Success?

What is success? I was having this discussion with someone at work recently and we had completely conflicting views on it. He is a young, keen, obviously very ambitious young man, and sees the word success in very simple terms. It is going up the ladder, winning the race. If he doesn’t become a finance director and earn as much as his father (A finance director) then he will be sorely disappointed.

There is nothing wrong with this, in fact I was very much the same at his age. My father was a successful director, he retired early on an excellent pension and is enjoying his life more than ever. But I am not him.

In the modern corporate world we live in it’s very easy to have a “he who dies with the most toys wins” attitude I think. Especially when you are young and moderately successful. I was a taxation consultant in my 20’s for one of the 3 biggest accountancy firms in the world. I passed my exams, got pay rises, and helped very rich people get very much richer. I don’t have a problem with that, it’s a legitimate job within the law and those who can take advantage of it should have no moral qualms, neither should those who help them. Although to round out that feeling, I do think that those who are rich enough to arrange their affairs to pay less tax should also choose to philanthropise in some way to share a bit of their success. Politics over….

The thing is, I slowly became less and less fulfilled. As I rose through the ranks, I actually became less happy. Why? I think that looking back there are two main reasons. One is the simple stress of the job. When you are dealing with millions of pounds of someone elses money there is a lot of pressure on your to get it right. Fighting the Inland Revenue is also quite stressful, you need to really know your stuff and be able to quote legislation as if it was your scripture of choice. Long hours and constant brain drain take their toll. The other thing was the people. It’s a hard thing to explain, but I realised that I didn’t want to become the sort of person that you need to be in order to be successful in that world. Ruthless. Money-centric. Grey. Bland. As I grew up a bit (As us males tend to do towards the end of their 20’s) I came to realise that none of these things are something that I wont to work towards, even if they come with substantial monetary reward.

As it happened, I had the decision made for me, in the wake of 9/11 I was made redundant along with about 100 others in the UK. This gave me the time to think and to realise that I really wasn’t happy. I was very depressed and ended up moving back in with my parents for a while, and whilst there I started a new job at the bottom of the ladder, processing orders for a telecoms firm. I loved it. Suddenly I felt free. I was earning about half what I was before, but I was starting down the right path. I found that with the lack of stress and pressure my depression improved. I made friends, all of whom seemed much the same, happy and carefree and enjoying life.

So to get back to the original point, success has a completely different meaning for me now. Success is navigating life. Success is being involved in life. Success is being a good step-father and partner. Success is doing a good job at work without constantly thinking of where I should be going next. Success is writing several times a week, either here or just for my own pleasure. Success is knowing people read and enjoy my poetry, whether they pay for it through my getting published, or not it doesn’t matter.

Success is life, lived.

Winter Crispness

I love the country that I live in. I am especially proud of Yorkshire but it’s all beautiful in it’s own way and at various times of the year. These pictures really bring out what is so wonderful about winter for me, crispness, crunch, quiet, mist, all evocative words for an evocative season.

Feed the Right Wolf

It’s a hard thing to hear, but we all have the power to be the person we want to be. Believe me I have difficulty believing it too, but it is true. We can all take little steps towards becoming a better me. And that is the key to it, little steps. I have posted before about the importance of taking the first step, this one is more about having the focus to carry on making those little steps until one day you realise that you have walked a hundred miles in steps of just a few feet at a time. Each little step feeds the positive wolf.

This blog itself reminds me of how true this is. Six months ago I was terrified of even picking up a pen, convinced that nothing good would come of it. I was sure that I would be laughed at, that no one would want to read anything I wrote, and that I could never be anything of a writer. It was a blog post that convinced me to try actually. Dumb Little Man had a post on 5 reasons to start a blog and it really got me thinking. I made some little steps :

Step 1 was remembering that I had started this blog so long ago, and let it stagnate.
Step 2 was finding it again, and eventually remembering the log in details!
Step 3 was reading what I had written and discovering that I actually liked it!
Step 4 was opening the “new post” screen
Step 5 was an important one, and not immediately obvious. I didn’t apologise for being away. I carried on as if it was the day after my last post
Step 6 was looking at the stats the next day and seeing that people had actually read what I wrote, and clicked the “like” button.

Each of those tiny little steps was a mouthful for the good wolf. Each time I did something towards becoming a regular writer it felt a little bit better, and I felt a little bit better about myself. OK so I haven’t had an epiphany and become Tony Robbins (I shudder at the thought…) but I can feel the difference between the me I am now and the me I was 6 months ago. Other areas of my life need work too, but I am writing, and that feeds the right wolf.

Excercise is Good for You

When I was first diagnosed in my late teens/early 20’s pretty much the first thing that the Dr asked me was “How much exercise do you get?” and the second was “When you wake up in the morning, what do you do?”. These questions surprised me a little. I was here for my mind, not my body. It turns out that the two are very much linked though…

To be my usual topsy-turvy self, lets take the second one first. One sure way to invite the black dog to spend the day with you is to lie in bed after waking. It’s the perfect time for thoughts to run around in your head. In a person that doesn’t have a mental health issue this is fine, it can help start the day, provide solutions to ideas that you have ‘slept on’, and generally be a nice snuggly lazy way to start the day. For those of us that are unfortunate enough to have depressive tendencies however, it’s very different.

Lying in bed with nothing to do but think is a terrible idea. In a lot of ways, thought is the enemy. Well that’s not quite true. Undirected thought is the enemy. As I have written about before, well focussed thought can be a mindful relief, but that isn’t what happens the first thing in the morning when you have just woken up. Doubts and fears swirl and grow in the quiet dawn. Those nagging little gremlins that can be kept at bay with day-to-day action have no barrier when you are just lying there.

So, some of the best advice I was given very early in my depression ‘career’ was to get up when you wake up. I still do, and I still find it helps

Excercise. The bane of modern urban living. We don’t get enough, I think that is generally accepted. Your average bloke or girl in the street gets half of the aerobic action they need, and that’s being statistically optimistic! We are a world (Meaning the western, plump, rich world) of ageing, fattening people. This aside though, your brain needs exercise too. The same Dr that got me to jump out of bed in the morning also told me to take a hike. Literally. It turns out that one of the best things that you can do yourself with no help at all is just to go for a walk. It can be difficult when you are having a black dog day, but boy does it work when you can manage it. I have lost count of the times where I have managed to drag myself out of the depths with an autumnal stroll. Nothing more than that. No stern talking to myself, no mantra, no yoga (although that would help too), no pills (other than the usual daily ones). Just a stroll.

Breathe the air. Look at the sights and sounds. It doesn’t matter where you live, it could be next to a steel works or an airport but there are still things to see, hear and smell just as if you lived in an idyllic forest. Focus on the external. Let the internal conflict, fear and hatred flow away and wonder at the beauty of the world.

Excercise stimulates the release of chemicals in your brain called endorphins, which contribute to that ‘natural high’ that keen excercisers mention. Swinging your arms and legs shakes out any stiffness, holding your head up and looking around clears your airways and helps with neck and back pain. There are myriad physical reasons to just take a walk. Add those to the mental benefits and it becomes impossible to argue against.

So get out there and take a hike!

Some useful links :

mentalhealth.org on the benefits of excercise
webmd on depression and excercise
helpguide.org has a great page on living with depression. Good general advice here but #4 is particularly relevant here

Milestone

Today this blog passed it’s 400th view. Thank you to everyone that’s reading and coming along on this journey with me. There is lots more to come, and hopefully another proper post later today.

Keep positive!!