner, but starting last week I decided I liked getting breakfast in my room too. It's only available in one of the two hotels I stay in as far as I'm aware, so I did it whilst I could. I've had a terrible cold this week, and so on Tuesday I stayed in and worked from the hotel room, rather than disturbing and infecting everyone. This meant I also ordered lunch to my room, and I was in when housekeeping came to clean.

I only started to notice this recently, but all the hotel staff that do the less-nice , presumably minimum-wage jobs (the room service orders, clearing up and housekeeping etc), they're all my age. And probably a little older too, but maybe only by a couple of years. There I was, sat on a very comfy hotel bed (one of two in my fairly large room), having just polished off a very delicious club sandwich and fries and now focussing on my [work] laptop, whilst a girl maybe a year or two older than me cleaned the room around me. I started coughing at one point and made a comment about how much I hated colds, and she told me that she thought she was getting one but really couldn't afford to be off work.

I get called "ma'am" by people older than me. And I just feel guilty.

The reason, I think, is two-fold. The first regards the thinking surrounding my guilt. I feel like I should be doing what they're doing. I had only been working for just over a year prior to this job, and hardly even part-time. I feel (or felt, I'm starting to change my mind) that I hadn't "done my time" in minimum wage service jobs. We hear so often nowadays how difficult it is for young adults once they graduate from university, with thousands upon thousands being unable  to find any sort of work, and many being stuck in minimum-wage jobs for many years more than they would want. And those are the "lucky ones". Well, I'm even luckier than that. None of that has applied to me. I didn't have to move back in with my parents, and I pretty much instantly went into a good job once I started searching for one. I haven't done my couple of years of uncertainty/misery, haven't spent any longer than six months worrying about where the rent money is going to come from, and I start to feel like I don't deserve what I've got. I keep saying "I'm lucky".

Well, I am lucky. But I need to also stop claiming that to be the be-all and end-all of why I am where I am today. This is a problem particularly with a lot of smart young women I've noticed. We don't own our achievements. I got a good degree from a good university. I worked hard, I did some time in the service industry (if only a little) when I had to pay my rent, and then I went out and impressed a company enough to get through four rounds of application and get a job. As of last Friday, I passed my probation period (yay!). I am good at my job. These things aren't all just down to luck, they're down to me. Luck wouldn't have had me pass my exams had I not put in the work, luck wouldn't have paid the rent had I not gone out and done the jobs that I needed to do but didn't particularly like, luck wouldn't have got me through the entire interview process. There was a four hour assessment centre, they must have liked something about me!

I think part of the problem is that we're taught it's not polite to brag. We're to be modest, and don't over-talk about our achievements. But for a lot of young women, this turns into don't acknowledge that you had something to do with them. There's also the additional fact that I know a lot of very smart, clever people. A lot of my friends went to Cambridge, or other very good universities. My sister graduated only this year from Cambridge with a degree in Natural Sciences, and she is one of the hardest working, smartest people I know. She worked incessantly, and my family had to make sure to get her to take breaks at Christmas, Easter and New Year. In comparison to her, I didn't work much at all. But I need to remember that I still worked! I don't feel like I've achieved much because a lot of my friends have achieved great things - good degrees from good universities, good jobs, a highly sought-after pupillage to name just a few. We've done extremely well and should be proud of ourselves, not pass it all off as luck.

But it is important to realise that there is an element of luck involved. I am under no illusions that everyone who worked as I did would find themselves in the same position. There are plenty of people who work much, much harder than I do, who are still unable to live where they want, or get the job that they want, or afford the schooling that they want. These are people who desperately need to afford their housing, or have hungry mouths to feed, or need to get out of their parents' house because they just can't cope any longer. There are so many people at the moment who put in application after application, who are more than adequately capable, who just hear back nothing. I in no way believe myself to be smarter, a harder worker, or in any way better than those people. Those people are my friends, my colleagues, my family. They're everywhere. I can't forget that I am in a very privileged position and I should be very thankful for that.

What I shouldn't do is forget that it wasn't all down to luck, and that I am a very capable human being.

What-I-Want-To-Work-On....Thursday?

Song of the day: Interlude 1 (The Ripe and Ruin) - alt-J
Currently reading: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert Pirsig (still - about 70% through now)

Accurate naming of posts, for one.

It doesn't have quite the same ring to it, I'll admit. The original plan was for me to have this up last week, and then last Thursday, then last Friday, and then yesterday , but despite having a fair amount of time to myself on several of those days last week, I completely forgot about it. And yesterday I was just too tired. [And then yesterday, the day I wrote this entire post, I just forgot to upload it, so we're pretending it's still Thursday.]

So how am I doing on the topics I brought up last week?

1. Do more yoga
2. Do more meditation
3. Get up earlier (combination of the above)
4. Check finances more

I have been doing more yoga. Not quite every morning, but I have been doing more stretching in general. At the moment it's really only for 5-10 minutes at a time, but it's a start. It can't be doing me anything but good and I should probably be doing even more. I've been doing a mix between neck stretches and sun salutations, but I should probably focus on my back a bit more. The neck has been a target because I just do not have any luck with pillows. My body seems to be really picky about what it can lie on without waking up in pain the next day, and most pillows do not fall into the "safe" category.  Having a desk job however, and probably an ill-fitted bra because I like many women have not yet plucked up the courage to be fitted by a professional, is starting to be noticed by my back again, and it's really starting to get quite painful. I know a couple of yoga routines for the back that I really enjoy, so it's just a matter of putting it into practice. Whilst in my hotel room on Tuesday (I worked from there due to a terrible cold) I did a 25 minute lower body routine that was extremely tough but I felt great afterwards, which has inspired me to continue.

I haven't really done any more meditation. In fact, I think I did 4 minutes of it Wednesday before last when I decided I needed to do more and then absolutely none since. My phone reminds me of the need to do it every day, but I just swipe it away.

It's not all doom and gloom though. Both of the two above targets, whilst incredibly useful in their own right, were partly about me trying to get up earlier of a morning. Well, as it happens, that's been happening anyway. It's primarily due to the hotel I've been staying in the last two weeks, but I'm hoping that by the time I'm back in the other one I'll have made early rising a habit. I discovered last week that not only is breakfast included in the price of the room (which I knew already), but that it's included even if you order it to your room (so long as you order a specific one) for nothing more than the tray charge. I've indulged all week. You pick a quarter of an hour slot for it to arrive in, and therefore have to be awake before it comes. I've ordered it for 7:45-8:00 twice and 7:30-7:45 once. Therefore I've been getting up by 7:30 all week, much earlier than I had been in the weeks prior to my holiday (or indeed, during).

Even last Friday, when I had the chance to lie in - I'm visiting my parents in Liverpool at the moment and was told they'd wake me up at 8:40 if I wanted to have a lie-in - I got up just after 8 am. It was nice having a full hour to myself before having to be "at work" (logged on to the computer and online on the company chat programme). The same happened again today - working from home means I just have to be online from 9am. I woke up at 8, but given how tired I'd been last night thought that I'd put my alarm back half an hour and have a bit of a lie-in. It only took two minutes for me to decide that it wasn't going to work, and I got up. No lie-in at the weekend either - I've got a gym session at 9am on Saturday!

Who goes the gym at 9am on a Saturday? Seriously!

I have been doing a little better with being aware of my finances, even if I've not done any better with spending less (but baby steps!). I've checked my bank balance a couple of times in the last two weeks, and also done some calculations about money due in and out in the next month to see whether I could afford a couple of things I wanted to buy, rather than buying them and panicking afterwards. It's been useful, and I'm hoping that as I continue this will make me more confident financially.

For the following week(s) I want to work on:

1. Reading more
2. Being more aware of diet
3. Going to bed earlier

I've been reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance for weeks now, mainly because I just don't do any reading on most days. I need to make it more of a routine, even if only for 30 minutes per day. I just don't read like I used to, and it's a shame. There's so many benefits to being well-read.

Being more aware of diet is something I actually started to do last week, paying more attention to what I was ordering from the hotel. It'll be tough from next week as the hotel I'm in from then doesn't really have any healthy options, but I'm making the most of being at home for an extra day - had a banana and strawberry smoothie for breakfast (homemade, w/ oats and flaxseed and chia seed in), planning on making some pulled pork and making lettuce+pork tacos once my new slow cooker arrives, and I'm also planning a couple of healthy omelettes, some sweet potato, mackerel and broccoli, etc...

Finally, going to bed earlier. I'm actually not doing too badly at this when at the hotel, but I need to keep it up the rest of the week. And even at the hotel, I could do a lot better. I get up shortly after 7 and I don't do well with lack of sleep, so I really shouldn't start getting ready for bed after 11:30, given that it usually takes me about 30 minutes to fall asleep. I should be aiming to get into bed around 11, make absolutely sure I am not on the computer (as I often am), and maybe read in bed for a bit. That sounds like a nice plan. Now let's put it into action!

Since this post was due up last week, there is already another post underway that may go up today. But it may go up tomorrow, who knows?

This is what it feels like

Song of the day: None - Catching up on some Thinking Allowed podcasts. Changed half-way through writing this article to Breezeblocks - alt-J.
Currently reading: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert Pirsig

The other day I read a post by Gala Darling saying that one should write more, so here I am again. I returned home from holiday yesterday and in that strange pre-work limbo that has me feeling unsettled. Whilst I got up early this morning and started off fairly productively - healthy leisurely breakfast, couple of loads of laundry etc, I've just not been able to settle into anything in particular and yet still feel the need to do something useful. It's now nearly 5pm and very little has been achieved. So why not write?

I think one of the main problems is that I've gone from two weeks staying in a small caravan with my family - where all four of us crammed into one small space could get pretty loud at times and privacy or a sense of one's own space and there was always something to do, if you couldn't think of something yourself then someone else would give you a job - to being by myself in a quiet fairly large house with no real sense of purpose. Whilst I needed to do a couple of household jobs, this is my last day 'off' before I go back to work. When on holiday abroad you feel the time off much more delineated. Ever aware that you've got a limited time in that location, removed from everything familiar, it's much easier to relax into a book, or a walk, or a swim, or whatever it is you want to do. Now that I'm back, and yet still not back into my routine, I just don't know what I want to use my time to do. It also doesn't help that the anticipation of going back to work tomorrow has already kicked in and my body won't let me relax fully "just in case". Just in case I forget and miss my train? In case I forget to pack? Who knows?

At least I've made some tasty meals.

 Tasty meal #1. Cabbage and carrot in a creamy peanut sauce w/ king prawns in lime and coriander.

It's just another case of annoying anxiety that I'm learning to deal with but would still like to improve a lot on. As mentioned in the last post, I'm hoping making yoga and meditation more routine will help, but there's something else I think could help immensely.

Doing things that scare me and that I get really anxious about.

I can think of two immediate examples of this. The first was the first time I attended an acting class a couple of years ago. I signed up for it because the thought of it terrified me. I mean I literally felt paralysed with fear and the thought of going. But I also realised that this was ridiculous - it was a class for beginners and would mostly just be little games. Why was I getting worried about a situation where no one would know each other and we were also not expected to have any knowledge of the subject? In the end I went, and it did me so much good that I'm really annoyed that I haven't been able to go to a class in nearly a year now.

The second example is a bit more recent. Last week the sun actually shined and my family and I took advantage of the fact we were right by a lake. Canoeing! Or, kayaking! We weren't exactly sure which it was, and the two boats we took out were different so that wasn't exactly helpful. Spending three hours floating around the lake over two days was lovely. It was incredibly peaceful, it was fairly meditative, it was a good way to talk to first my mum and then my sister, and it was also good exercise. I loved it, and I really wish it hadn't rained as much in the first week because I would have gone out so many more times. I would actually love to do a canoe/kayak holiday now.

But when the idea was first suggested, I felt uneasy about it. The feeling grew the closer we got to actually walking down to the lake, until I was really very anxious about it. I couldn't work out why - we would be wearing lifejackets in case we fell in, but that was unlikely as it was a very still, small lake on a day with no breeze. I also know how to swim, and am strong enough at it to swim a fair distance or at least keep myself afloat. It would just be my family and no one else would be watching. Why then, did the thought terrify me to the point where I sort of didn't want to do it?

Tasty meal #2 - stuffed mushrooms w/ tenderstem broccoli, butternut squash and courgette and a nice mug of tea.

In the last few years I've got used to not putting myself out there. I don't try new things. I don't socialise with new people. I've got used to sticking to my routines, as much as I have any. When talking about what I like to do of an evening, I'm one of those people who say "Oh I much prefer a quiet night in". I do like a quiet night in. But you know what? I really like going out to a bar and dancing all night amidst many a shot of tequila - something I admittedly only do once in a blue moon as my immediate social circle just does not do this. And that's another problem - I only have an immediate social circle and most of them don't live close by. Because of this, I rarely meet new people and I rarely try new activities.

Whilst this might seem useful to someone suffering from anxiety - oh look, there's nothing scary and new to try, everything's always fine - the fact that I don't try anything new and that new now equals 'scary' is not useful at all! I used to be adventurous. I've always loved to travel and wanted to do more of it. But now the thought of it is starting to feel a bit nerve-wracking. I get this a lot - anxiety about things that stops me doing what I know I would probably enjoy. And it's because I don't do those things in the first place that this happens! It's a vicious cycle.

But at least I know it's there. I know this is a problem, and one that I have to counteract.

I realise this entry, yet again, reads as fairly dear diary-ish. But it's something I feel has relevance to a lot of people. I had a conversation with my sister the other day about what she wants to do now that she's graduated. She said that she would like to live in Cambridge, and when asked why answered that it would just be a nice place to live since it's got all the things she likes to do, like going for walks along the river, reading a book on the banks and it's really quiet and pretty. There's nothing wrong with these things. But she's 20 and these are all she's known for the last 3 years, and yet there's no immediate burning desire to go out and explore the world (I've been trying to get her to go and look after baby lion cubs in Africa for a month or so). I know the way I view life is not the same way everyone does, so if she's happy with those things that's great for her, but it just points to the way that people get stuck in their routines.

And I'm definitely stuck in mine.

View from my window right now: there's a storm brewing.

It's the same with socialising for me - if I haven't spoken to my friends in a while I get used to it and don't feel like reaching out to them. Once I have I remember how much I need to stay in contact with them all over again and it's much easier a second time. But that initial one... routines, man, they're both good for me but deadly.

I suppose the very roundabout point of this post is that I realised I can't live up to the saying "some people die at 25 but aren't buried until 75". I have dreams and goals and plans and I absolutely love life and all that it has to offer. I just don't take it up on it, and then get scared to try.

So one of my goals for the next few months/year is to try. I want to go to another acting class or another creative-type class. I want to be a better friend and stay in touch properly. I'd like to try gliding again, or rowing, I'd like to try surfing (although when and where are another issue). I'd like to go to events that sound interesting and are open to the general public, even if I don't know anyone else going - I could meet people! I want to... I don't even know what I want to do. Any suggestions? I want to live. I want someone to ask me what I enjoy doing and have an interesting answer. I don't want to become stagnant.

And one day I'd like my idols to become my colleagues.

In a follow-up from Wednesday, whilst I've not done it everyday I have done a lot more yoga this week and checked my finances today. Not as good as I'd hoped, not as bad as I'd feared. If my expenses come in this week it'll look even better next weekend! It had been three months since I'd last properly looked at them according to moneydashboard, and instantly I noticed that I spend a fair amount each month on takeaways. That's going to stop. I also need to actually eat breakfast in the hotel in which it's already paid for rather than waiting until I get to the office to eat. That'll save me a fair bit.

On the whole though, not too bad. But I've been doing the things I 'want to work on' for all of four days. It'll take more than this for me to count it as a proper success.

What-I-want-to-work-on Wednesday

Song of the day: Safari Disco Club - Yelle

Currently reading: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance – Robert Persig

For one, I’m going to have to work on keeping this blog more regularly updated if I want to make the title of this post into a thing.

Despite it being a lovely day this afternoon, perfect for settling down with a book – not too hot (the sun having finally gone behind the caravan, leaving nothing but clear blue sky and lovely shade), fairly quiet as the Tour de France passed by a couple of hours earlier and people have actually left the campsite already in the aftermath, and me with nothing pressing to do – I just couldn’t settle. Despite being only 29% of the way through it, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is a book that’s got me thinking about life. Specifically, my life, and all the things I want to do with it.

Not a cloud to be seen! Gorgeous day

The line that set me off on this trail of thought was actually something I read the day before yesterday. It was along the lines of… the “I” character woke up early, and decided to try and get back to sleep for a bit before hearing a rooster crow. He then thinks why would he want to sleep in? He’s on holiday!

It struck me because as you’re aware, I’m currently on a holiday that is fast coming to an end. Tomorrow is our last full day before we pack up and make the two day journey back home. It’s also only the second truly sunny day where the world really does seem our oyster and the possibilities endless (despite the unbearable heat for most of the day). We’ve not had the rain trapping us indoors and limiting what we can do.

But going back to the line about waking up early. One thing that has happened on this holiday, despite my attempts at the start to resist it, has been our getting up later and later every day. The whole family ended up averaging about 10:45. By that point, your morning is completely gone and you're not going to get a whole lot done in the day. The argument given by us and most people who do the exact same thing whilst vacationing is that they don't get to sleep as much as they want during the work week, so they're going to take the opportunity to do as little as possible whilst they have the chance.

The book points out another option: why would we want to sleep in and do nothing on the rare occasions we do not have to go to work? We have very limited free time to do what we wish, why waste it? I'm quite lucky with my job in that despite being at entry-level still (I've only had the role since February), I get 30 days off per year. That's a full six weeks. My mother doesn't get that much time off. But it's still a really short amount of time that you get to spend anyway you like. A two week holiday, such as the one I'm on now, takes up a third of those days. Why would I want to spend them asleep?

So to bring this back around to my original topic, I started thinking about the way I want to spend my free time. Or rather, my life. I want to use my free time to do the things I want to do in my life, as obvious a sentence as that sounds. I started browsing a couple of websites that pertain to things like health and fitness, finances, travel etc... and came up with a couple more things to add to my Epic Quest of Awesome (idea courtesy of NerdFitness), a list that I'm sure will be posted here at some point.

Whilst most of the items on the list were larger things, a number could be broken down and involved just making life better/easier for myself. It's those that I wanted to touch upon here.

What-I-want-to-work-on Wednesday is a showcase/itemisation of a couple of the more immediate things I want to work on (see what I did there?) to get myself a little closer to some of these goals/aspirations (I'm not sure whether that's more tautology than I wanted to use there, but I couldn't think of the word I wanted so we're just all going to have to suffer).

So without further ado...

Finances - Check my bank balance every week.

I'm not really in any danger of spending over my means at the moment, but I am living pay-cheque to pay-cheque. As I always have. Doesn't matter the size of the pay-cheque, I'll manage to make my expenses meet that pretty much spot-on. This has to stop. I want to be able to save money. But I can't change something unless I know what my habits are, and at the moment I'm doing the tried-and-tested method of burying my head in the sand and pretending it doesn't exist. This comes from my years as a student in constant debt and always in my overdraft. If I just ignored it everything would work out in the end because I'd get more student loan that would take me back to zero. It wasn't the most sensible coping mechanism in the world, but it got me through. Right now, however, there's no benefit to doing that. There wasn't then. The less I know about my finances and my spending habits, the scarier they become and the less in control I feel. So whilst I do have bigger financial goals, for the moment I just want to work on becoming more aware of what I'm doing.

Me when I check my bank account having ignored it for a couple of months.

Health - Daily yoga and meditation practice.

This would have several benefits. If we take the most obvious ones to start with, doing more yoga would be good for my physically. I used to do at least 5 minutes of it (once through a sun salutation) every day, often longer, and I felt so much better for it. I used to sleep better, I was in less pain, I was just generally more comfortable and more flexible and I felt good. Whilst I still do yoga occasionally, it's much more sporadic nowadays and starting up again would do me the world of good. Adding meditation to this as well - even just 5 minutes per day - will be good for peace of mind, encourage gratitude, and help ease anxiety, as will yoga. The other benefit the two of these will have is helping me get up earlier. I want to start swimming in the morning before work, but whilst I've got plenty of time I've started sleeping in as much as I can before I absolutely "must" get up. No matter what I tell myself the night before, I hit snooze several times when my alarm goes off in the morning. I want to make the mornings mine. If it only takes me 5 minutes to get to work from the hotel and I need to be in by 9, I could potentially have an hour and a half to myself in the morning. There's no need for me to rush, but sometimes I don't even manage to grab breakfast before I leave! Introducing 5-10 minutes of yoga and 5 minutes of meditation to my mornings will be a gentle way to ease myself into getting up earlier, so that I do manage to get into a routine of swimming and/or spending the mornings in a way that's best for me.

I'll probably think of more once I've finished writing this post, but for now I think these things are enough to be getting on with. Of course there are loads more things I want to do, but for the immediate future it's best if I don't overload myself. The more I try to say I will definitely do, the less I'm likely to manage. 10-15 minutes per day is probably going to be hard enough to do to start with, even if it eventually (hopefully) becomes second nature.

And that's why I'd like to make "What-I-want-to-work-on Wednesday" a sort-of thing. I can't promise that I'll be posting every Wednesday, but it'd be nice to have something to remind me to think about the little improvements I can make to make my life easier over time. In a world full of big ideas and so much to do, we often forget that the little things are just as important.

Rain don't change the sun

Song of the day: This Is What It Feels Like - Banks.

Currently reading: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert Pirsig

It's taken me a long time to decide on the title of this blog post. So long, in fact, that whilst I'm writing this it currently does not exist. I have a vague idea of what I would like to write about, but whilst I normally come up with a title very easily my mind is pretty blank today.

I'm currently in my second week of my summer holiday, in Clairvaux Les Lacs, Jura, France. The weather outside right this moment is lovely and sunny but with just enough cloud to provide a little respite from the heat here and there. I myself have retreated indoors. Half an hour lying in the direct sunlight earlier today have been quite enough for now, and I need a bit more of a break.

My original plan for this holiday had three prongs. I wanted to sunbathe, as I'd been really enjoying the half an hour of sun I was able to soak up during lunch hours at work and wanted the chance to experience it more. I also wanted to read more, since I'm usually too tired after work to do so. And finally I wanted to swim a lot, eat healthily and maybe lose a bit of weight. Or at least get fitter.

The first day here was wonderful. It was lovely weather, I read a decent amount of A Feast for Crows and I went swimming. But then came the rain. And for an entire week, it poured without pause. And it was freezing.

In my very eloquent and descriptive words via snapchat to a friend...

So of course, sunbathing went out the window. Every day when I checked the weather forecast, I was slightly disheartened to know that had I stayed at home the weather would have been wonderful. But alas, there was I was, stuck in the rain but determined to make the most of it.

And for the most part, I did. Rain may not be very conducive to sunbathing or sight-seeing or lake-swimming - my mother's two preferred holiday pastimes, but it does give you a lot of time to read. So read I shall.

But it's the final thing I mainly wanted to talk about. Swimming, eating healthily and getting fitter.

I'll just say it right now. It's not gone according to plan. I haven't swam every day. Aside from the fact that on some days it's just been too wet and too cold to leave the caravan and treck down to the pool, it's also a very different campsite to the one we were on last year. Last summer I did go swimming everyday, even if the weather wasn't particularly nice. Despite it being the same time of year, the campsite itself had very few children and so my mother, Harriet and I had the pool to ourselves for the most part. It meant that I was happy to stay in there for a long time, gradually going from 30 lengths at the start of the holiday to between 75-100 lengths by the end.

This terrifies me.

This time though the pool is just far too busy. It takes much longer than it should to navigate from one side of the pool to the other, and the children here - or rather, the teenagers - are at that age that they don't pay attention to themselves in relation to their environment. I'm thinking here of the game where one person sits on another's shoulders and faces off against another team (or in this case, two), and tries to push the others off. I don't mind people playing that in the pool if it's not particularly busy, or if they stay to one end. But these kids were taking up the entire pool which was fairly packed (as it was raining so everyone had amassed upon the indoor pool) and did not care who got in their way. They weren't going to get out of yours. It's all very well that happening with people like my mother and I trying to swim, but there were babies close by to them learning to swim. And I do mean babies. Towards the end I could hardly watch, I was just terrified something dreadful was going to happen.

But yes. I've been swimming three times and we've been here a week and a half. For a lot of the week and a half I've been sat in one position on the couch all day. Definitely not as much exercise as I had planned. I would have done some in the caravan, but due to the rain all the family has been stuck in the same room, which means there hasn't been the space to do so.

However, as much as I'm making excuses about the exercise, a large part of it is my fault. There's no one else to blame. I could go down for a swim in the rain or the cold, I just chose not to. I could exercise whilst my family are around, I just chose not to. I could go for a rain or a run outside, I just chose not to.

I've yet to reach the "I enjoy consistent exercise" stage.

The one area it has been more difficult for me to control - and also the most important area - has been my diet. I really don't like the diet my family have. It just doesn't agree with me. It's not particularly unhealthy - they make everything from scratch and there's usually vegetables in there somewhere, but most meals revolve around pasta or rice or potatoes. To some extent I've got around this - we had wholewheat pasta one night (my body just does not like white pasta at all), and when we've had potatoes I've bought sweet potatoes to have instead. I also had a sweet potato last night instead of the pasta. But other than that, there's lots of tinned things and creamy/cheesy sauces. There's also lots and lots of bread. I mean, we're in France. But we get through at least a baguette per day.

I'm not one of those "all carbs are evil" people. I prefer not to overload on white empty carbs, but that's because they don't agree with me. I know this because I haven't lived with my parents full-time in over four years now, and I feel much better if I eat what I tend to cook rather than what they do. But whilst I get to make a couple of meals here and there - I'm making gnocchi (again, not my preferred base health-wise although very tasty) with a courgette/aubergine tomato sauce, so there'll be a lot of veg in there - my parents are footing the bill so what they want goes.

At least I haven't overindulged as much as I have in the past. I don't think I've lost any weight - in fact I may have gained a little - but nowhere near as bad as I have some years. My goal for this month, after losing practically no weight last month, was to lose 5 lbs and this holiday was going to be key for that. It both has and hasn't been. It's true, I haven't lost much - if any - weight or lived particularly healthily...

Some of those would have been tasty.

But I have realised that I'm not doing enough and it's my fault. I'm not picking the healthier options all the time (I'm all for treating yourself occasionally, but my occasionally at the moment is practically every other day), and I'm also finding plenty of excuses not to do any exercise.

One of my current -albeit fairly good - excuses is that my back is sore. I injured it at the gym over a month ago now, but whilst it felt like it had got better and the pain vanished after three weeks of annoyance, it's back with a vengeance. I first noticed the pain return the day after I'd helped my sister move our of her room at university (I probably didn't lift the heavy boxes properly), but it's been nearly three weeks since then now and it's still sore. Swimming exacerbates it and I can feel it even when just lying or sitting down. Standing seems to help, but it's just very frustrating. I'm going to try and go back to the physiotherapist as soon as I can, but if it is what he thinks there doesn't seem to be a cure. It's supposed to just heal itself. But at the same time, that doesn't seem to be happening! Arghh.

Anyway, what was intended to be a thoughtful reflection on the trials and tribulations of health and fitness and how, despite good intentions, one has to be wary of excuses and recognise when you're making them, seems to have turned into a bit of a dear diary/ rant about my holiday so far. Oh well, so be it. This is unlikely to be the last time health and fitness is mentioned.

Moral of the story.

It's very warm again now despite being indoors, so I may move outside again. Perhaps there'll be a little breeze in the shade.

The devil’s in the details and he’s taking his toll

Song of the day: Dance in the Graveyards - Delta Rae 
Currently reading: A Feast for Crows - George R. R. Martin

June. It's June. Where on earth has all that time gone?

This afternoon that wonderful companion of ours called anxiety reared its ugly little head and I was lucky to experience paralysing fear for a short while. Because what else would we want to do on a beautiful Sunday afternoon, hey? This is only read as diary-ish for a very short time before I get to my point for today.

This weekend a Teen Wolf convention is happening in Austria. I saw pictures of it on tumblr. There's people I admire there, everyone looks like they're having a wonderful time and it's extremely sunny. They're also, you know, in Austria. I initially became aware of all this around 10:30 yesterday morning, when I was in London, watching torrential rain pour outside knowing I had to go and walk in it soon to get to a physiotherapy appointment to find out why I've been in agonising pain all week. So you know, I wasn't overly happy, and I had a nice little moan about how I wish I was there rather than here, but then I moved on. I went to physio, discovered I haven't done anything particularly serious, and watched a fair bit of TV in the afternoon. Tidied my room, skyped both Harriet and J, practised the viola and generally had an ok day. I mean, I was in pain, I couldn't do much more than take it easy.

Today I'm thankfully in a lot less pain. I woke up late. I had my viola lesson at 12:30. I had a late lunch. And I've been on tumblr, unavoidably seeing pictures of the convention because whilst I follow over 300 blogs of a variety of different subjects, that seems to be all anyone currently online is talking about. I realised that it was 3pm. It's a lovely day outside, and I was inside doing absolutely nothing. And that's when the fear hit.

Because I want to be like this:

But I don't know where to start.

Living in London, and particularly in an area where I'm high up enough to see all of central London from my bedroom window, even as far as the other side of the river, I'm constantly aware that the world is at my fingertips. Possibilities are endless. I can do whatever I want, all I need to do is reach out and grasp it. I'm a very blessed person - I'm white, middle-class, living in a first-world country, intelligent, financially stable, went to a good university and got a good degree, get on extremely well with my family and haven't had anything particularly bad happen to me other than occasional brushes with anxiety and depression. The only way I would be even luckier regarding doing what I want in the world is if I were male. And yet, despite knowing the world is mine for the taking, I feel paralysed, like my arms are stuck to my sides.

In part, there's too much choice. I know that I'm not doing what I want to be doing just at the moment. I have ideas about what I would like to do, and even some notions on what I can start to do in order to get there. But then I feel that if I'm spending my time doing x, I'm not doing y or z. So if I decide to spend a couple of hours reading a book - which I really need to do more of - then that's wasting time that I could be writing, or going and finding people to socialise with, or attending an acting class, or doing exercise etc. In the end, I don't do anything. I have similar problems with choice when deciding what to watch or what to eat. In the end I just don't make a decision and have wasted several hours of my day.

Then there's the lack of feeling connected. When I'm online looking at things related to people I admire and wish I could be like/ work with, it's very easy to feel connected to your dreams. You're learning loads of information about your ideal hobbies, careers, people you'd like to meet one day. But this feeling is a lie. You're not getting any closer to being a successful actor by looking up pictures of your favourite actors all day. You're not getting any closer to being a published author by researching various publishing houses that you're going to send your book to 'when it's written'. Looking at fitspiration won't make you any fitter.

You have to switch the internet off and do something. And it's not a good feeling. For me personally, when I turn the internet off, I no longer feel connected to the wider world of people in film, theatre and television, and I feel further away than ever from my goals. But that's not the case. If I used the time I spend daydreaming online actually doing something constructive towards my goals, I'd be so much closer. In fact, I've wasted so much time over the last few years that I could probably have written several novels, learnt a few languages and mastered a couple of instruments. Saying "omg Chris Colfer has published three novels, written and starred in his own movie and written an episode of Glee on top of performing in all the episodes and doing press etc and he's only 23" won't do anything other than make you feel bad. Yes, it shows that some people are successful when they're your age. But a) they're anomalies, and b) they're not spending all their time going "it's not fair so-and-so is my age and yet they're so much more productive than me". It is fair. They're actually working their asses off for what they want. What are you doing? Absolutely nothing, other than thinking you should get on with something.

Yeah, I'm going to say no to that.

I was always a very confident child when I was a lot younger, who believed that she could do whatever she put her mind to. But I wasn't very driven. I didn't need to be. I just stumbled into opportunities, and I was fortunate enough to find a lot of things easy. I didn't need to revise for tests, I didn't need to work hard to make people like me, I didn't get stage fright before performing (in fact I loved the attention and sought it out), I didn't really need to practice any of the instruments I tried to play. But now I do.

Buried somewhere deep, deep down inside me lives that confident child. She's just extremely hidden. Or, clutching to her last breaths, I don't know. But I still believe that I can do whatever I want to if I just put my mind to it. And when I dream about my goals, I dream that I'm successful. Not necessarily famous, but well known and respected by those I know and respect in the same field. I'm also constantly told that most people don't ever achieve the levels of success that I dream about. I know this, and I also know that I won't get anywhere near that if I don't even try, but there's the difficulty. I get scared to try, because I don't want to fail. I've not really ever failed before - I've always landed on my feet. I've also never had to really rely on being driven and working hard to do anything before. I haven't flexed those muscles in a very long time. I don't know that they won't fail me.

But unless I move on from worrying about this all the time, I will definitely fail me.

I need to move on with my life. I need to stop letting this fear of failure paralyse me. Easier said than done, but acknowledging it is at least a step in the right direction. I need to start doing. And I also need to think about what it is I want to do and why I want to do it, because achieving my goals might not even be the way to achieve what I want.

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Things I'm improving on: Keeping my room tidy.
Things I've still got a long way to go with: Updating this blog.

Pound the alarm

Currently reading: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

No song of the day today, as much as I'd like to be listening to something a little upbeat (such as our current title-influence). We're listening to a training course in basic Excel skills whilst we go about our other tasks and talk about ourselves in the plural for some unknown reason.

There hasn't been an update here in a long time for the simple reason that my new job is extremely immersing, and I haven't even properly started working yet! Four weeks of training were meant to culminate in my first role starting last Monday, but I've had the worst luck in the world and that was cancelled, as was the role I was assigned to following that mishap. But we seem to be back on track and I'll be starting my first actual role tomorrow, nearly a full six weeks after officially starting the job.

In some ways, the job being so immersive so far has been good. I've got to know quite a lot of people, I've barely had time to stop and think "what am I doing?", although that has cropped up a little over the last few days, and they provided me with some wonderful food. I was also able to spend two weeks in the US, which is always a nice bonus.

But it hasn't all been sunshine and daisies. Oh no. And the main problem we're going to discuss in this blog post is something we've talked about before.

How on earth do people keep their living spaces tidy!?

This is the situation:

Problem area uno

Problem area dos

And yes, I realise this has only got worse.

This is even worse than when I decided to sort my room out initially! To be honest, my room doesn't completely look like the above. These pictures were taken a couple of days ago. Some parts are better, some parts are worse. Problem area #3 hasn't changed. There are a lot of large empty cardboard boxes in the middle of the room.

I know I need to just grit my teeth and get on with putting things back in their place, but that's a large part of the problem. I'm not sure where a lot of things should go, there's no home for them. For example, my new stretchy bands to use during pilates, or the new pc accessories I have for work. There's just no storage space! I solved one storage problem a few weeks ago, as you can see in the first image, and bought somewhere to stack all my shoes. I think my next purchase needs to be an organiser to hang over my door, because the one hook I have is being seriously overloaded at the moment.

I have to learn how to stay on top of this. I need to sort out storage, buy some baskets maybe, or another bookshelf, and I need to get used to putting things away straight away. Otherwise I'm living in a mess, and it makes me feel unprofessional and lazy. It makes me feel less of a sort-of-adult, and it just doesn't feel like home! So once I've finished this bit of training, I'm going to get to work. The reason I decided to address this issue here is that I'll feel more accountable. I'll have to do it just so that I don't leave this as a lasting impression!

Regular service will resume shortly.