What am I like?

I’d like to make an observation, call it unfair or uninformed or anything else you may wish, the beauty of a blog means I can express it anyway!

I've noticed that we seem to have an imbalance with our interpretation towards mental illnesses.  Those suffering from a mental disability can still be acquitted for crimes, whilst sick-minded criminals get lighter sentences for suffering with cannabis induced paranoia.

A couple of years ago I was present in a court case, a memory that will never leave me. It was the sentencing of a man who had brutally murdered his girlfriend. He pleaded guilty due to ill mental health, he said he suffered paranoia due to a history of smoking cannabis, which surely eliminates any remorse he could have felt purely by trying to worm out of his crime with a weak excuse. He, the man of pure evil who greeted his dead girlfriend’s family with a look of smug-ness, was granted the lenience he wished, and was given a reduced sentence.
However, when we’re faced with someone who has a none-fictional, none- self-induced mental disorder, we’re generally less forgiving. Let me back up my daring claim with some examples, in true journalistic fashion.

I read one article recently in a magazine that implicitly treated mental illness in such a way I’m surprised it was published. The article detailed the struggle of a woman who grew up with a father who suffered from bi-polar disorder. He would often leave the house for days at a time and roam the streets, and would indulge in odd behaviour. Eventually, he became homeless, and the woman (daughter) does not refer to this man as her father, but calls him by his name. Basically, because of  his illness, she had written him off as her own father. Fair enough, he had psychotic episodes, but if he had instead suffered from cancer would she act the same way towards him? This man was suffering from an illness, he wasn’t just characteristically an incompetent dad. Yet, because the illness was in the mind, it was regarded as less of an excuse than a debilitating disease that is instead, physical. It’s understandable that someone who came across this man for a brief period of time could be forgiven for prejudging, however this woman had grown up with this man - surely long enough to get to grips with the reasons behind his behaviour?

What spurred me to write this post was something I read in the problem page of a magazine supplement from a broadsheet newspaper yesterday. (Ooops, was that too specific?) The ‘problem’ was that a woman’s husband was suffering from depression, and poor old her, she was fed up. She was advised to get out and see her friends. I pose the same question again, if he was suffering from a physical illness, I’m sure she would never complain, turn the problem on her self, or even worse, write into a newspaper about the problem.

There’s no denying that we treat illnesses of the mind and body differently, there is still a stigma attached to mental illnesses, being in the 21st century just will not suffice, we can’t take our human rights, our democracy and our evolving quality of life for granted - this problem still exists.

Suffering from panic attacks myself - I often get, when recalling an attack ‘oh what are you like!’ As if it’s a personality quirk or an unhealthy vice I often bite into for the fun of it. ‘What am I like?’ I’m like someone with a physical impairment, except mine lies in the chemicals within my brain, where you can’t see. But don’t doubt that mental illnesses are any less significant.

Mental attitude can become paramount in the face of not just physical illness, but anything. Nobody has become famous, successful or rich without the power of their mind, as this is our best and strongest resource.  So you can imagine that when something is anatomically wrong with the mind, it affects people beyond their conscious control.
Someone with depression isn’t moody, someone with bipolar disorder isn’t scatty, and someone with anxiety isn’t afraid. And once we're finished enjoying every other aspect of a healthy democracy, we should tackle this misconception.

Addictive blog syndrome.

Growing up, I think, is like a constant learning curve. We learn things about ourselves all through life. I know a lot more about myself than I did a few years ago. I think that you can really start to understand your weaknesses once you become aware of the fact that you can’t change them. However, I’m becoming increasingly aware of a certain flaw that I seem to have, that, in all honesty, scares me a little. I know that I have an addictive personality, almost to the extent where my theory of mind diminishes and I can’t understand why others don’t feel the same as I do. For instance, how can people merely have a few drinks? How can people stop exercising before feeling like they're about to die? How can people just have one square of chocolate? I’ve unfortunately become aware of the fact that I’m very ‘all or nothing’. I’d go a few days without chocolate because I know that when I get some, I’ll devour it all. But what makes me this way? I remember when I was 16, and I went through a stage being literally dependant on alcohol. I mean taking a bottle of whisky with me everywhere I went, drinking on my own in the daytime, kind of dependency. Even now, I always wonder why I end up the drunkest...

But I want to know the reasons behind it. I'm sure that there are thousands of studies looking into the reasons behind alcoholics and drug addicts. But what about people like me, who just sit on the edge and wonder if it will ever happen to them? Those with slight addictive tendencies that ignore the fact they can see patterns starting to form?

And with every personality flaw, there's always the curiosity of whether it's a genes or an environmental cause. Surely, though, if I'm surrounded by people who can handle normal, healthy amounts of things, then it must be genetic?

It's just, whenever I encounter something beautiful, something that makes me happy...I just want it in excess. Am I just scared of life being too short? Well, at least I have my addictive personality to blame on my urges to blog. Now...where's the chocolate..

A lone wolf and a crazy hamster.

Have you ever been told something you thought at the time to be insignificant, only for it to stick in your mind for years afterwards? Well, today, I've been thinking about something someone once said to me. It was an old school teacher. He described himself as a 'loner' and said that he prefers to be by himself. At the time, I kind of thought that was a brave thing to admit. I also secretly wondered why he'd chosen a career path that put him in a room with 30 people all day. However, I now find myself questioning whether that's the type of person I am, too. I don't mean that in a sad way, either.
It fascinates me how different people are. Some people always surround themselves with others, and hate being alone. Yet I seek solace in being alone, and I actually think it's necessary once in a while.

Spending the day alone today, for the first time in a long time, I'm actually finding it quite liberating. However, to admit that you enjoy your own company, it seems, would be a bit of a sad occasion. I feel slightly embarrassed to admit that I enjoy my own company. However, that doesn't mean I place any less value on my friends, or am any less grateful for the company of others. But does it not just make me sounds like some sort of social recluse? (Which I kind of am, but that's beside the point.)
But there's just something about having some time to yourself that seems to mentally set me up for the next few weeks, where I will be surrounded by people once again, until the next time I get some time to myself. It almost gives me time to decompress.
Does this indicate then, that I have more difficulty than others in social situations? Is it as simple as there being two kinds of people in the world - those that thrive off the company of others, and those who don't?
If you really think about it - how do you react when you know you're going to be alone for a while? I don't think I can think of anyone else I know who likes to be alone.
But being alone almost gives me some sort of down-time, where I'm not distracted, so I can remember to appreciate things that seem to get overlooked when people are busy.
So today, it's me, my iTunes, and an empty house. And I shouldn't be afriad to admit that I'm kind of okay with that. Oh and by the way - I realise this is kind of an open invitation to burglars, but be warned, I am armed with a crazy hamster.

From prisoner to soldier.

I have a story to tell, and I thought, everyone likes stories, so I'll give it a go. My story is about a friend of mine, whom I'm quite proud of. A few months ago, last summer, she was in hell. Figurative hell, of course. She suffered from a panic disorder, and often found it difficult to leave the house (I didn't say it would be a wholly happy story).
She had come home from University for Summer, where she's just finished her first year studying journalism. For a few years previous to this, she's suffered from what you could call an anxious predisposition. However, after a stressful last month at University that saw her walk out of an exam in tears, Summer was then to be the worst few months she'd ever experienced.
It's difficult for her to explain what exactly was wrong, when it went wrong, or why it went wrong. The anxiety stemmed from a previous phobia of passing out, and turned into a full blown panic disorder, where she began to feel nervous in her own home, and her own bedroom, in fact. Without going into too much detail, it was lonely and frustrating, to say the least. For a few months, she barely left the house, and when she did, she had to constantly fight off panic attacks.The lowest point, she recalls, was when she was asked to do some writing over the Summer. All that the job entailed, was going into town to Topshop, to ask a member of staff a few questions about their Summer line. She got ready, prepared some questions, then cried her way back into her pyjamas, as she knew the 'get on with it' frame of mind just wouldn't work.
She tried hypnotherapy, counseling, and self-help books. One thing she didn't try, however, were a doctor's recommendations to try the same drug that killed Michael Jackson. Smart move.
The only thing that helped was going back to University to start her second year, and forcing herself to just get on with things.
After the darkest few months she has ever experienced, when she really didn't see a light at the end of the tunnel, when a normal life seemed so far away, she is proof the the impossible is possible.
She may never be completely back to normal, and she may still panic on the odd occasion, but life's good again. Why has she decided to share this story now? Well, after not being able to leave her bed without shaking, she's now on her way to becoming a trained soldier in the Territorial Army. So next time you think something's impossible, it's not, trust me.

Sombre snow.

Despite my best attempts, I can't seem to escape stress, unhappiness and just bad vibes in general. Not necessarily from myself or friends, but there's always someone around who wants to complain. And there's always bad news going on in the world. I don't like to watch the news (please don't tell any of my tutors at University that) because whilst I do believe that news channels are very influential when it comes to agenda setting, it's always a negative agenda. Full of war, paedophiles and death. Which, in a morning, is almost as hard to digest as a shoe. But bad news leaks everywhere. For instance, Facebook has informed me roughly 15 times tonight that actress Brittany Murphy has died from a cardiac arrest earlier today. Facebook is also full of complaints about the snow. I can't really think of much good news that's been emphasised enough to stick in my mind, recently. Oh, apart from Rage Against the Machine's victory, to which I am happy about. There you go, one uplifting sentence to keep you reading.
Anyway, all of this, it's made me wonder, why do we bother with redundant emotions? There's no point in feeling guilt, regret or jealousy, so why do we let them consume us?
 People cut things from their diet that they don't like, and we all cut out people that are no good for us, so why can't we do the same with feelings? Whenever anyone asks me what regrets I have, or what I would change if I could go back in time, I reply with 'nothing'. What's the point getting frustrated about the past? It's happened, so the only thing you can do is move on. And before you start to just think that I must be talking out of my arse - can you think of a time that anything good came out of you regretting something?
There are things in my life that I could easily dwell on, wish to have back, be jealous of - but what's the point? My time is better spent focusing on the future, and thinking about things that I can change. However, is it healthy to do this? Maybe all I'm actually doing is running the risk of becoming cold-hearted and emotionless.
 If I'm sad about something I can't change, I try to block out that emotion - but is that just living in denial?
As we become more reliant on technology for communication, as :) and :( mask our real faces, will be become detached from emotions? As the recession and global warming continue to deteriorate, will we start to become more realistic and pragmatic in order to survive?
The more challenges we face in life - do we learn to keep our emotions more intact? Recently, the media has warned people to cut down on their meat intake in order to help the environment. Well, cutting down on polluting thoughts can help uplift our own environments, surely.
I may come across slightly emotionless, but I can assure you that I'm not completely dead inside, sparkly things will always amaze me, and The Notebook will never fail to make me cry.

The Blair blogger.

Last weekend I was 100 feet in the air. Okay, that wasn't an amazingly impressive opening sentence, but I'm scared of heights, so you should be impressed.
I went on a very big wheel in Sheffield City centre, I hopped into a little compartment on the wheel without even thinking about my irrational fear. Then the wheel began to move, and I've never been more scared in my life. Give me a roller-coaster any day, the bigger the better even. But, and I'm sure the people working there did this on purpose, hanging from the very top of this ride for the longest five minutes of my life, in a tiny, transparent box, was not to my taste.
I was with my father, who thought it would be hilarious to stand up and swing the damn thing, shouting 'look over there!".
He said to me (a quivering mess at this point) 'this will be good for you, it'll help you get over your fear' - which I'm not too sure about.
Anyway, the reason I relived this horrible moment is because it has since made me wonder - how do we conquer fears? Just because I didn't fall to my death from 9000 feet in the sky, doesn't mean I'm no longer scared of heights.
Many times before I've heard the advice 'do something every day that scares you', but for me, that's really not a challenge. If we push the boundaries every day, does it really help us become braver?
Being scared can stop us from doing all sorts of things, can you imagine how productive people would be if we nothing made us scared?
It's like the phrase 'practice makes perfect', the more we deal with fear, do we become better equipped to deal with it? How often do you face your biggest fear?
One example of my scepticism on this theory is my embarrassing behaviour watching a horror film earlier this week. I've watched many, many horror films in my time. However, this didn't stop me from squealing in terror and clawing my own face a little. In public, may I add.
Fear is a strange thing, it holds us back but it can also make us more productive. It can cloud our perception, it can make even the most together person an irrational mess.

My father's perception of fear is that it is something to be faced head on, something we should take control of and fight, and to never let it hold us back. I guess some people are more able to deal with fear than others, whereas I just have nightmares of plane crashes once a fortnight.
Although, my biggest fear of all is writing a blog and not being able to think of a witty finishing sentence. Yeah...

You'll read my blog, you'll love it, and you'll have a nice day.

We live in a world of paranoia. We live in a world where so much information is distorted, biased, and hidden from us. Newspapers, news programs and other types of media all have an agenda. No one really tells us the whole, impartial truth.
I was in University earlier today as this was mentioned, and it’s made me wonder; would it be better if we knew the truth about everything? Obviously within the media, this is never going to happen. But what about our own personal censorship?
I’m guessing that there’s no one on this earth that hasn’t had a bad word spoken about them. I never really think about it, but of course people have said bad things about me. Would you prefer to know what people have said about you?
We all do what the media does – we protect people from what they don’t need to hear. However, whilst honesty is good, the ‘what you don’t know can’t hurt you’, has relevance sometimes.
Even though we hear about war and death all of the time, we’re told about these kind of things in a particular way, and we’re only told certain things. Are there things that we’re better off not knowing? Is ignorance really bliss?
I'm sure you've heard of that question - if you had the option to know the day you're going to die, would you want to know? If we don't know about the bad things in life, then we can't focus on them. If you knew that people secretly hated you and you were going to loose your job next week, well, that would just ruin your day.
Maybe sometimes it would help if we forgot all the niceties and said to someone "Good morning, bad hair day today is it then?". Our lives are full of "hope you're okay"s and "you'll do fine"s, why doesn't anyone ever tell someone the truth, that things might not turn out okay? Maybe then we wouldn't be so shocked when things go wrong. Maybe someone needs to say to me "No Jess, a career in journalism won't buy you the life of Simon Cowell", and "No matter how many times you go jogging, you won't end up looking like Kate Moss".
I remember watching a film a few months ago, a badly made film with a good concept behind it (as many films are at the minute). It was called 'The Invention of Lying', and for those of you lucky enough not to have wasted two hours of your life watching it, it was basically set in a world where there was no such thing as lying. It made me wonder what this would actually be like. Aside from the fact that no-one would have any friends,wouldn't it be weird? I'd love to be brave enough to speak my mind all of the time. Not only do the media cover up the truth for many reasons, we're guilty of this, too. People lie for all sorts of reasons, we lie to make ourselves look better, we lie because of jealousy and pity...it'd be nice to know where we all stand for once.
Then again, if we lived in a world where people didn't hold back on telling me I was having a bad hair day, I wouldn't really see much difference, anyway.

Shapes and contemplation.

I read a magazine article today that I really wish I hadn't. It was about how young adults, especially University graduates, are increasingly opting to live with their parents. I think if I was faced with the prospect of moving home after University, I'd not graduate until I'd done at least ten Master's degrees.
A week never goes the way I think it will, so there's no way any of us can plan where the rest of our lives will take us.
It made me wonder - who decides what to do and when in life?
Obviously, we go to school, and then we go to University or we get a job...but then what? What are those years in the middle meant to be filled out with? You know, the years in our late twenties, which seems to be when people travel, go after their dream job...or, just simply..don't.
And when it comes to the generic term I like to complain about a lot on my blog - settling down - why is it that most people seem to get married and have children around the same time? Okay, fertility and health reasons aside - why do the majority of us follow similar paths in life at the same time? People buy different cars, different houses and have different friends, but we mostly seem to have the same goals and simple pleasures. Would it be disgustingly generalising of me to say that most of the British population leave education, get a job, work their way up or change jobs, get on the property ladder, shoot out a few babies, and then retire and die? That sounded less depressing in my head, I can assure you.
It seems that we either follow the herd and settle down, or we resist the norm and we don't follow by example. I'd quite like to know - what is the average life like? And how do we resist doing things because it's what's expected of us? I'm not exactly saying I'd like to live in a tree and have monkeys that I call my 'babies', but I'd like to act outside of the box for a bit of my life.
 Without meaning to sound like an old man, it seems that life goes by so quickly, and no one tells you to slow down and savour it. My first year of University literally sprinted by, and although people warned me it would, I wish somebody had really, really told me to savour it.
So as much as I want to live outside of the box, there doesn't seem to be much point of doing so without really opening my eyes as I do it.

My blog's amazing...didn't you know?

I've recently been wondering, is knowledge power? It isn't as if people often utter the phrase 'I really like her, she's so clever!' Yet, if you were to describe your perfect partner, the word 'clever' would be quite a priority wouldn't it?
I mean, I'm no vegetable, but I'm not even clever enough to do the course I initially wanted to do at University. I've always wondered what it would be like to be one of those really, really annoying students that don't have to ever revise or try to get their head around anything at all, and yet they excel at everything they do. I can be reasonably bright, but it takes a lot of application.
I'd love to be really clever when it came to people. I'd love to be able to understand people's behaviour, and the best way to act in any social situation. The last four months of my life have presented me with a lot of reluctant alone time. And now, over the next few days, I will be faced with a city full of excited students as University begins once again. But to me, it's a big challenge to be around so many people again. I'd love to be clever enough to keep calm and know I don't need to worry, to know what to expect. 
I can imagine that being really academic has a lot of negatives. If I was in the pub, for instance, and I whittled on about relativistic cosmology (yes, I did Google that), then people wouldn't want to talk to me. Is there an inverse relationship between being a social butterfly and being a smart bookworm? Or is there such thing as being all-round clever?
I think it's an acquired talent, knowing how to be good around other people - knowing what to say, knowing how to stick up for yourself, knowing how to portray yourself favourably to others.
So I might walk into doors a lot, spend money on the wrong things and spill my coffee every morning, but I try my best to make an effort with people, and that's what will hopefully get me somewhere.
I know it's possible to learn and to exercise your memory, but can we really do anything to make ourselves more clever? Or are we stuck with what we have? It must be frustrating to not be able to understand much, in other words, to be academically backwards. I always felt average when I was in school, top/middle sets in maths and science, mostly 'B's at GCSE level, does this mean I'm going to stay at this level all through life? Be the one who loses half her memory at the old people's home?
The age old question is beauty or brains... well, although it would be nice to have both, I think that being clever enough not to appear shallow enough to care about your looks is the way forward.
And why is it that people are often very modest about their looks, but it seems that if you're quite gifted in the head department - it's not as hard to admit that you think so.
If you were brainy enough to analyse any situation, to understand anyone and anything, what do you have to be afraid of? I once read a quote that said there is nothing to fear, only to be understood. Which doesn't really make much sense to me, I'm never going to understand how planes fly, or why I bump into everyone I know at the gym.

The fish still breathes.

I've already written several blog posts delving into descriptions of my desire to have a rich and plentiful life full of designer shoes and traveling. The copious demands that I have for the future are almost laughable, especially with the current downturn of economic growth. I've asked a couple of people, quite bluntly, 'do you think I'll get to live in London, Tokyo, Paris and New York?' followed by 'do you think I'll be able to have a salary of over £50,000 just from being a journalist?' I can tell you that the honest answers following these questions were not received well, but I don't let them bother me.
If you never expect to achieve a lot - there's no way that you will, life isn't going to just surprise you, so I think that the best way to secure a good future for yourself; is to aim as high as you can reach (which is quite a challenge for me, being 5"2).
I think that your path in life is pre-determined by one thing - your mind (I'm aware that I often sound cheesy).The world around us is seen differently by everyone, due to perception. How we perceive situations, problems and opportunities is, in my opinion, very important in shaping our futures.
There's no way of telling where we'll end up, but why am I any less likely than anyone to get a job at Vogue? If I believe I can be very successful, I can make myself as experienced as anyone rivaling me for a job. If you perceive a difficult challenge positively, in the worst case scenario you'll still come away with life experience, mistakes are what shape your success.
Students that are on my course, those beautiful people that surround me every day when I'm at University, seem to already be showing signs of their drive. It's almost boringly easy to select the students who will rise above the rest.
However, it's difficult for me to admit that I don't seem to be one of these shining students. I work for no magazine, I review no gigs, I interview no one, and my search for work experience was to no avail.
However, I think my passion for achieving and wanting to be special in itself, will get me far, even if I never stop wanting.
People can whoosh past me with their work experience, they can make my work their own, they can and do overshadow me, and they can achieve great exam results, but I'll plod along behind them with my determination, just you wait and see. Do I need to point out the 'Hare and the Tortoise' moral here?

How do you see this blog?

Today I got something for free. Something priceless. Something that can change one's view of life and all it’s entirety. It comes and goes with equal ease - but is definitely a healthy thing to obtain every once and a while. I gained some perspective.
I visited my home town, which a long drive from the place I call 'home' now. The feeling I had when returning there, can only really be described as a warm, calm and slightly sad feeling. Sad that I ever left? Or just sad because of what I left it for?

Perspective; it's more powerful than any pair of glasses when it comes to making us see the world differently, but it usually takes such great lengths to get, i.e. a break up or a holiday. But is there any way to gain it easier? Is there a fake-tan version?
Obviously, the great and complex human mind works in the way that the more we miss something/someone, the more we appreciate it if and when we get it back.
But why can’t we have this appreciation in the first place? It got me wondering; how do we not take things for granted without removing it from our lives first?
For instance, say your favourite high-heeled shoes (and I don't know...favourite...football for men) went to get repaired and were shipped off somewhere for a few nights. You'd get them back and then, because you'd have missed them oh so much, you'll appreciate them more and they'll grace your feet a lot more than your blister ridden feet would like...but why?
Another effective outcome of perspective is that it sometimes make us see things differently, for instance, time away from home can make you rethink your life. Personally, revisiting my childhood made me realise how quickly life flies by, and that I really need to slow down a little bit and relax.

The most fitting definition that I could find for perspective is one describing it as the 'choice from which to sense experience, forming a coherent belief, typically from comparing with another'. So, basically, perspective explains how two seperate people can look at one situation and percieve it in two completely different ways. Which is quite fascinating really. Well, from my perspective...

The best lessons of life seem to be when you're removed from the normality of what you call 'life', it seems. You have to mentally be apart from your life in order to look at it and pick out things you haven't before. However, can this be damaging? Surely realising how quickly life has passed you by, seeing your life through someone else’s eyes...well that can be just as dangerous as the broken high heels really.

Blogging addiction.

I watched an interview last week with(in my opinion)the amazing legend that is Alice Cooper. He talked about how he had been addicted to alcohol, which is, of course, the norm in his line of work. But he then went on to say that, after battling with this addiction, he turned his focus on to golf, and now plays it as much as he can. He described it as focusing his addictive personality on something that won't kill him (unless he used his head as the golf ball of course). So, basically, he has an addictive personality... right?
This made me wonder - what constitutes an addictive personality? Do you only qualify if you have had a serious addiction in the past? Obviously, addictions to drugs, alcohol, and even sex, are the ones that make the tabloids. But are these the only vices that you can get seriously addicted to?
People often joke about being shopoholics and chocoholics, but can even these turn into serious problems? Food addiction has been brought to our attention over the last few years – because, surely, isn’t that what overweight people must suffer from?
Is it that black and white, though? You're either susceptible to addictions or you're not?
I'm not certain if I really know what it feels like to have an addiction, I'm not really sure that I can comprehend the enormity of it - but on the other hand, I've found myself questioning whether I have addictions in the making myself.
There's a lot of things I think I'm slightly addicted to, and I think they're all link to adrenaline. I often crave excitement; getting caught, going fast, conflict, even fiery arguments, sometimes. And I'm definitely addicted to spending money. Adrenaline can't be dangerous though...can it?
Addition is described as something that 'induces pleasant states or relieves distress', that doesn't sound too life threatening does it? Therefore it obviously depends on what you're addicted to, for example if you were addicted to cigarettes, it is them that cause problems, not the addiction itself.
Also, my (admittedly, not so intensive) research has told me that 'continued use of the addictive substance induces adaptive changes in the brain that lead to tolerance, physical dependence, uncontrollable craving and, all too often, relapse'. So the more one gives in to an addiction – the worse it becomes.
All of the definitions that I read seemed to steer towards drugs and alcohol, but surely if you like something a lot, it sends endorphins to the brain so therefore can be chemically addictive? I'm no expert, but people seem to joke about being addicted to TV programs, and different foods and things, but it's possible isn't it?
Apparently more and more people are becoming addicted to the internet and video games, obviously because of advances in technology. So if these advances hadn’t been achieved, would these people have found something else to fuel their addictive tendencies?
I think addiction is a funny concept. It can be destructive and ruin people’s lives – but all it is, is a dependency in the brain to whatever the addiction is based on. For example, an alcoholic is dependant on alcohol to the extent that everything else in life can be jeopardised. Yet other people manage to enjoy a few drinks now and again, but don’t feel the urge to binge. What separates these two kinds of people? Is it an emotional or a mental difference?
This is all too confusing really, I’m off to spend some money.

Are you ready to be a failure?

Have you ever had that feeling, where you really believe that you're right about something? To the point where you won't listen to what anyone else has to say about the matter because you're persistence has gotten in the way? If you have - I'm sure you know what it's like to be then proven wrong. It's like when you're in school and you get an exam paper back - what you thought was a really good answer is cast into the background by a big, red 'X'. Well, this is slightly like the feeling I got today, when reading about the latest research on dinosaurs. It appears that our scaly friends were, in fact, half the weight that scientists initially thought. They apparently were a lot smaller than the greatest brains behind science once anticipated. There goes the believability of Jurassic park eh? After this discovery, and now that we’re very much aware of the spherical shape of the earth – it’s left me wondering – what else are we ignorant about? Are we going merrily about our lives, believing everything everyone tells us, just because it’s the easiest option? Well, one example of me questioning my own beliefs is as follows.

Due to bleak the bleak economic outlook, my escalating fear of not standing out after my degree has led me to not only dedicate myself to my own blog, but to also read other people's (I can assure you there's a slight social life in there somewhere, too). I recently came across some interesting words by John Chow, a successful blogger - http://www.johnchow.com/blog/
He wrote that, when an unsuccessful person talks about their goals, they use words such as 'hope to', ‘eventually’ and 'someday'. And that those who succeed have no fear of failing because success is made up from ' a string of failures'. And somehow, these words really jumped out of the page (well...screen...) at me. I’d never really thought about this before. Have I been clouding my own brain with unhelpful words?
I think that a lot can be said about a person by listening to their vocabulary. Out of my friends, I think I can pick out those that will be high-fliers, and those that will desperately cling on to the hope of winning the lottery every week. In other words, type A and type B people.
I know that this may all sound a little narrow minded, but surely, if you fill your sentences with negative words, these words will have an effect on your mentality, and you'll be programmed subconsciously to not achieve your goals. And really, how likely is that you can rely on winning the lottery?
It makes me sound a little weird I know, but I make sure that every day I do something to get myself a little bit closer to one of my goals. Reading about the bleak future of redundancy ahead for a lot of fresh University graduates, I think that it's time for me to seek out failure. I think, ironically, that’s my only hope of succeeding.

Is my chuckle vision too narrow?

Comedy. It’s the key to laughter, which is the pathway to happiness and good health, and us Britons have definitely got the best sense of humour around. I’m sure you have your favourites; the people that make you laugh the most. Have you ever thought though; about what is it that makes things and people funny? I’m not about to answer that monstrosity of a question. However, I’m going to attempt to offer you a slight bit of insight.
A conversation I had yesterday about this has been resounding in my head ever since; it seemed to be a matter of my own opinion that only men (and women with...masculine tendencies/weight issues) seem to have the ability to make me laugh; with Joan Rivers being the only anomaly to this theory that I can think of.
I don't know what it is at all - but it seems that if a man and a woman said exactly the same joke, it would be a lot funnier coming from the man. I don't know at all if this opinion is shared with anyone else, but if it's not - then it must just be a happy coincidence that the stand up comedy profession is more male dominated than any other I can think of. The most popular comedians are predominantly males, and that isn't just an opinion.
Let’s take a look at television, ‘8 out of 10 cats’ - 3 males, ‘Harry Hill's TV burps’ - male, ‘Live at the Apollo’ – typically always males. Looking at 8 out of 10 cats in a bit more detail – it seems that amongst the four guests they have each week, there’s usually one or two women. These women, if you pay particular attention, are never really that funny. At all. I could go one step further and say that they always just look as if they’re preoccupied with making sure the camera catches their good side, but that would be terribly sexist of me...
I’m not a particularly hilarious person, but if I was, it would seem that stand up comedy would be an amazing job to do. However, I’d never do it due to the belief that no matter how funny I could be on paper, I wouldn’t be able to transfer it to the stage, as I wouldn’t be funny.
‘Gavin and Stacey’ is a very popular comedy show - and what is that I hear you protest? The character 'Ness is hilarious? Funny you should say that,because I agree. However, referring back to my theory - she is larger than your average woman, and therefore, an exception.
It seems that the female comedians that are funny, seem to only be the ones that don't come across as caring about how they look. Joan Rivers, Ellen DeGeneres, and Ruth Jones are good examples of this. I'm not trying to say that they're bad to look at, they just project an image that they put their comedy before being a woman. I know that is harsh, but it is true,which is coincidentally the combination that makes most jokes funny.
I don't want to come across as anti-female, I'm not exactly a feminist but I do think women are, of course, the better sex, just not when it comes to making me laugh. I feel this blog may have let down the side a bit, so off I must go now to burn my bra

Do we need to calm down?

During my recent, much needed soul searching, I've found out the one thing that I believe we all can live without - stress. My research has told me that stress has much more impact than I originally thought.
Did you know that stress can actually make you ill? Of course you did, I'm sure. But you didn't think that it was enough of a threat to change your behavior, did you?
"Some day the medical profession will wake up and realize that unresolved emotional issues are the main cause of 85% of all illnesses. ." - Eric Robins.
This seems to make perfect sense, and I think that if we all just calmed down a bit, we'd be so much healthier. I listen to friends and family talk about what gets them stressed - and although I sometimes think 'do you really need to be getting so worked up about this?', I do exactly the same thing.
When we're stressed, our body actually releases toxins - but we're all so programmed to anxiety, so how do we go about changing that? Is it really that easy to just cam down when none of the external causes to our stress have changed?
One's quality of life isn't determined the events that take place; but the way in which these events are interpreted. So surely all we need to do is react differently to life's problems?
Since I've discovered the potential impact prolonged stress can have on our health, I've made an effort to try to approach life a bit more calmly. However, now, when I get stressed, it seems that I get more stressed because I know I shouldn't be stressing, and then I realise I'm stressing about being stressed from being stressed and it's just one big circle.
It's obvious that everyone encounters stress - it can't all be bad can it? Fear and excitement are the two most similar emotions we have - according to our body, there's very little physical difference between the two. Excitement released endorphins...so does that mean that fear must be healthy for us? And, surely, stress can't be that different from being scared, can it?
I think that the fact I'm getting so worked up about trying to calm down is a paradox worth ignoring for the time being, before my head explodes.

Curiously destructive.

I often wonder about a little concept called self destruction. I think this is something that's more likely to happen to some than others, and I definitely fall in the former category.
I often feel that when I've done something that has bad consequences, I have to wonder if I actually sought out to hurt myself in the first place. Sometimes, for some unknown reason, pain and complications seem to appeal to me. This sounds like something a depression sufferer would say, however I assure you that I'm quite happy.
Is it okay to purposefully do things that you know will make life more interesting, if you think the effects may not necessarily be good for you?
For some reason, there seems to be some kind of therapeutic appeal to causing myself problems. Yes, I'm aware that this sounds quite sinister, but I can't quite explain myself.
Don't get me wrong, I hate being sad or knowing that other people close to me are sad. However, there seems to be something comforting about dragging yourself down to a low point to then being able to pull yourself back up again.
I know a lot of things can't be helped, but I wonder, how much of the sadness that you suffer - have you subconsciously brought on yourself?
I've had many dire times where I've purposefully chosen vodka over lunch, loneliness and sad songs over a good time, to wait the day before a deadline to start work, and started an argument just because I feel an addiction to the sparks it causes.
It's like the morbid curiosity of staring at a car crash as you go past - I often wonder, 'can I cope if I go that little bit further?'
I’m going to contradict myself now to assure you that I'm not insane, but if no one else is going to push me to my limit - why can't I?