My Morning Motivation Theory and the Most Important Decision of the Day

It's been a while since I've written about something that isn't about my relationship status or alcohol and therefore something needs to change. I've also not given a lot of thought to my last 4 or 5 posts for whatever reason - I'm going to say that they 'came from the heart'. Today's post has required thought though and it is something that I'm looking forward to sharing with you this evening. I hope that I've whetted your appetite with the title; although it doesn't roll off the tongue, it should get the punters in over the next few days. It has also been a while since I've used the word 'theory' in my blogging escapades and so it excites me to be able to bring you my 'Morning Motivation Theory' tonight! The rest will be explained in due course...

The Commercialised Day of the Love Giving Obligation

After successfully securing my solitude for another year I feel, more than ever, to be qualified to deliver this post to you tonight. For the purposes of the this article you should strive to think of me as a half-eaten Kit-Kat or an odd sock because it will help you put it in some kind of context. This time last year (less one day) I wrote a similar post lambasting the commercialised day of the love giving obligation that is Valentine's day. Here I am again, a year on, still with a bee in my bonnet about it. The only issue is that I'm tired of digging my heels into things all of the time so the master-plan for this week is to give both sides of this story. Tonight's post is going to be all about the heel pressure and then Wednesday's post should ease it off somewhat - it's only fair. The only caveat that I serve to you about this whole thing is that this post promises to be much like a red rose: beautiful to some but prickly to others. Look away now if you think you're in love.

Apologies Sent With Love

I'm here! It's a minor miracle that I'm writing tonight because I'm shattered and for another reason that I'm going to elaborate on momentarily. That reason is that I don't really have anything to write about tonight; well I haven't thought of anything to write about - that sounds better. I've not had any drunken antics since last week (and I'd like to keep it that way) and I'm not going to reference the girl again because people are getting bored of that. Just because she's attractive doesn't mean that I have to write about her. I mean, I'm attractive and I don't write about myself all of the time. Oh...wait...damn. Actually as the more seasoned readers of this blog will know, I think myself to be quite the opposite - that's the reason why I write about myself you see. So anyway I've not really got all that much to write about this evening and that actually feels kinda of good but I'll get on with it anyway.

Decaff Coffee and Other Stories From the Past Week

Britney Spears famously sang 'whoops I did it again' - and look at what happened to her. Yes, after two weeks of waxing lyrical about how things have changed for me and how I was going to change, things hit a new (but familiar) all time low for me last week. In today's post I'm going to summarise a few of the things that have happened since Ramblings of a Teenager was last published. I think that you should get yourself comfortable because this promises to be a lengthy post that should make you both laugh and cry in equal measure.

Where better to begin than with the aftermath of last Wednesday's post. I'm not going to lie and say that I regret writing it because I don't. There have been only a few moments in the life of this blog where I felt I was writing something so personal and it felt nice to get it off of my chest. It was a post that was written in a style that I'm not used to writing away from my journal and for me to lay a part of myself bare like that took a little bit of self-encouragement on my part. In fact, 'Just a Glance' could easily be a blurb for a large chunk of what I write about in my journal and therefore you might think yourselves to be the luckiest people on the Internet - you decide. I realised the next day that I had been a bad law student/blog writer when I failed to put in a disclaimer saying that I didn't want any questions as to the identity of this girl. Suffice to say I've been bombarded since by questions and for that I feel a little daft - think before you publish in future has to be the moral of this story.

So anyway the whole thing has brought some level of jocularity to my days because every time I see her I think back to the words that I used last week and chuckle to myself. She'll never know of the frivolities of this blog and I'm sure she wouldn't care if she did - that's what makes me laugh. I might even go as far to say that she is naively attractive but that might be pushing the boat out too far. I stumbled across her Facebook page (which will happen when you spend the amount of time on that thing as I do) and tampered with the idea of 'adding' her. Never have I felt like a stalker before and never again do I want to feel like one and so that was the end of that. It's funny how these things play out in my head sometimes but I'm almost certain that similar stuff goes on in the heads of lots of guys (and probably girls) across the world. In no way is this situation unique.

Since I'm a fan of continuity I'll use the above tale to lead this post on to that low point that I referred to above. Thursday night was the pub quiz again and after the week before you would have thought that I would have taken the drinking a bit more easily. However, I guess I must have drank too much again because half way through my lecture the morning after it was time for me to leave and for everyone else to stay - that is all I'm saying on the matter. The reason why there is continuity (although having to explain this possibly takes the edge off a bit) is that as I was leaving the lecture theatre with about 150 pairs of eyes on me, I caught her out of the corner of mine. My misery was compounded with this and off I slumped with my tail (that being my last shred of Friday morning dignity) between my legs - not cool. 

So I more or less spent the rest of Friday feeling sorry for myself. The folk that were with me during the day will know that I kept hitting myself on my head in frustration as to the state I was in and spent every moment in between looking awful. I went home in the afternoon and told this story to my parents. They called me daft and suggested (in the way that parents do) to try and ease off a little. It shouldn't have taken that but I always do as they say and will be doing a lot of 'easing off' over the coming weeks.

After nursing my misery for a whole day I woke up on Saturday morning to find that my exam results were up - finally. It was in the following hour that I felt that something was back; I wasn't sure what but it was back. After finding out how I had done there was a lot of fist-pumping and (for some reason) a lot of chest beating mixed with sheer adrenaline flowing through every part of my body. I sit here now looking back on Saturday morning with fondness and now I feel like I'm riding a wave that I feel could carry me anywhere - what a difference a day can make.

So here we are the week after all of that fun and, as I sit drinking my umpteenth cup of decaff coffee (because I can) I feel slightly wiser than I did this time last week. The last 3 weeks of my life have been some of the toughest for reasons that I didn't know before. I now know that my head was in the wrong place and that there was only one thing to fix that. The weight that has been lifted off my with the release of the exam results is almost palpable and now I feel ready to charge on with the rest of the year. I'm not perfect (and I never thought I was) because I'll always have vices such as being attracted to girls I can't have but there is something much higher than that which I will always believe in - my brains and my ability.

If you got down to this paragraph then thanks for sticking with me tonight. I understand it's been a bit of a bore for a lot of you but if anything reading something like this should trigger you to think about yourself. A little bit of soul searching now and again is often needed and I feel better for it.

Thanks for reading,

Martin

Just a Glance

It has been a rarity recently for me to write on a Wednesday since I started playing 5s after university. Tonight was very close to being no different really because I'm pretty tired and it hurts to sit still for a prolonged period - suffice to say that tonight's post is going to be brief. I have been withering about producing this post for a wee while now because of the repercussions that I might suffer as a result. I'm not worried that I'll annoy anyone but I am slightly concerned about the effect that this might have on me when I publish in about half an hour's time. It will either go well or it will end up in a foot-in-mouth situation so read on to find out what the outcome will be.

The Week of Coffee, Chocolate and the Box-Set

If someone was ever to write a book about my life then the last few days would be referred to as the title of this post. After initially getting over the confusion as to why someone was writing my biography (and checking they were mentally sound) I would have to ensure that such names were used to describe the inane details of my life - I doubt if it would be an easy read. This last week of my holiday has been spent drinking my favourite brown coloured drink (closely followed by a cup of Bovril), eating more chocolate that I have in the last 5 years and watching the same amount of House as I usually do in these times of 'vacation'. If you read my post on Monday night then you were probably thinking afterwards just how much better you're holiday has been than mine. The truth is that it's actually not so bad at the other end of these fingers that type this sweet poetry to you this evening.

A New...Something

Blink and you'll miss it. Another year has come and gone and I've not even had a moment to take stock. Over the last few weeks I've tried to find a moment to myself so that I could have a proper look back over 2011 - my 2011. It was the first full calendar year that I've been at university. It was the first year when I went on holiday without my parents for the first time. It was a year of epic highs and of ultimate lows. I can delve into any day of my journal from the last 365 days and know that there was hardly a time in the year when my brain wasn't switched on - for better or for worse. But now I stand at the cusp of yet another year of my life and I'm not quiet sure what to make it it all. A couple of days ago I was excited about the prospect of the new year and what it might bring but, after a slightly flat start to 2012, I'm not 100% certain what to do next. 

Could Face-to-Face be Phased Out?

As the dulcet tones of one of my university lecturers echoed through the corridor of my flat this afternoon, it dawned on me that personal contact isn't quite as important as it maybe once was. We (that being myself and 2 of my flatmates) had a lecture today that was replaced by a recorded lecture which was online. It was the same stuff that we would have been told had we all trudged over to the lecture theatre as our timetables tell us to but this week the lecturer in question was unable to attend and so made a digital version instead. It's a curiosity of the modern era that, in a time when we are told as youngsters to get away from the computer screen and become more sociable, we are being fed more and more information via the internet. Personally I like it because it adds a new level of flexibility to your day - something that I'm starting to feel is essential after only 3 days of 2nd year - but its long term affects could be perilous.

Reality Bites, But Only Because It's Hungry and Needs Attention

Much has been written recently (by myself more than most) about the impending rebirth of the university/college drag and today's post is going to be very much along the same lines. After all it is just around the corner for most of us and therefore the feelings are running a little bit higher about it than at any other point in the summer break. For me, today signals the 2 weeks notice until I pull myself out of bed at some unfamiliar hour for lectures that are going to twist and stretch my brain power to the max - this year never said it was going to be kind to me. My timetable for the year ahead was released last week and it looks pretty ugly - think Shrek after being hit over the face by a thick textbook. The reality of my situation is that the days are going to be longer and the stress levels are going to be elevated. The thing is that I knew it was coming and that's the reason why I think that I'm going to be able to take it in my stride. This is where I'm coming from in today post: if you prepare yourself for the reality of your situation and don't ignore it, it won't be quite as hard to deal with.

My Favourite Day of the Year

For people that are not fond of football or just don't follow it as much as most people, today will be like any other day of summer to them. Depending on where you are reading this the sun might well be shining and whatever you had planned for today will invariably have been pretty common - it's only a Wednesday after all. The thing is however, that for football fans across the globe and particularly in Britain, this day carries a lot of significance: it is (of course) transfer deadline day. I'm writing this post at about 5pm on the 31st August 2011 and it's killing me that I'm away from the TV at the moment. There are very few days like this that will capture the imagination of so many people and I, unashamedly, can admit that it is my favourite day of the year.

The Wrath of the Beer-Belly

I enjoy a good pint and I'm not afraid to admit it. I've grown to love the taste of a crisp, cold pint of beer or ale in the last few years and let's just say that I've had enough experience to lead me to this stage. When I started out drinking, beer was more or less all I would drink. After a few bad experiences with spirits and a deep loathing for cider, I settled on beer. At the time when I was just getting into drinking I over-indulged myself on quite a few occasions which is the norm with young adults. I've seen it all in the last few years: having to drink in people's houses because your not 18 yet and then when you turn 18 riding it for all it's worth. That in turn has led to many a teenage hangover of which I have had my fair share. The thing is that the hangover (which was not always a guaranteed outcome thankfully) was the only problem that I would have with drinking too much. Now that I'm a bit older I'm starting to fear the specter of many a beer drinker - the beer-belly.

Thought Provoking

With only being able to post once last week I've been thinking about something new that I could do for this week that will quench to almost palpable thirst for posts that I can sense from my readers. The thing that I've come up with almost seems like a contradiction to that because my plan is to write a shorter post with a single line that is sure to get you thinking. So today's post is going to be less than long and might fail to inspire many people but I hope that it hits home with at least a handful of people.

I heard this line a long time ago on a (very) early morning jazz radio program when I was heading on holiday - the reason I was up at that time listening to the radio. I can't quite remember what they were talking about apart from the fact that it was something to do with jazz but it was something that really hit a chord with me and it had me thinking for most of my journey: to feel completely free you must first fully restrict yourself. It was something to do with jazz in the context of the program but I felt that it could apply to life in general. The message I took was that to truly feel the freedom of a holiday or just time off you have to fully commit yourself to the complete opposite, be it university, school or work. Yes everyone enjoys time off from things but it is my feeling that you have to earn that time off by fully restricting yourself first.

Thanks for reading my short but hopefully thought provoking post today!

Martin

Mind Numbing

I'm sitting in front on my laptop trying to work out what I could write about tonight and nothing is coming to me - and I mean nothing. Some people might put this down as writer's block but I put it down to being idle. Over the last 2 and a half months I've not really done anything that stimulates my brain. Even my holiday is a distant memory that feels like it could have been a year ago instead of a month. I ask myself what I've been doing with my time since I finished university and I sadly come up with very little. I've only finished 1 book this summer and I've hardly got started on another one since then. I've not even found the energy to watch the films and TV shows that I planned to watch which is crazy since I've had so much time before my trip and after to do such things that I can't understand why I haven't. It's now brought me to the conclusion that I've numbed my brain and that I'm going to have to train it back up to be on top form when the new university year comes around. It's not going to be easy and finding the motivation is going to be the toughest part of it but it's something that I've just got to do.

A Dreaming Psycho

How often do you remember your dreams? I think that I'm lucky if I can remember (even parts of) mine twice in the space of about two weeks. I know people that can trot theirs off from start to finish and it makes me slightly jealous - until recently anyway. I had a dream a couple of weeks back that really creeped me out and put me off wanting to remember my dreams so much. Below I'll give a brief description as to what happened and how I felt when I woke up and then, if you haven't closed your browser by that point, I'm going to see if this reflection has helped. I've heard that you should write your dreams down when they are still fresh in your memory because over time it builds up a picture of your subconscious. I think that my notebook would be a very slim volume with a few less than savory reminders of my night-time wonderings.

The Internet: The Third Arm of Society

You learn a lot about people when you travel. I'm not talking about the people that you are traveling with in particular because you are bound to get to know them better; I mean the people that you encounter along the way. Traveling appeals to lots of different types of people and therefore when you stay in hostels all over Europe you get to see a very clean cross-section of the 'world society'. Anyone who has ever been in a hostel (either at home or abroad) will understand the kind of mix of people that can be found in places like that - it's all very interesting. One of the main things that I observed about these people when I was on holiday was that they all had one thing in common: they all wanted access to the internet. No matter what type of person it was or where they were from, everyone hovered around the computers in the hostel until there was one free. Most of them were looking for their fix of Facebook but no matter what they wanted to do online it struck me that whatever it was, it was vital. It brought me to the conclusion that most people (particularly young people) can't live without access to the internet for longer than a few days. I'm no different and I knew that I was going to struggle but it's nice to know that I'm one many who need to have the internet at their fingertips whenever they desire it.

Human Sculptors

If I've never used the phrase 'learn from your mistakes' in at least one of my blog posts in the past then I'll be shocked. I feel that the sentiment behind saying such a thing can also be applied to good things in your life: 'learn from your successes' so to speak. It is through the things that we do, and the things we don't do for that matter, that we become who we are. If we were all to sit indoors all day not doing anything or testing ourselves against anyone then we would remain the same until the day we decide to get up and move. It is through physical and mental acts that we create who we are and, as the title of this post suggests, sculpt ourselves in the way that we want.

The Voice in our Heads

Today's entry promises to be something of a short post since I am pretty tired from playing football for a large chunk of the day. It's nice to have good weather (if a little bit unpredictable) for stuff like that - lifts your mood somewhat. Today's post is about the things that go on inside our heads that make us go stir crazy - I'll try and keep this as cheery as possible, I promise! People say that talking to yourself is one of the first signs of madness but we all do it. Does this make us all crazy or is this the norm? I'm not really talking about vocalising with yourself but more the stuff that goes on inside your head. I'm talking to myself inside my head as I type this post and you'll talk inside your head to yourself when you have finished reading - it's perfectly natural. But what of those things that we spend hours thinking about (the opposite sex, exams etc)? Those are the kind of things that can really eat a person up something proper and I think we all need to learn how to deal with it before we can ever call ourselves happy.

The Emergence of Me

Mondays are back. After last week's lapse in posting, the day that is dedicated to what's going on in my life has returned - don't close the window yet! The funny thing about missing last week's post is that I find myself having two things to write about for today's post which is a very rare thing indeed. The fact that I didn't have anything to write about last week anyway also suggests that last week was a little bit more stimulating for me that my last week of university - how very weird indeed. I'm not going to get into the thing that I'm not going to write about today simply because it's a little bit of a touchy subject at the moment and in some ways I might be able to incorporate it into today's musings. My post today is about me pulling myself out of my shell in the last year or so. The fact that I had a week of doing almost nothing last week gave me a little time to think about the whole thing and this is what I've come up with...

Natural Selection

To open today's post with anything but an apology (or a least an explanation) for the absence of Monday's post would be nothing but rude. My body seems to think that it's in holiday mode and to a certain extent it is. I've had my last classes of the academic year and I've got a whole 6 weeks to play with before my exams come around - who can blame me for missing a 'Me on Mondays' post? Well if anyone can then it would be myself and I do and to be perfectly (and selfishly) honest, the only person I have to answer to is me so if anyone missed out on Monday then it was yours truly. On top of that, a Monday post requires something interesting to have happened in my recent life or at least for something interesting to have occurred to me about myself and nothing really has since last week. Silence is golden and short of blowing my own trumpet (again) I didn't really have anything to write about anyway. But anyway, moving on to today's post which will hopefully make up for a quiet week. As I reached for my 5th or 6th cup of coffee yesterday I wondered to myself if there might be a more natural way to wake myself up. That, in turn, got me thinking about what is actually 'natural' - it turns out that it was a bigger question than I originally thought.

The Two Views of Life

I sometimes wonder if I come a little bit too close to talking about myself all the time in this blog. The idea was to talk about myself on Mondays and then the rest of the world on Wednesdays but I sometimes wonder if I cross the two over a little bit too much. Today's post dances nicely along the line between the two as well but then again I'm going to (try to) avoid talking about myself too much! Monday's post wasn't one of my best because I actually felt a little bit drained after the weekend. Not that it was particularly taxing but I certainly think that having a good time can tire you out. Call me stupid but when you're having a good time you're inevitably going to be using more energy than when you aren't - it follows a fairly coherent line of thought if you ask me. After what was an awesome weekend I felt lethargic and to a certain extent I still do. I think I'll go back to being unenthusiastic for a few days to see if I can get my mojo back - or maybe I'll just start going to my bed earlier! Today's post is all about the two ways that you can look at everything we do in life. In one of last week's posts I talked about the difference between policy and operational decisions and today I'm going to talk about another two-sided thing - who needs tripartite concepts when all you need is 2?