Changing Plans – A response

Posted: Thu 1 October, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: 1BEM, Business, Depression, Introspective, Own Business, Thoughts, Work-related | 1 Comment »

Now here’s something I don’t do often – respond in a proper piece to a comment on another piece.

In this case, in yesterday’s “Changing Plans” post, Andy commented…

I have to say, following your blog & Twitter, that your contracting seems like a monumental effort/nightmare/arsepain. There’s a lot to be said for a regular job, not least: a) a bit of security (so you’re not always worrying about what next week brings) and b) the luxury of a bit of time to think and plan your next big move (i.e. away from what you’re currently doing).

You don’t strike me as someone who’d be content/comfortable with a regular job, no matter how short term – but it seems to me like you’re in a cycle that you need/want to get out of as it’s causing you grief.

And I couldn’t agree more, to be honest. Maybe I do need to bite the bullet and look at a “proper job”. I don’t know. This year has been utter shit when it comes to contracts, and work in general. In fact I’d go so far as to say it’s been the worst work year I’ve had.

You’re right, there is a lot to be said for that “proper job”. I get that totally. It just doesn’t (for whatever reason) chime with me at all. I don’t know why – and I’ve looked into it a lot – but it just doesn’t. Maybe I’ve just never had a positive experience of that regular job, but maybe my mindset won’t let me have a positive experience of that regular job. Either way, I’ve never been happy in a regular job.

I’m not happy with what I’m currently doing. I’m good at it, but I’m no longer happy with it. However, I know I need to keep on doing it (whether as contracts or regular work) until I get things sorted for doing Something Else. That doesn’t help. Getting fucked over and treated like crap also doesn’t help. (Although in my experience that’s something that happens regardless of a job being proper or not)

This week, I also feel like crap anyway. I’ve picked up a cold from a friend (who will be receiving a snot-filled slap when I next see him) and honestly, I’d rather be at home.

The change of plans, when everything was ready and in place, has added to that, and knocked my confidence a bit too. That’s down to being a control-freak, and not liking it when I get stuffed over with nothing I can do about it.

I’ve got three or four ideas about what I want to do instead of this, which have been chatted about a few times with friends over the last couple of days. It’ll take time – unless I get incredibly lucky – to sort them out and decide what to do, as well as to implement the ideas, make the changes, and get those things off the ground.

It’ll take time – but the last week has illustrated pretty perfectly why I need to do it, and make the changes. And if nothing else, it should make for some more fun on D4D.

Self Perception

Posted: Wed 22 July, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: Health, Introspective, Thoughts, Weight Loss | 1 Comment »

One of the big issues for me when it comes to my weight is my own perception of it – or the lack thereof, I’m not sure which.

Firstly, there’s the simple fact that I’m pretty big anyway, although I’m not going to use (and never have used) the excuse of being “big-boned” for being the weight I am. However, one can’t escape the simple fact that (as I’ve said before) I’m still 6’3″(ish) tall, and have a chest measurement that’s at least 50″ on it’s own. And that’s a chest measurement, not a belly one – so we’re talking structure, not flab. All told, my body can take a fair bit of weight without looking like I’m fat.

Second, my mum (in particular) is by no means slim – that’s not meant nastily, simply a statement of fact – which has done something to my perceptions of size, in that “normal” in my head most definitely isn’t Size Ten, or whatever.

The third thing is that on the rare occasions I see a TV programme like “Biggest Loser” or whatever, I try to compare my own weight with that of the competitors. And that’s a problem – because I simply don’t have the rolls of fat that appear on them, even when those people are spposedly lighter than the just-over-300pounds that I am currently. (And yes, I know that I’m probably taller than they are too, etc. etc.)

I know I’m overweight, I know I need to lose some – and I’m working on it, of which more later in the week – but somewhere along the line I need to believe it as well as know it, if that makes any sense…

Mortgage Motivation

Posted: Mon 2 March, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: Creativity, Cynicism, Depression, House Purchase, House Work, Introspective, Own Business, Thoughts, Work-related | 4 Comments »

Over the years, many people have told me that it’s more sensible to have a mortgage than to keep on paying rent. Rent is, supposedly “dead money” – you’re not getting anything for it (except another month living in your property of choice) and you’re just helping to pay off the landlord’s bills.

Finally, two years ago, I jumped off the bridge, and got a mortgage with Herself on this place. Since then we’ve been doing a lot of work on the place (as any vaguely regular reader of D4D™ will know) and that side of things is all going OK. Of course, the fact is that on that score rental is easier – if something needs doing, you call the landlord or letting agency, and it gets done.

For me though, while I’ll continue on with the mortgage, I’m discovering that it has a far more negative effect on me than I’d be happy with on the real long-term.

I find that the knowledge of the amount of the mortgage keeps coming back to me, that it’s kind of a mill-stone. I don’t want to lose it, I don’t want to change it – but I’m constantly aware of it.

Maybe it’s that I’m a late-starter on the entire house-buying front, that if I’d been doing this since I was twenty-seven then I’d be used to the knowledge of the debt by now. (and I’d be nearly halfway through paying it off, which would help too!)  Maybe over time the awareness of the debt faades a bit. I don’t know – I’ve only been doing this for two years, after all.

I don’t want to have the mortgage for the full term of it – the plan has always been to overpay whereever possible, and by as much as possible within the terms of the mortgage, although over the first two years we haven’t been able to do that at all (mainly due to me being a slack-ass, and not doing the necessary extra work through the aforementioned lack of motivation) but the intention is still there for the next mortgage period.

And that’s the balance I need to find, too – between the awareness of this (to me) sodding huge millstone of debt and the desire to reduce it as much as possible.

After all, there’s no money more “dead” than the interest I’m/we’re paying to the fucking bank. Paying back 2½ times the amount borrowed? That’s “dead money” indeed.

Time Padding

Posted: Thu 26 February, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: Creativity, Depression, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Introspective, Thoughts | 2 Comments »

Over the last two (nearly 2½) years, I’ve been banging on about my five-year plan, and the work that’s been going into it. The project is still going on, but I think I may need to add a year to it.  That’s annoying to me – it means that I get it done by the time I turn 41 instead of 40 (and fuck me, does that really mean I’m going to be 40 in 2½ years? Shit) and thus lose some of the nice roundedness of the idea. It also means that I don’t live up to the ‘five-year’ part of the title.

The thing is, since the inception of the plan, there’ve been things going on that have delayed some of the work I planned on doing.  The house purchase – and the ongoing work on the house – has had a significant effect on some of the plans, as we’ve been doing one hell of a lot that wasn’t really in the initial plan as such.  Yes, they’re in the original set of planned tasks – but I wasn’t realistic about how long they’d take, or how much work would be involved.

So that’s one thing that’s kind of superceded other plans.

But the other one has been far sneakier, and far harder to get to grips with. It’s one I’m familiar with (and it’s mentioned in the categories up there) but that I don’t always see without some hindsight. Yes, I’m referring (of course) to Ye Olde Depression. Again.

I still don’t know if I’ve actually been fully depressed – but I do know that for the last eighteen months or so my motivation has been pretty much non-existent. The ideas have still been there, and some things have sparked some desire to work on them, but the real motivation to work just hasn’t. I’ve let things drift, or not started them at all. OK, the bits for this year are coming on, and there’s a couple that can be checked off, I still feel like I’m lagging behind.

I’m working on it – things this year have started off OK, and the motivation appears to be on its way back – but right now I’m not sure whether to add a year to the target, or leave it as it stands for now, and just see how I do.

I suspect that for now it might be the latter plan – I’d rather do the five years and see where I am at that point, to be honest – but it’s something that’s worth thinking about as time goes on.  I’ll most likely review it come November, when there’s only two years left on the list.

But of course any ideas or suggestions are welcome in the meantime…

Dethused

Posted: Mon 19 January, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: Cynicism, Introspective, Thoughts, Work-related | Leave a comment »

Yes, I know, it’s not a word. But all the same, it’s one I’ve created, and I’m sticking with it.

Following on from my thoughts about the new job I’m in, this morning started off with the serious “I really don’t want to do this any more” thoughts. For me that’s always been the sign that it’s time to get out and go somewhere else.

In fairness, it normally takes a lot longer before I’m ready to move on, but this time may well be one of the shortest turnaround periods in my work history.

We’ll see.

Online vs. Offline

Posted: Fri 9 January, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, Introspective | 1 Comment »

Over at the Guardian’s “Comment is Free”, Anna has written a fantastic piece about Virtual people, real friends.

She puts it far far better than I ever could – and it’s well worth reading the entire piece.

“For the first time in history we’re lucky enough to choose friends not by location or luck, but pinpoint perfect friends by rounding up people with amazingly similar interests, matching politics, senses of humour, passionate feelings about the most infinitesimally tiny hobby communities. The friends I have now might be spread wide, geographically, but I’m closer to them than anyone I went to school with, by about a million miles.”

Weighty Issues – Further Thoughts

Posted: Mon 5 January, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, Health, Introspective, Thoughts | 9 Comments »

Following on from my post about weight etc. at the end of last year (OK, less than a week ago) and the comments that came, I thought I’d add some more thoughts about it now we’re into 2009.

During my time off, I looked at Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR, not BMI), which is basically sufficient only for the functioning of the vital organs, but gives a rough idea of what calories the body burns just to keep going. And mine works out (on an admittedly rough working out, rather than the full-precision test) as being about 2,000 to 2,500 calories, depending on the equation used.

I don’t yet know what that means for me – if it’s anywhere even vaguely close to right, I assume it means that I should be taking on at least that amount of calories per day just to break even. I also assume that if my intake is less than that (and I’m pretty sure it’s significantly less than 2,500 per day) then my body thinks it’s starving, and thus stores everything as fat instead of using it or burning it up. That’s no surprise, it’s been put forward as an idea a couple of times over the years already.

The thing is though, that if I do attempt to eat more in accordance with things like BMR figures, and recommendations from gyms etc. I just put weight on. I know, it’s because the body still thinks it’s starving and is processing into fat for storage rather than actually using the damn calories, but it’s one of the most demoralising things around – I want to get fitter, not fatter. And no-one gives any idea of how long it’ll take for my body to get used to the idea of not being starved, and use the calories instead of store them. If it’s only a couple of weeks then fine – if it’s a couple of months or more, not so fine.

Later in the year, come spring-time, I might just get out on my bike again. That appeals a lot more than going running – although running does have a certain strange appeal, just not at my current weight – but well, we’ll see. I do want to get more use out of the bike (although there’s no fucking way I’m ever going to be cycling the 25 miles to/from the current job!) so we’ll see.

In the meantime, I’m working on going to the gym on a more regular basis. It’s currently not helped by the fact I’m still coughing up lumps of lung (or the contents thereof – I’m not doing analysis to find out which) which leaves me feeling like shit, but even getting back to the basic routine of gym attendance is probably a good thing in the long term, I guess.

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