What I need to do less of

1. Stop being miserable – even if I am sad at times I must always try to be nice to other people. I am very conscious that my resting face is the personification of watching my own mother being molested so I need to switch things up and even when I am knee deep in the dullest of conversations I need to plaster on a big old smile.
Being miserable doesn’t just hurt me and my life, being miserable rubs off on other people, and at social events people don’t like it when you answer their question of “What’s your favourite sport” with “I like the one that is played forever and ever on a constant cycle of winners and losers aimlessly until I die”.

2. Stop being selfish – altruistic behaviour is crucial for a happy life. It is hard not to be selfish because we are wired to work that way but we do have a choice. Doing good deeds for others is the main sweetness in the fruit cake that is life.

3. Stop eating so much – I accidently shaved off my beard the other day as the razor broke and I thought as I looked in the mirror, you fat chin-less nothing. I need to lose weight and always have but I am at the point now where I will live until about 60. The problem I have is that food is delicious. A chocolate bar is never going to taste the same as an apple. My girlfriend told me she ate at Apple the other day and it made her feel full up. I am considering renting out my stomach as storage space for when people move house.

4. Being afraid – I have moments where I am scared to try something or put myself in a tough situation but life is about living and sometimes if we push ourselves now we will thank ourselves later. I have a funny feeling about flying and fear of turbulence but I need to travel the world, so I must force myself to go against my instincts as I will thank myself for the life experience.

5. Start listening to my parents – my parents have a lot to say and often I will disregard them because they don’t have a complete grasp of the modern world. My parents are the only people in the world who will do anything for me so I need to appreciate that. Even if they don’t always show it, they have my best interests at heart.

6. Stop listening to my parents – My parents can say things that poison my mind and can tell me hurtful things. Sometimes rather than being direct and having a heart to heart emotional conversation instead they will say something hurtful as though I should know better and just indirectly pick up what they’re trying to say. I can always remember when I got offered a new job, I was so excited and when I called to speak to my parents the first thing they said was “How much is the salary?” A little bit put a back I told them and they were disappointed, they said I had to ask for more money. I tried with the employer and they turned me down. My mother then said in a passive-agressive tone “Oh well never mind, I suppose it’s a step in the right direction to getting a good job”. I felt so deflated, I couldn’t be excited again. It felt like a wake up call. I try to protect myself by not telling them things that make me happy because I don’t want them to undermine the happiness I have.

7. Acting like nothing matters – yer okay humans are insignificant! and yer okay there is no god!, and yer okay the planet is on a trajectory into a sun! and yer okay all humans are essentially animals that have predictable reproductive cycles that become about as cliché as the sun rising and setting but things have value. I need to take a leaf out of Stoicism and say to myself none of this is in my control. I am aware of all of the above and I can still wake up in the morning. Ignorance is definitely bliss and I must try to enrich people’s lives by being loving, caring and considerate.

8. Being a shit friend – I have always been a crap friend, I have paid for it in my life by losing some wonderful smart people. Life moves on and our lives change but I can’t help think of the NIN lyric “Through the stains of time, the feelings disappear. You are someone else, and I am still right here”. I need to do altruistic things to overcome my own anxieties and if I work really hard and make an effort I know I can earn back and retain the friendship of the many I have lost and will inevitably lose later on.

You should be afraid

When I was a young boy I was fascinated with dreams and how they can take complete control of us. Although I often had fun telling tales of the places I had explored in my psyche I was still unsettled by them. As a young boy I was easily spooked and just so much as a 10 second clip of a horror film was enough to keep me awake at night and lent itself to nightmares. Some of the imagery in horror films plays on out fight or flight modes and gets the adrenaline running.

I can remember when I was very young I would often sit awake in that darkness completely petrified. When you’re young a lot of basic things don’t make sense and you are constantly trying to make sense of the world. When you are having nightmares as a child you try to make sense of the madness and it is even more upsetting.

I can remember a nightmare where I was on the moon trying to run away from some crazy surgeons with butcher knives. As I ran into the horizon I could see the whole of space and could see the earth glowing in the distance. As I was running away a sea monster larger than the whole planet appeared and swallowed the entire planet I was on. When I awoke from that dream I sat awake for 10 minutes trying to come to terms with what I had witnessed.

The fear of nightmares used to ruin my sleep and it got the better of me. I used to go on this was for quite a long time. One evening I had a revelation. I was stirred from a nightmare like always and instead of staying in bed I stood up and walked to my bedroom window which looked out over the street I lived in. As I glanced out the window I saw the light from a large lorry zoom past and lit up the street. As soon as I saw that I realised that person is working. When I went to sleep I thought the whole world stopped but obviously it doesn’t. I started to think that actually the world is bigger than my nightmares. As I worried in bed people across the world were having the time of their lives, people getting married, holidays, new lives being brought into the world! I had nothing to worry about.

As I grew older I watched horror films, played scary games and I kept testing my limits with horrors. As I have grown older I have learnt to appreciate the thrills of being scared. Life can be very hard and you don’t have to be afraid if you don’t want to. No matter what scares you, you’re much stronger than you think you are!