Is this the beginning of the end? Or have we been sliding down a slippery slope for some time now, with little consideration for the very hard landing that’s rushing up to meet us at an ever increasing pace? Or, are we just clueless, and at the mercy of propaganda from all sides of every argument, heading towards a technological utopia, environmental disaster and our own extinction, or any number of an infinite amount of other possibilities?

What’s clear to me, is frankly, more or less, nothing. Where all news has an agenda, and technology can be used to fake almost anything, I can’t decide whether to go with my gut and believe what seems most plausible (to me), or ignore it all, and drag my family off to a cabin in the woods and attempt to live off the land, as close as possible to what’s left of the natural (non-human) world.

I’m inclined to go with my gut, whilst aspiring to a self-reliant life on the homestead of my dreams. I’m neither content to become a complete hermit, nor am I really interested in attempting to analyse all the noise that passes for news. That being said, I am more inclined to believe the slippery slope assessment of our predicament (based on a combination of gut feeling and personal experience) than any other evaluation. Looking around at the madness of elections, black Fridays, crazy Christmas consumerism, and the tendency (still, after all these years) to relegate responsibility for our actions to the bottom of our list of priorities, I find it very difficult to imagine that humans are not racing downhill towards our own messy demise, and what’s more, taking an unbelievable amount of other unsuspecting species with us.

I’m as sick of all the bad news as everyone else, particularly as what it has really achieved is to numb us all to it. In much the same way as we can accept horrific fictional violence through years of exposure to films and books, without being unduly traumatised, it all becomes just another story. It either doesn’t really affect us, or it’s not our problem, or there’s some hero out there dealing with it and it’ll be OK. Either way, I myself am not responsible and can get on with my life as if it wasn’t happening. And anyway, do we know it really is happening?

Confusing. Frustrating. Disappointing. Tiring.

I am forcing myself to be optimistic, whilst recognising a certain futility in that. How much can we do? What would it take. What if I do everything I can (I’m not yet doing everything I can, by the way) but others don’t. What about all these other things that are going on? How do we prioritise? Can logic and reason save us? Are all of our scientific advances for the best? Can we continue to advance intellectually without damaging each other and the planet? How much of what we have become accustomed to will we have to give up in order to reverse the damage we are doing? Is any business model really sustainable? Can we progress without degrading people or planet? What will it take? Are we capable? Where are we going, and why?

What is your art? That which most occupies your thoughts, your heart, your spare time?

Eventually it will pay. That’s what they say. Whoever they are.

I heard a song on the radio yesterday that I’ve not heard for years, and I was struck by the following lines:

Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life…
the most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives
some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don’t

Baz Luhrmann – Everybody’s Free (to wear sunscreen)

It followed a conversation I’d had a couple of weeks ago with an old friend who, in response to my frustrations at so far having not found a ‘true purpose’, was very quick to remind me of some of the other highlights of my life. I might not be an expert in x, y or z, and my professional choices thus far may not have changed the world, nor saved any lives, but I’ve not had such a bad time of it. In fact I’ve had, and am still having, a pretty great time. As I write this, my mum has just sent me an excerpt from a letter I wrote to my parents when I was 18 years old and travelling around Australia, which was funnily enough what this song reminded me of when I heard it in the car yesterday.

‘Some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don’t…’

And this is how I shall now choose to look at myself. I’m happy at 40 years old, that I can’t sum up my art, passion, talents, direction or identity in a professional title, and that you might need to be sitting comfortably with your favourite drink in hand to hear the answer to the question…. ‘ what do you do?’

An incredibly ambiguous question that has come to mean, for the most part… How do you earn your money? Until now, I’ve been a little embarrassed to answer it, believing myself to have been wasting my time and talents with work for which I had no affinity. However, another quote that I recently stumbled across –

‘You are currently experiencing exactly what you need to experience‘,

has led me to consider the lessons that I perhaps should have learned, the stories there may yet be to tell, and the path that lays ahead of me now, on to which I am tiptoeing cautiously.

For now, my ‘art’ shall be writing, and I shall pursue it with everything I can, and in every moment I have available. Seeking my voice, my way, and the wonder of the journey.

Thank goodness it’s done is all I can say! We spent four weeks camped out in front of my 3 year old son’s new school until he was ready to go through the gate, and stay inside of his own accord. From 8:30am until 12:30 pm. Monday to Friday. Screams, tears, refusing to let go of us, or even to leave the house in the morning sometimes. We were engaged in a psychological tug of war. We would never have pushed him through the gate kicking and screaming, but if ever we gave in, as I confess I did on one particular morning, the happy carefree little boy immediately rediscovered his cheerful demeanour during the first three steps homeward.

Using his tantrums as a tool. His will against ours. It was certainly a test of our parental patience. In order to show him that we recognised his discomfort, whilst not giving in to his emotional outbursts, we opted to sit it out. On the floor, outside the school gate. It’s a good job we live in a warm climate! Most of the time, we did nothing but sit quietly, talking of this and that, trying not to make a big deal out of it, whilst being clear however, that this was neither playtime nor home time. We waited until the first child went home, and then we could also leave. Sometimes he went through the gate for a minute or two, never disappearing from view, and then came out again. Other days, we just watched through the bars as the other children played. Some of them regularly invited him to join them, but it wasn’t until sometime in the third week that he finally decided to give it a proper go. And then little by little, day by day, he stayed longer and longer, until after a month, we could finally leave him, with only the slightest grumble as we walked away.

He loves it now, but it was an exhausting month. The paradox of this pandemic situation is that being furloughed from work allowed us the time to work through this difficult experience with our son, rather than feel forced to leave him there screaming because we didn’t have another choice. However I think that the extended lockdown and the new restrictions were essentially the cause of the trials in the first place. Having spent 6 months with only his family for company, finding himself thrust into a building he doesn’t know, with people whose faces are hidden behind masks, speaking a language that he has heard very little of during the last half-year (we live in Spain, but speak English and German at home), I can well imagine that it must have been a daunting experience for a 3 year old. For us parents too. We couldn’t go into the school with him, nor talk much with the teachers. This wasn’t how we planned it. We imagined a soft and interactive beginning where we were part of the journey. Getting to know the school with him, as we did nearly two years earlier in kindergarten.

We nearly threw in the towel, frustrated as we were, but in hindsight it was worth the struggle. It was the best way given the circumstances, to get through a challenging phase. One made all the more difficult by the rules and regulations of these strange times we’re living in. He’s happy at school and we’re happy rediscovering the freedom of five child-free mornings per week.

In a previous post, I took stock of my current situation and promised (myself as much as anyone else) to share my journey forward from here. An exercise in self-accountability and practicing a daily habit of writing. Since that post, I have begun a writing course, opened an instagram account, and covered my desk with paper filled with my somewhat out-of-practice scrawl. Typing is ok, but I still prefer to write with a pen, and as long as the paper can handle it, a fountain pen. I’m still using one I owned when I was at school.

The course I am doing is a commercial writing course, but the daily writing habit I am trying to cultivate is more about emptying my head on to a page or three without censorship or excessive thought. Sometimes it makes sense, sometimes not so much. Occasionally it reveals something interesting, and once I’m in the flow, it’s always enjoyable.

I’m battling a little with my own impatience and the inner struggles that come with priority changes and big decisions, and I’m recognising a few of the fears that have held me back from taking some of these decisions earlier. All the usual suspects in varying doses. Failure, attachment, rejection, acceptance, getting stuck, not having enough money, living in the wrong place etc. I always thought I was above and beyond these concerns, but as I take a closer look at myself, whilst I haven’t been as deeply affected as some others perhaps, I have certainly felt their influence at various points along the way.

I’ve also done a lot of reading. Seemingly all the right books about freeing yourself from the daily grind, becoming more successful, working less and earning more, starting your own business, simplifying your life, living your dreams, and earning a living from your passions (once you’ve worked out what they are of course). I’ve listened to podcasts, read articles, subscribed to newsletters, and thought about doing some courses, but usually decided against it when I found out how much they cost. What I have yet to do is take serious and committed action on the things I learn from all the reading, listening and watching. Knowledge is not power until it is put to appropriate use.

Inspired by a recent conversation with a friend, my wife reminded me, yet again, and in a rather uncomfortable fashion, that we are still ‘going around in circles’ with our ifs, buts and maybes, and our we-need-to-do-this-first-and-then-we-can… approach to our dreams. We have tripped up over our own excuses for too long. It’s not that we haven’t been busy, quite the contrary, yet all that busyness hasn’t moved us much closer to our ambitions.

We have lived too long in a state of expectation of our goals…. they’re coming! Only tomorrow never comes, and dreams remain dreams.

We must begin to view the present as the gift that it is, and move forward as if we are already achieving our goals, living our dreams and reaching our highest ambitions. Work through the fatigue sometimes, get up earlier or go to bed later. Do not put off until tomorrow that which can be done today. Do not allow ourselves to be having these same conversations 10 years, 5 years or even one year from now.

We are who we want to be, going where we want to go, and living life how we want to live it. Here and now.

There’s nothing quite like global chaos to make you sit back and take stock. The world as we knew it changed inalterably this year, and it won’t go back to the way it was before, of that I feel sure. I’m not getting into a conversation about the current pandemic here, frankly I’m tired of talking and hearing about it. This is about me trying to move on and live my life in a way that allows me to take care of my family through the peaks and the troughs, and that has some kind of personal and global meaning. I repeat myself here: this is me, writing publicly in order to hold myself accountable, as I attempt to unravel my thoughts and find a way to my definition of freedom and success – working from my laptop wherever I wish, generating sufficient income to fulfil my dreams and aspirations, loving what I do, and making a positive difference in the world.

As I take a look at myself, I realise that I fit certain clichés. I’m forty years old, married with children, and wondering what to do with my life. I don’t consider it a ‘midlife crisis’ however. I have so much to be grateful for and so many great experiences to look back on, and I am deliriously happy to be sharing my life with my wife and children. That being said, there are one or two things that need to change.

In all of my working years, work has never served more of a purpose to me than earning money, and even then, I’ve never earned very much. I’ve moved from one job to the next, never considering it to be more than a temporary position, hoping that the next one will be more interesting, or more ‘me’. I’ve never committed to any long term career path. Living paycheque to paycheque, I have viewed work (or better said, the necessity of earning money) as a hinderance to be suffered rather than something to get my teeth into and relish. Although I’ve managed to fund some travel and hobbies along the way, I’ve never had savings or a safety net, and on more than one occasion, I’ve been bailed out of financial tight spots by friends and most notably, my parents. Now as a father myself, out of work (again), and reliant on a combination of government support and my own parents (thank goodness I have them), I’m tired and more than a little disappointed to find myself (now ourselves) still in this situation.

This is my promise to myself and my wife and children, to leave behind our financially ‘on the edge’ and professionally unfulfilling lifestyle, and journey on into our better and more abundant lives, as more confident and inspired parents and individuals.

If you would like to come along with me on this journey then you are more than welcome. I can’t tell you where it will lead yet, and the route maybe be full of twists and turns and ups and downs, but I’m excited about the new adventure, and I hope that in sharing it, it may somehow be beneficial to you too.

Well I missed day ten, for a mixture of work and family reasons, but still walked 5km to the fair ground and back!

Twenty one days of running in ‘barefoot’ shoes. I doubt I need to explain the concept with all the publicity these days, but I’m very much enjoying it. Yes I’ve started short and slow, and no I won’t be running marathons any time soon, but my daily three to five kilometres are more than enough for now to keep me motivated… and I can fit them in around work and family time. On work days I usually stop somewhere on the way home to run, and so far, almost all of the runs so far have been different routes, which also helps to keep it interesting despite the short distances. Although I will repeat routes to track progress further down the line.

It’s great to have the routine of daily exercise again, I’m also doing fifteen  minutes of online German lessons every day… let’s see if I can squeeze in a daily writing session too.

I’m not going to congratulate myself just yet for my three days in a row, but I do feel good for it! So my legs seem to made of wood, but with less spring in them, and more than twenty minutes effort feels like a marathon, but in my head at least, I feel like I’m off to a good start and on the right track.

A few years ago when I was training for an off-road ultramarathon, I ran every day (at least 10km), and sometimes twice a day, for about two months, and even though this was after a season of triathlons, culminating with an ironman, I felt stronger than I had ever been. I’m hoping for the same effect this time!

Just a short post, before I head out the door for a twenty minute run to the local pool for a twenty minute swim… I’ll get a lift home!

 

Hi, my name is Stu, and I’m an out of practice athlete.

I was only moderately active throughout my teens, and spent more time pretending I was a rock star, than worrying about my fitness. In my mid-twenties however, following one of many professional/life-direction crises, I discovered triathlon, and more specifically, ironman-distance triathlon. I got into it quickly, buying a bike only 12 weeks before my first race, and having no real clue about how to train for such a thing. My first race was a half-ironman… 1.9km swim, 90km bike, 13.1km run. It hurt, it was hard, and I loved it!

For the next six years I completed a number of ironman-distance races, half, full, and double marathons, and many other running and swimming races of varying distances. And then, for reasons I still don’t fully understand, I stopped.

Maybe I was tired, maybe I was bored. Maybe I needed space in my life for other things. I’m now a dad, and in full time work, and five years on from my last race or any serious training. I’m lucky enough to not be struggling with weight gain or injury, but I do feel sluggish and like something is missing. I can’t imagine resuming the volume of training I was doing all those years ago, indeed, I haven’t been able to find the time (organise myself) to do even a tenth of my previous activity. So, inspired by a friend who did the same a few years ago, and countless internet videos by people who had much bigger hurdles to leap than me, I hereby pledge to run every single day for the next year.

I will start small, and see where it leads me, and I shall use this blog to help me stay focussed and accountable.

I’m finding myself very much drawn into the world of personal development gurus and philosphers. I guess that’s a just a sign that I need to redress the sails and put my ship on the right tack. I am actually and metaphorically speaking, in a very good place. I love my family and I live in a nice house in a warm climate by the sea. No complaints so far. But there’s nothing quite like a newborn child to give you a kick in the proverbial, and think about what’s really important.

To me, it seems to be time for myself and family, and freeing myself from the daily grind of a job that’s of no real interest to me (fortunately I don’t hate it) and putting my energy into things I enjoy and that are of some good use to the planet.

In short, time for pleasure, and time for progress. This is going to invlove some serious thought into what I want, and then some equally serious and realistic planning and action.

Talking specifically about my ‘bigger picture’ ambitions, it does frustrate me when the things that I hold to be important are belittled in favour of other things that others deem more so. I’m not naive, nor do I think that my ideas are always better than anyone elses, however I try to refrain from having a dig at someone else’s priorities.

In this case I’m referring to a comment that was made following a post I read about how much more plastic there will be than fish in the oceans by 2050. The writer in question was incensed that we should be wasting time on such things when there were obviously  much more important problems to be worried about like terrorism, wars and plenty of other humanitarian crises.

These are obviously problems, and by obvious, I also mean that they are immediate, graphic, and recognisably frightening problems, that invoke an instant emotional response. In that way, they provide us with an easy focus for our fears, and supposedly a relatively small choice of options for dealing with them. Find and eliminate the bad guys. The idea is simple, even if putting it into action and carrying it out, is not.

For me, it’s not that simple. There are many, many complex social conditions that lead to war and terrorism, and I don’t believe that it can be simplified into a struggle of good versus evil, or even us versus them. It’s too big a topic to explore here and now, in the ten minutes I have before work, but my response to this kind of prioritising, would go something like this…

If we can find a way to somehow realise and accept, globally, that we have big environmental problems, and that there is a lot we could (and should) be doing to make the world a better place, then these problems have the potential to bring us all together. Rather than fighting over who has more or less, we could work together to make sure that we all have enough, with some to spare… and share.