let the medlody shine, let it cleanse your mind, i feel free now

This week I watched the news a lot. My job allows me the luxury of sitting in front of a screen with BBCnews24 on for 8 hours each day. Some find the TV a teasing irritation. For me it is pure bliss. I have always revelled in current affairs, the stormy mix of political rowdiness and media hyperbole. Recently I have watched the news; and the many people who pass comment, and realised that a lot is wrong with society.

The moral compass has gone. The expenses row still shadows Westminster like a unmoveable smog. The authority of MP's to protect the interests of their constituents has all but diminished this Summer. Have the media made more of this story than it is? I don't think so. If anything; it has not made the news enough; with the divorce of Peter and Jordan taking up just as many column inches.

How can we wish for a better society when the very people we entrust on the top branch of the United Kingdom have failed us so spectacularly? They have dishonestly swindled money out of the taxpayer for their own selfish gain. Much else is wrong with UK politics right now. The layers and layers of bureaucracy and target managers that plague and strangle the public sector are infuriating. The policeman who sits in his station filling out forms for hours on end instead of protecting his citizens on the street; the hospital manager who spends hours analysing his ward chart and pressuring his staff to "wheel out" patients within 4 hours, the teacher too afraid to take their class on a school trip in case an accident happens and they are sued, the full time care worker who could work 10 less hours and get the same pay due to the failed government benefits system, the soldier in Afghanistan who didn't have the right equipment to keep him safe. These are the people politics are failing. And in the 21st century world there are no excuses and no hiding places.

the book of love...

I find it staggering how amazing the people in this world really are. Lets forget about those who aren't; for there are an incredible majority of selfless, touching examples of human beings. People who help others, people who help bind society together and create the very moral fibres i aspire to. Are these people born this way? With the mindset and mentality to be truly patient and wonderful with those around them? Or is it a nurtured talent, a talent which any of us are capable of. Perhaps thats not an answer id like to know.

The lust to become a better person has often nagged at my soul. A selfish guilt that i could give so much more. I am able bodied and have no obvious flaw to hold me back from helping others. I could easily volunteer abroad, work in a charity shop; or simple help out at a youth club. I could easily be nicer to many around me, many strangers, many people i cross each day at work. What prevents this from happening? A selfish and dirty greed. I feel like im getting better; i feel like i have a chance to change. This week saw some political speeches by two men of great importance to the future of this country. It reminded me that government have got it wrong recently. In fact in the past government have often got it wrong. These well educated men have jeopardised our flourishing nation. But they have always put it right. And this tiny island remains at the fore front of the world. I think i can learn from my bloated mistakes too.

And as for the fantastic and inspiring people i often meet and often see- thank you. For been yourself. For been true to yourself. Take a little hope, plant your seed and watch it grow. Goodnight

and when it rains will you always find an escape? just running away from all the ones who love you, from everything

Its a funny old world. I often find myself uttering the words "what a difference a week makes". Hope can become glory, destruction becomes creation and solace can become heaven. From the ashes of my broken mind I have risen like a phoenix into a new and unknown beginning, setbacks have been frequent and problems are still ripe- but hope is more than ever and the light is invading the darkness. There is a spring air in the autumn sky and a damaged soul is showing signs of healing.
My job is becoming second nature, my routine becoming manageable and 2 wild nights out have shown me angels. Destiny has taken me to someone who looks like a former love. As i write this born slippy has just enriched the mood as my ipod shuffles to fates demands....
Good things happen to good people is a quote i live by. I still feel i can be so much better. And with that my life will become so much better. I am going to make a list of 5 principles i need to adhere to, 5 things i dearly want to change. And maybe if i listen to myself i can become who i need to be. Some people watch life go by, some people live for themselves, some people want to make a difference. Some people just want love. Im not sure if i can make a big difference, but if a million people made even a small difference, the world would be a better place

storybook romance

The month of September is one which i think i will always find special. It marks the beginning of the academic year- and with it the start of a brand new chapter for so many; from the pupils right down to the dinner ladies. New friends, fresh interests and unfamiliar surroundings are just some of the things thousands will embrace each September.

For many it is something to yearn for, an excitement like no other; for others it is the source of weeks of nervous and uneasy feelings. For me it is a contorted mixture of the two. Anxiousness mixed with a raw sense of expectation and hope. And it is hope that i am filled with on this 3rd week of September after such an uninviting beginning to this leaf soaked month suddenly lurched up. In my debt ridden, bloated life there is suddenly a field of daffodils filled with noise and cheers and smiles and sunshine and the saturdays and natasha. Whilst those things may be fantasy; the promise of change is real.

This afternoon i recieved a text from Macdonalds and a phone call from a recruitment agency. Both inviting me for interviews. At half past 8 tomorrow i will step onto the TransPenineExpress service to Manchester Airport and touch down in Sheffield in my primark suit with a new chance to start again. A job in a call centre is not exactly where i hoped id be in September 2009, but at £6.50 an hour it represents a good chance for me to clear my debts, clear my name and start again.

Maybe September 2010 will be the greatest yet.

golden archway

A fresh new morning and fresh new hope.

I am aware this blog is fastly becoming a self-centered, autobiographical diary of my life and thoughts rather than my views on the wider world. But if you just bare with me through the winter i think together we'll find the spring :)

Those fresh green shoots which slowly crawl through the soil to see the light. A metaphor i hope i can allure to. What a difference a day makes. Having applied for 10 jobs last night (one of which at macdonalds) and changing my desktop background to a picture of Brooke & Julian i suddenly feel 10 times better.

I am a great believer that those who try will succeed and that good things, eventually, will happen to good people. I have spent this morning trecking through the vast tangled and daunting jungle that some people call ucas.ac.uk. My quest to start the 2010 academic year at university is next on my agenda. My 2nd chance is within grasp and i intend to sieze it. I guess only time will tell

the winter of my discontent

"With tired eyes, tired minds, tired souls, we slept"
This is the title of an episode of my favourite American teen drama- One Tree Hill. The quote is the lyric to a song by Explosions in the Sky. And today, as i write this, it seems quite fitting.

A day of dreams that ends in what is quite frankly peaceful disaster. Goodbyes are rarely pleasant in life, today i wished goodbye to three of my closest friends. And i felt their eager anticipation, nervous excitement and hope-filled energy. And it sorrowfully reminded me of the feeling i got exactly a year ago as i went to sleep for the last time in my own bed before embarking on the roller coaster journey that is freshers year.

I am happy for them, but their joy brings me a little sadness and remorse; for it signals the beginning of my year of isolation. Living a hollow life in-between two towns; travelling home to work 3 day weekends and then back to Sheffield to live in my decadent house. Living in the red on borrowed money; which feels like borrowed time. Today i blew £100 at the bookies. Remember what i said about short term goals? Another set back. Another anti-climax on my pursuit of sanity. A relapse, i think is the technical term. Why? I dont know.

It had started out on a beautiful day, one of only two days off work i enjoy this week. I had risen early in the unfamiliar morning to go uptown and have a coffee with my closest girl mate, Becky. It ended with Reece and Phil, slumped in an empty pub on a windswept Cleethorpe's coastline, £100 worse off. A visit to see my little sister raised the mood, she is reading one of the famous five adventures this week, how i wish my life was shuffled back to that innocent age of freedom. She wanted to play tennis with me tomorrow, i lazily declined.

I am a very moral person; one of my utmost beliefs is in a strong core of family and friends. While i feel, since establishing this moral compass in the past year, i have made greater efforts to be there for my friends, if not always entirely loyal to them, it is with my family where i have spectacularly failed. An only child until the age of 10 i should have thrived in the role of older brother. A responsibility i have guiltily slacked away from. There is so much i could have taught her, so many things i could have opened her eyes to and helped her enjoy. Instead i have been self-interested and utterly self-centered.

I often justify this with the fact that i am a teenager going through an emotional time, but there is a never a good time for anything in life. For those important things like friends and family you should always make time. Like i did for Becky when i sacrificed my cushy lie in and got up early today to go see her. I tell myself i will be a good father who brings up his son properly like i think a man should. Not just wave an empty cheque book and buy love like my father has done. But when i come to think about the kind of person i am right now- i am exactly the same as my father- a promiscuous, selfish, soulless mistake. I hope that by writing this blog and emptying my guilty mind i can somehow drag myself out of this self-pitying, pathetic corridor of despair.

the superfluous culture of a cluttered world

Last week i wrote a to-do list! And, as something more important grabbed my attention, forgettably left it in my draw. Like so many other half started projects of mine it was consigned to that dust ridden draw for the rest of time..... until today when it was saved as i searched around frantically looking for a pen to scribble down the time of an interview i didn't actually go to (more on that later!)

As i read the messy scribbles of my cluttered mind as they appeared on this crumpled page i realised not a single one had been achieved. This time last week that little list of 10 things were the things i wanted to achieve most in the world, and the dreams that i held.

Had those desires changed in that past 7 days? Or had i allowed laziness, temptation and distraction to deceive my mind? It got me thinking and off i went onto a cloudy voyage on the bumpy road of life...

My inability to maintain an adequate level of focus on even the most simple of levels, i.e get my hair cut this week, (its still long and scraggly around the ears) was probably harnessing my ability to move forward in life and start to become the sort of successful person i dream about being. With me it is always "tomorrow", "one day", "soon" ... In the rare and dazey moments when i actually jump up and say "im doing this- and im doing it now" i am filled with a sense of self-purpose and that indescribable, pleasurable glowing feeling that makes it all worthwhile.

So why aren't i that successful person i want to be? And why, 7 days into the future, a mere 168 earth hours later, am i incapable of pursuing my goals?
And in a somewhat arrogant ridiculous way of sorts i have come to the convenient conclusion- i am a victim of my own success. The boy who could be anything- really struggles to choose anything. I could stand in a sandwich shop for 10minutes and be no nearer to choosing chicken or tuna. Making choices is something you simply have to be good at in this life. Failure to master this skill can be catastrophic- as iv'e found in recent years.

The "burden" of choice is now unprecedented and greater than at any time in history. No longer are the sons and daughters of England destined to follow in their fathers footsteps and take on the "family bakery" or run the fruit shop that's been passed down "through generations". 21st century society has removed the strangling binds and pressures to be somebody else- we are very much the masters of our own little destiny.

In the face of a choice of everything- and the influence of everyone; it is becoming increasingly difficult for even a well balanced, normal-ish, modern young adult to choose their path. When i left school everyone said i could be anything i wanted.... but that wasn't true- i couldn't even play a single note on any musical instrument you could name, i had awful hand-eye co-ordination, and despite having my fair share of success with the opposite sex, i wasn't exactly a looker. so that's a no to the indie-rock chart conquering idea, a no to being arsenal's new theo walcott, and a certain no to posing in my underwear for glossy magazines.

But the door was left open to almost any career i fancied......doctor, teacher, journalist, scientist, lawyer.....etc......... but what did my heart tell me to do? Well i knew what interested me- english and media. so i took those at A-level.....with law thrown in (admittedly just because three of my best friends wanted to take it) ... I left college in spring 2008 and had achieved A's in everything i had taken. I contemplated a gap-year, i even flirted with the possibility of going to Africa to gain some perspective, teach over there. It got as far as a telephone interview for 45mins with a charity volunteering co-ordinator. But just like that job interview i mentioned; i bottled it. So the easy choice. University. English language and linguistics was the course.

And a sorry story followed that i dont' wish to recall ... but today i stand ; one year later. No degree, but countless debt. No success, but unknown failure. No respect, but unreservedly castigated.....ahh the emotional treadmill i readily roll around daily; in a corridor of uncertainty that turned into a dark tunnel. The choice of everything is a hollow and empty promise. I am still cursed with an indecisive nature that prevents me from achieving things, i almost seem to purposefully push myself away from a dream, perhaps that will make it even sweeter when i get there.

I have recently come to rest upon this- that choice is not a burden, but an opportunity millions dream of; deep down i know i want to teach; and i know i want to write. These are the dreams i will follow, and in 5 years time i hope to write another blog to you with the ending to this story.....but for now.....i really need that haircut.
Carpe diem as my old head of year used to say, carpe diem. (and if you need to google that then go shoot yourself and preferabley shoot a certain mr. adeybayor while the guns still warm)