The shites

Well a moment ago I found out I got the shites, full blow shites, it's the runniest diarrhea in the world.  It could mean I'll not piss for a week because I'll be shitting myself instead. The worst thing of all is the pong, dam it is pungent, it's the kind of pungent stink which could be used in warfare. I could take a sample and send it to the Minostry of Defence, they will thank me for it later.  It don't kill just inflicts such a need to cover your nose no known soldier can get away from it.  It would a very real shit bomb. Defence markets would want it all over the world, so effective crowds instantly disperse and are unlikely to go in the vicinity for several hours. What the hell I've eaten to make this feeling come over I just don't know. Maybe it was the coconut sponge cake before lunch, or perhaps the mayo in my sandwich was off. Alternatively it could of been the home made pakoras a colleague at work had bought into the office.  My mouth is as dry as Tutan Karmens arm pit and his wife's as well. I'm dying for a drink but at the same time have a fear it is going to exit by the arse. (Short interruption) Damn that's four times already this evening.

However there were clues something wasn't right. At lunch time I felt pangs in my belly, they hurt. My gut felt funny, it felt not right. Still this didn't stop me from walking home from work. It was a two and a half mile walk, possibly three. The sun was out, it's a lovely day in London for sure, so why not walk you would think. There must of been an angel on my should with a butt plug, he must been a brave angel with the prospect of getting himself fully covered in shite.  But it worked, I didn't feel a need to walk faster or run home or to even let loose like a cannon ball. Instead the explosion just sat there in my belly.  I didn't feel like eating or drinking so probably delayed it a little longer. Took a short nap just over 30 minutes and then watched some Youtube. But my gut had an ache in it and it had the tell tale rumble feeling. Something was not right, something was not right at all. So the little room was visited.

Kaboom, what an explosion there was an instant relief as my inflated belly had lost pressure.  Then there was the stink. Fortunately through biological necessity us human beings can pretty much tolerate the stink of our own defecation.  However, I knew this was something different it was violent and if I had gone into a toilet after such a stink there would of been either blue language or I'd turn around and go out searching for another toilet.

I am feeling somewhat on the edge of dizziness all the time now and thirsdy, I could drink a gallon of juice but doing so would be very unwise. Instead a hot cup of lemon.  It's not good feeling like this it is fortunate the experience is infrequent. In a paranoia I did a google search to see if there was something to diagnose or cure it. At which point the move from paranoia to hypochondria took place. Google should be outlawed for people with the shites or any symptoms of an illness which could be serious and have diarrhoea as one of them. On a positive note, if I don't each much this weekend I'll be losing weight and could be dropping down to less than 12 stone.  It would be an achievement losing a stone and half in eight months.

In the end even if you have the shites there's a plus side.

Hypocrisy as a defence

I am like any other human being guilty of hypocrisy, in my last BLOG I wrote about the things which stop you doing what you want to do and ways to overcome them. Yet, yesterday was one of the most time wasting days I could of had.  It rained in the morning which put a dampner on going out for the usual long Sunday walk. I could of taken off in the afternoon but didn't. Though I did cook a dinner which was probably the most productive thing achieved all day. What I could of done was write a To-Do list and then started doing some of those things that were on it.  In fact if ever in need of doing something a To-Do list is like a guiding light in the fog it leads the way. Of course one of the other things necessary is having the motivation. This is what differentiates the doers from the not doers.  If you have motivation then a lot can be achieved. Sometimes just like in the same way I lose weight the option To-Do something has to be tackled a small bit at a time. Just one small item as part of the whole to change the way things are. Then if all those small items are added up they become one very big thing achieved.  Yesterday I watched too much You-tube and think I have an addiction problem.  Blaming the rain is probably going over the top, rain hardly makes someone just sit on their arse all day and watch you-tube.  They say the first thing with tackling an addiction is recognising you have one, "I am an addict" my name is Mr Addicted to you-tube I need help.  I am a hypocrite and want to change my life.  One step at a time son, one step.  It will all fall in place or you'll get square eyes and be abandoned by your friends and family.  Shite I realised I don't get on with my family and have no friends.  This is serious, I need to look for the solution to this problem. Or as the Chinese say every problem is an opportunity. I should of been born Chinese then maybe I'd have more friends, more family and more impetus to get off my fat arse and do something. 

I walked to work today and I walked home, each way is just over two miles so it probably totals slightly over 400 calories in all. While walking home someone shouted out in a passing car.  There was nobody else about, the road was narrow so it could of been me they were shouting to, I don't know if it was a derogatory shout or a friendly shout, but in all probability it was the shout of some idiot in a car who needs attention. Perhaps he needed a friend, now if he'd of stopped then a problem could of become an opportunity. Either that or I got my head kicked in. I say this because I live in London and depending on what part of London you live in the neighbourhood will have a certain feel to it, it has this aura.  You can tell by watching the news TV and seeing how many times a year your particular neighbourhood pops up.  Of course it also pops up in the national news papers as well as the local rags.  In the last week or so these are some of the things which hit the headlines: a fight broke out at a 24 hours supermarket, a group of young shopper was video'd and it was put on social media, a young man (young again) died inhaling nitrous oxide an ambulance came but they could not resuscitate at the doors to a block of flats (apartment buildings to Americans). Another man was arrested while trying to escape police but he didn't want to get arrested so stabbed two of the officers.  A motorcyclist died while racing his bike with an estimated twenty other bikers on a main road.  There are other articles but these are the most recent ones.  News like this is sensationalised in the press and so it gives you a kind of feeling about the area you live in, and my feeling is it's maybe not the poshest neighbourhood in the world.  Oh well at least it is entertaining.

All in all spending Sunday indoors with You-tube might of been the safest option after all.  At least there was no danger of getting physically assaulted unless it was tidying up my own room and a book falling on my head. Which didn't happen because it would of been something to talk about.  I suppose when you live in a area like this going on a round the world adventure back packing tourist thing is probably less likely to be as dangerous. Until the euro drops like a stone and Europe descends into economic crisis as, Portugal, Greece, Spain and Italy no longer have the means to stay financially afloat.  Worse things happen at sea they say, or worse things happen locally in other cases.

5 Things that stop you doing what you want to do and how to overcome them

I will begin this however with one salient fact, if you do want to do something and you want to do it badly enough then you will find a way of doing it. This thing whether it is creating a world record at egg eating, learning to swim, speak another language or simply be happy is achievable.  However, if
the thing involves another person then it may not apply because you can never know what someone else is going to do and you can not control another person they are fully functioning sentient beings with their own agendas in life. What I am saying here is it comes down to attitude and commitment. In which case no obstacle will get in your way in time the thing will be achieved.  From here onwards what stops you from doing that thing?



Procrastination
When doing home work the easiest avoidance is procrastination, whether it is watching TV, reading a book or finding something like watching paint dry. Procrastination gets in the way because what you
should be doing as opposed to what you want to do just does not excite you. This happens even in life tasks. The life task being the thing. Because your thing will involve a number of small steps before reaching the goal so unless full one million percent commitment kicks in some of those small and boring intermediary steps will act as procrastinating blocks.

Organization
Getting organized is the mental impetus which allows  you to being how to get where  you want to get. This however is not completely necessary, you can do the thing without being organized, but as soon as you do get organized your progress will be markedly different. For example learning to play an instrument. There is one fundamental tenant to this and it is practice. If you organize yourself to practice every single day at a specific time you are more likely to get on with it than not. To this extent the act of repeating something becomes a habit and a habit is a natural procrastination killer. It is the oil which keeps the cogs running. You don't have to practice every day but just imagine if there were a set time of where and when you would be every single day and doing something towards achieving the thing. Lack of organization will come back and bite you in the arse.  Lets also say it is your personal organization which matters not what is written down in a book. You begin at the place you want to begin.

Out of the box thinking
Doing the thing will involved conventional and unconventional actions. The convention action might be to read a book and make notes following this route will not get you where you want to be, you have to own it and move out of the box. An unconventional action might be along the lines of reading something of interest and making a point of applying it, talking about it.  Doing it both in and out of context seeing when it works and when it doesn't work. For example in order to put in a good few hour study each night I recognised it was important to have breaks during study. What I did was to head to the kitchen and make coffee, while I was drinking the coffee I would also pick up three juggling balls. Pacing backwards and forwards juggling the balls.  Taking a sip of coffee and then continuing. I could not juggle to being with but as time went on the juggling got better. I would sometimes think about what I learnt other times not at all. The important thing was ensuring I had a break and learning to do something I had never done before. Sometimes unconventional thinking will get you further than following the rest of the crowd. The thing is a long term target, it can't be done in a matter of hours and is going to take a lot of effort, but along the way of doing the thing there will be mini skills which have to be picked up.  Those skills will all add up to

accomplishing the thing.  Driving a car for instance, one skills is gently moving one foot down while the other foot goes up to change gear but better is to make your feet sensitive to pressures while pushing down. What does it feel like to carefully and sensitively feel where the clutch is just when the gears separate?  This is one mini skill needed in learning to drive and an important skill. Children know how to think unconventionally because because they are not confined by the rules. Learning to feel where a clutch biting point is might be helped by slowly depressing your foot up and down on a half deflated ball.   Unconventional thinking is a skill in itself, but it can be learned and takes a little imagination, were all were children once and all had this same wonderful imagination.

Listening to others

There is no doubt that other people can influence us even if be this by their approval or by their non approval, however there will be many times when other people are just purely negative and those individual may well be the ones we love in our life. They may think you are not strong enough to achieve the thing you want to do, they may think they had better stop  you from doing it by discouraging you. Finding what may be sensible and reasonable things to put in your way. But these are obstacles which have to be overcome.  However, this is really where  your own attitude is now under fire, and  your own self esteem.  If my brother, sister, uncle, aunt, spouse or teacher put forth an argument to prevent me doing what I want to do and they don't understand this is a life event, this is the thing you need to do and are not helpful but obstructive you may not even go ahead and get on with the thing.  Take heed, take warning, they may love you but they may not know and understand
there is nothing more important to you than the thing.  Alternatively they may very well understand
and because of their own hang ups purposefully not want to help and pull you down.  It's not going to be easy, but then this life event thing you need to do is a wonderful and beautiful notion and if you got to do it they will eventually get the message, if not then don't worry just never discuss it in their company.  You are on a journey here, and as they say sometimes it's not reaching the destination which matters as much as taking the trip.

Obstacles
If the thing is worth doing it is worth doing and along the way there will be obstacles. As touched upon above sometimes those obstacles are other people, sometimes they will be finding time, having resources, money, needing help from an external source. Have faith because given enough time every obstacle can be overcome.  Furthermore, it may mean you have to dip your toes into those waters of the unconventional to overcome the obstacle.  In the film Heartbreak Ridge, Clint Eastwood trains his group of marines to think outside of the box, to do everything and anything they have to do to

achieve their goals.  In this he constantly rants on three primary corollaries to his marines.  They are 1. Adapt, 2. Improvise 3. Overcome.  If there were such as thing as a life book these words would be in such a book.  It would be tied to your umbilical cord, you will then grow up learning to read and learning to recite these words, they challenge you to meet the obstacle, if you can't go through it go around it, if you can't go round it go over it. If it is so big you can't see a way forward then step out of the box the obstacle is taking up your entire view and has made you blind you need a new perspective. Is it a fleck you have in your eye or is it a tree trunk?  Here is one wise piece of advise, when  you look back at the obstacles which stood in the way between you and the thing you wanted to do, they will seem insignificant. Even though they were significant.  You don't go through a battle without getting some scars, if it is worth the challenge you will find the way. You will.

All of these events are about getting your mental software programmed in order to deal with them.  But if the thing you want to do means so much to you, then you will do it. Don't take other people's no as an answer, strive, then strive and then strive some more. This is not about being rich and successful it is about personal achievement.  It will happen if you want it to do, so the question is do you want it?  Do you really want it? And are you willing to do what it takes?  There is only one answer to each of these and you already know what it is.

Some tips on losing weight

Losing weight is probably the most difficult thing a person can do, especially if the intention is t make it a permanent loss. I've lost weight on many occasions and on an equal number of occasions put it back on again. Talk about yo-yo dieting or what, in fact the name yo-yo should be replaced by dieter. I am a dieter in a broad sense of the word. Faced with a choice between a piece of toast and a bacon butty put in front of me, the bacon butty would be gobbled up in no time.  This is why I am overweight now and bordering on obese.  Which by the way may isn't really so fat when you are at that level at all. It's only a skinny person who can recognise an obese person, obese people just feel overweight not obese.  So given I belong to the group of dieters who do up and down I am just as worthy of putting some tips on weight loss as the next person. And certainly more so than may of the self sanctimonious people who think they are professionals.  Because if you haven't been there and walked a mile in my fat shoes then you're asking for a slap in the face, with my fat hand.

To lose weight successfully means recognising it is a life style change and it is something which will have to be watched every single day of your life. Because those get fat quick biscuits are always going to be on the supermarket shelf, therefore it is a matter of realising you can't pick them up. But the best thing you can do is avoid them like a vampire would avoid garlic, don't walk down the biscuit aisle ever.  Further to take this attitude and internalise it you should understand your body doesn't need as much as you think it does to survive food wise.  Except eating food can become a pleasure, except again when that pleasure is over indulged you get fat.  Sometimes it is necessary to actually not eat at all or to be so frugal with what you eat you learn again what it is to taste and not to gobble. Food savoured in your mouth because you have earned the right to eat it is so much more delicious than because you have a large plate of it in front of you and it has to go down as quickly as possible in order to give you a full up belly feeling, and the contentment it has.  Oddly I've found this full up belly feeling can come with a smaller portion. Without doubt mental attitude must come first and one way of reinforcing this attitude is to think of the reasons why your weight should be less than what it is now.

Obesity equates to illness, diabetes is the primary pain, then there is liver disease, then there is not so much the fact of illness but the inability to move about. To pick things up, find the right clothes or clothes which are big enough. Or there could be the future thought of repeated visits to a doctor or hospital because of a multitude of ailments associated with weight.  How much more painful it is being heavy on your joints than it would be if you weighed less.  Bodily wear and tear is a slow killer, so it is with being fat. A slow lingering death can be on the cards. If this is not good enough reason to lose weight then consider family, friends and people you love.  To stay around longer just so you can be a help to them. My grand daughter Princess J is the most precious happy little girl in my world, I love her to bits and I would love to be around to see her get married and even be a great grand dad to her children. My close as can be daughter Rock Chick who is a wonderful girl bringing up a wonderful family with a wonderful partner. I can only be of help if I am around and able to support them. Just as Sparkling Eyes is the love of my life I need to look after myself for her as well.  When I think of these reasons my mental attitude towards losing weight strengthens, even if I am still fat it's getting into the right frame of mind which will help me get somewhere.

So I've lost a couple of pounds in a couple of weeks, it might not be much but it is in the right direction, just think of how long it took to get as fat as you are now and the realisation is, it creeps up on you like an unrelenting but successful fat ninja. Here are my tips.

1. One pound in weight is about 3000 calories, understand losing weight is a slow and long term process don't take fortitude from losing more than two pounds in a week. In fact my personal belief is you should aim for one pound a week.

2. Exercise is necessary, even if you don't like it, it has to be done. But it does not have to be crazy stuff, there is nothing wrong with gentle exercise, walking is good. Yoga at home anything at all, even getting out in the garden for a couple of hours as long as it is physical and not sitting on your backside. Try to do something every single day not just at weekends. Don't strain yourself but do dedicate yourself to it.

3. Reduce the amount you eat. This is definitely easier said than done, but you will notice a difference and after the first couple of weeks get used to it.  When going to work I used to make two sandwiches, this was four slices of bread with filling.  Now I have only one sandwich.  I endeavour to sit down and eat it slower than I would normally eat it.  Over a month of home made sandwiches my lunchtime meals are now much easier to cope with.

4. Occasional treats. Allow yourself to have the odd treat at least once if not twice a week.  For being on a strict diet is not fun, this weight loss regime is looking at the long run not short gains.  If you have a bad day and eat or drink too much, then punish yourself by having a day of frugality.  Eating as little as you possibly can. This does not have to be then next day but if you can fit it in within the same week it will keep you on track again.

5. Steer clear of those things which you know are going to be no good for you in the long run. However if you need a treat go ahead break the diet and give yourself a treat and then return back to your diet. It is OK to have temporary breaks you are not out to do this in a single day, you are looking at months and months into the future.

6. Take a note of your weight, do this either once a week or once every two weeks, write it down on a piece of paper. You will need to come back to this and know the weight is dropping off, but do not under any circumstances look for a quick weight loss fix, in the end these never work.

7. Be conscious of your size and weight in everything you do.  Keep an eye on your figure in the mirror, when going to bed be conscious of how much your body sinks into the mattress. When walking up stairs feel the strain of carrying those extra pounds.  Accept you are heavy and accept now you are doing something about it.

8. Stick to set meal times and don't snack.  I always have a slice of toast for breakfast and then do not eat again for four to five hours.

9. Be gentle with yourself, you will get there, this is about perseverance, your life and the rest of your life, there will be slips, but like a boomerang return again to the diet.  You can do it.

10. Understand food, look at sugars, calories, fats, learn to cook from fresh and take time cooking. Be aware of hidden substances in processed foods, as the philosophers say, both knowledge and education give freedom. The freedom to choose and freedom to not follow the crowd.


It has nearly taken me a year to lose a stone in weight, it is July and I anticipate by August to be just a little bit more lighter than I am now and about one stone plus a little on last year. My trousers and jeans are feeling less stretched than they used to and I'm healthier, I try to take the stairs whenever I can, and set aside time each day as part of my day to walk part of the journey to work. After all I want to live a longer life and this is a long term pursuit.  I now do my best not to have sitting at home days where I do very little at all. It is tough and slow going, but progress is being made.

So the question is: To blubber or not to blubber?

An interest in Stoicism

For many years I have occasionally dipped my toes into the waters of Stoicism to try and get a grasp of what it is. However, the toe dipping is not a serious thing, if it were I would of put on a full wet suit and learnt to hold my breath for five minutes or more. Getting pretty wet no doubt. This curiosity arose when I came across a quote which has been inscribed on my mind. It is:

It is not what happens to you but how you react to it that matters.
Epictetus

This quote says so much about our mental attitude to everything we experience in life. The stressful events which happen are stressful because we see them that way.  One way to interpret this is to say I choose to feel stressed during a stressful episode in my life so therefore I can choose not to feel stressed as well. The same would apply to any emotion. However emotions are those things internal which are one would think very difficult to control.  Granted, lets say emotions are difficult to control this then does not mean they are impossible to control. For we all know difficult things can be achieved, it is facing difficulties in our own lives which determines what sort of a character we have.

For example, after leaving secondary school I found it very difficult to get a job. I had one job then there was a break of a year before I had another job.  After what seemed like an eternity getting into employment was a wonderful release, although poorly paid it was good to be working.  I didn't actually like the work I was in and felt I had sold my soul to the devil, yet I still did the work I had to do.  Work is important and I also learnt having structure in your day is important. Work gives structure to say the least. Since this time I have never been unemployed. Every new job I have gone into I have done while still working in another job. So the transition has been smooth, working in one place then moving to another.  I also re determined the key to helping myself was through education and spent several years in evening classes getting an education I had failed while of school age.  Just as the adage goes, more is learnt outside of school than in school and life's lessons are harder.  So as a stoic like minded person I had set myself goals and moved from accepting my lot in poorly paid poverty jobs to one which is now slightly above average pay.  Yet in the work place I have learnt another lesson from life's school.  It is the truth in the saying promotion is by Dead Man's Shoes.  However, more than this it is necessary to be prepared, it was the preparation when an opportunity cam up which mattered just as much.  I found interviews were nerve racking and had not given a best account of my abilities. This is perhaps a lacking of the stoic principle highlighted above which exasperated my personal anxieties when being interviewed.  So another principle of the stoics comes to play.

This is to understand it is necessary to deny yourself things at times.  The desire for chocolate may be exceptionally strong, but it doesn't mean it should be eaten every day nor should it be eaten just because you feel the need to eat it. Stoics believe it is necessary to deny yourself things and feel uncomfortable and to put yourself in a uncomfortable situation.  This acknowledges every day of our lives we do the same things and doing those same things becomes easy. It means our lives are comfortable and we fail to challenge ourselves we fail to move out of the comfort zone or ball of protection held around us. The challenge is to do something totally different and outside of this something which wakes us up. For stoicism puts it we must recognise our life is short.  My attitude towards interviews and the stress felt during them was because I simply have not been in the interview situation frequently enough and I allowed my anxieties to dominate me and prevent me from doing what I would like to do.  Not preparing for interviews was another aspect of self immolation.  Therefore this makes me think stoicism is also about being disciplined with your mind and your feelings. However I think this discipline should be gentle. For beating yourself up achieves nothing.  If I am stressed I need to accept it but then persuade myself the reasons why I feel stressed and why it is necessary to both face this stress and come through the other side.  In other words be my own best friend.  All of which sounds a bit clichéd but is true.

So in the next few weeks I just need to get my reserves together and book a dental appointment for a troublesome tooth which has likely got to be extracted. Where is Epictetus when you really do need him is what I say?

 

Princess J at two years old

Princess J is now two years old and is beginning to show she is as independent minded as the next person. Her preferences and dislikes are also coming through. She is fixated on doing those things which give her the most pleasure. Play, sucking her dummy, her bunny which she sleeps with all the time and is a comforter and not forgetting one of her favourite activities jumping on the bed or climbing over furniture. She is so full of energy if scientists were able to harness this in some way the  energy crisis we find ourself in would be solved in no time. But it doesn't work like this because I two year old would like not have anything to do with a scientist in the first place. Unless it was in the invention of a new type of ice lolly.

Listening to her learning to speak and actually speaking is a miraculous event as well. She enjoys baby babble and it enjoyable listening to her babble, as though in earnest she is really trying to communicate. Then when on a swing she shouts out in perfect English, "Come on mummy, swing!" Because of course being on a swing is so much fun and mummy should be part of this fun. I wonder how she learns to associate words with their meaning. There are concrete words which have the most meaning which she has picked up quickly. Such as mummy and daddy.  The number of these concrete type words have increased and increased and many of them are not just objects they include concepts. Such as the word 'outside' or 'sleep.'  The development of a child's cognitive abilities is amazing, probably something Piaget would know all about. However I can't help there was a lot of things he missed and just failed to include in his theory. How does a two year old know that causing fake pain on another person is fun? When Princess J squeezes my toe I pretend it hurts me and she in turn laughs. She learns she can control her own environment just a little at a time. She likes ice lollies but doesn't like being told go to bed. She enjoys cartoons on TV and loves chocolate - probably too much. When one person does not submit to Princess J's requests then she will go to the next person. Almost like if one does not give into her another person just might and this is what she is looking for. However this would suggest it was her intention.

Funny though, one thing I do know it is difficult to say no to such a beautiful princess and I guess this is why she has so many people wound round her little finger.