The sleepless nights have returned again. Much to my chagrin, it’s 5.30 am and I’m listening to the birds wake up on the last corporate working day of the year here in Australia. That picture sounds pretty good, especially as it’s only a few days to go until Christmas! The added factor for me is knowing that stress is causing the early mornings.

A year ago I would wake up early thinking it was perfectly normal that I could go to get at eleven or twelve and wake up 4 or 5 hours later, and then work through the day as best as I could feeling a little cloudy but otherwise fine. Occasionally hiding yawns that would effectively tear my jaw off like I’m a snake trying to swallow a passer-by if they get too close. The stress for me at the moment is in preparation for a departure of my vehicle to South America (antipodeanadventure.com). I’ve been preparing myself for a long time for this trip, a final trip of my ‘young adult’ life, across the Pan-American where hopefully, if things go well, my partner and I aim to start a family of our own afterwards. There’s a lot to be stressed about. Stressed and excited. 

Today I have two sponsors providing me gear for my journey, a little late in the show as it’s almost the final act as I prepare for shipping the car in January, but am humbled by the generosity of the two companies and will be making as many final preparations as I can.
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However, I will take ten minutes to sit on my couch this morning with some fruit tea and gather my thoughts, something I’ve only done once this week with a mixed degree of success: at 9 or 10pm after completing all my project for the day, I promptly just fell asleep. Nailed it! I will also try and take in the advice of my new mentor: think of your life as a film. We tend to get caught up in the precise moment but know that now is only a tiny bit of the story: this day and even week is only a microcosm of the bigger picture of your entire life. I like this.

Since I’m a Business Analyst at heart, naturally I can’t leave it there. The average life expectancy in Australia is 82.5 years which is roughly 30,094.25 days (as an aside, since 10,000 days is quite a milestone at roughly 27 years of age, I like that I can hopefully hit two more milestones). But overall you have 30,000 days to play with. Today is only 0.003% of the wider contribution of your life. Hell, an entire week is only 0.02%! Don’t sweat the small stuff, see the bigger picture, drink fruit tea, relax. Merry Christmas to you and yours, hope you have a wonderful festive season break.
 

​References and images from:
http://www.apa.org/helpcenter/stress.aspx
http://thewellnessproject.me/stress-can-affect-every-organ-body/
http://www.thewhiskeyjournal.com/man-without-lazy-bone-in-his-body-exhausted

aka What it takes to be a Deity

I have read the terms and conditions of my employment, and I don’t believe proclaiming I am a God is against the rules. Some may not be surprised to my claim of divinity, for I am quite the specimen, and yet I would imagine there would be doubters. Naturally they will be thrown into hell later on in their lives, but for the time-being they need to remain non-deaded since that’d just piss people off. That’s like rule 1 on the first day at work to make friends: don’t kill everyone in sight.

Proof is somewhat tricky. I think there is only so long I could carry the line ‘God works in mysterious ways’ when nothing they ask of me comes true and then every time I phone rang claiming that I did that. Late trains? Well you had it coming. Won the lottery? You’re welcome, my son. Death in the family? Erm . . . well I can’t control everything and be everywhere! Despite clearly being omnipotent and controlling everything and being everywhere . . . have I mentioned those mysterious ways?

​But as humans we never do anything until the last minute. It’s only when insomnia strikes that the constant bleeps of the fire alarm mean we eventually change the battery. So for my religion to be successful I need be there at the key moments in your life: birth; moments of desperation or as others refer to it, ‘marriage’; and death. Out of all of those, death is the key: very few look at death across the table and just ask to pass the salt. The deathbed is the catch-all, but just because they died doesn’t mean they don’t still live! <well you and I know it does, but hey . . .> They’ve just moved to a different place where I’ll take care of them, they’re very happy. I mean, who doesn’t want to be told something like that which they desperately want to believe in? No one questions the good stuff. Tell someone they’re an immensely good looking, wonderful person, and they’ll flap their lips about being gracious etc Tell someone they’ve got a face like a baboons arsehole and they’re all up in your grill. 

All I need is a key number of followers that would back up my claims. Naturally if they got to run some kind of profit-enterprise where they could reap in rewards – I don’t know, plucking a number out of the air, something like 10% - where they could set-up their own franchises in my name to get the coin in, I’d have plenty of backers. I could go on television and claim everything is running according to plan, praise science a bit to get them off our backs, tell everyone about God’s mysterious ways . . . please send your cheques to my secretary and I will send out my new informational pack! Now for a name. Suggestions?
 
Image ​References:
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Religion
http://daily.swarthmore.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/measuring-spirituality-religion.jpg
https://theunboundedspirit.com/how-to-lose-faith-in-religion-a-thinkers-guide-to-breaking-free-from-belief-in-god-and-dogma/

I possess few qualities, three that I can name. Abundant intelligence, classic good-looks and the ability to make a huge amount of money aren’t any of those qualities, but would make my life fuck-tonne easier if they were! I don’t use that word often, am trying it out. It’s technically much bigger than a tonne, I believe. 

​I’m unsure of the qualities’ origin, most certainly in nurture I would have thought. My first quality is calmness, to take each problem as it comes without distraction from the main goal. Of course, there are times when letting out some expletives helps such as yesterday when Google Maps directed me straight into 10 minutes of traffic instead of a quicker way home – minute long tyrannical curses gushed forth via a direct line from hell – yet I’m not really angry. My calmness comes from feeling that each challenge is temporary, just a minor obstacle to overcome, side-step or problem solve. Anything worth doing is always difficult, otherwise everyone would do it. A sense of perspective is a wonderful ally. 

The second quality I am endowed with is a huge penis. Sorry, I meant patience. That’s right. Huge patience, I always get those mixed up. An easy mistake to make I feel, yet try explaining that to single women after wooing them back to the flat. Fortunately, those days are behind me and my girlfriend loves me for more than my button mushroom. I am an extremely patient person, perhaps down to expectations I have upon people to deliver when they say they would (am not talking about pizza here) or that things won’t go my way all the time. I have become overly familiar with missing trams, for example. Nominally I walk to work, but sometimes I will take my favourite form of public transport. Yet when I arrive at said tram stop, I am 95% certain the object of my affection will be fleeing for all its worth. It’s not quite a super-power, but there is nary a human alive that can get a 30-tonne tram scampering the opposite direction quite like I can.

The last of my qualities is, I believe, an ability to understand humans and to not pass judgement. I am very easy to talk to, am shocked by very little, and can understand the perspectives of almost anyone from this earth. I do have a blind spot in the perspective of my girlfriend, but that’s entirely different. She’s from a different dimension <I think I can back my way out of that by saying she’s heaven-sent, right? No? Shit> I am fortunate to have friends from multifarious backgrounds, cultures, religions, sexual preference and even sexual avarice . . . some far more avaricious than others! But the core is that they are all good people, which at their essence is simply people being people.
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So there you go, my qualities are not world conquering perhaps and I may not reach the nadir of society through being calm or telling rubbish penis jokes, but if I can make someone’s day slightly better for an instant, that’s me done. Should my fourth quality be about being easily pleased?

References and images:
http://www.thequotablecoach.com/patience/
https://www.montclareschool.org/patience/
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