Around
a year ago, I wrote this bucket list of personal challenges and achievements to tick off by the 30th
July 2012, my 30th
birthday.
It
was a bit of a rushed, confused list. I left loads off it and put on
things that others suggested without thinking as to whether I really
wanted to do them. “Reach Everest Base Camp” is on there, even
though I'm not a massively passionate mountaineer, yet “swim with
clownfish and regal tang” is not, and I've loved zoology and nature
all my life. Both would cost a fortune, but I know which I'd rather
be doing.
Visiting
Loch Ness and a whisky distillery are ticked off, and climbing Ben
Nevis is securely in the bag, as of last month. I tried to get back into MMA recently, but the price of training is
unjustifiably high these days, so there'll be no grappling
competition in the near future- definitely not before my 30th.
The
rest of the list is long and mostly untouched. At the time of writing
the list, I think I was being somewhat unrealistic- some of these
would take more money than I have; others would take more time than I
have.
To
have ticked a few off is a good feeling, but making a list this long
is perhaps a little scatterbrained. I've really got just a handful of
very important challenges that I MUST overcome, and that I MUSTN'T be
distracted from by wild flights of fancy like the majority of that
list. Here are a few that ARE important:
1) Get
known through the blog
2) Eliminate
my fear of women
3)
Get to grips with my memory disability. I still don’t know how best
to present it to people, how best to work with it and how to stop it
from preventing me from being the man I want to be. But I’m
learning all the time.
4)
Meet more people who like house music
1) Get known through
the blog
My
page views have slumped over the last few months as I uploaded less
frequently. I have a plan for getting them back, and I'm working it,
and what I'd like is to write something that helps lots of people in
some way. Hopefully I'll produce something that isn't just a post
with a few keywords resulting in more accidental Google hits-
ideally I'd like to write a piece that benefits people and makes
them want to share the post with others. Well. Stay tuned for that.
2) Eliminate my fear of
women
Best
not to go into too much detail right now. The journey continues...
3) Get to grips with my
memory disability.
Over
the last few months, as detailed on this blog, I've been meeting
with a zoological consultant called Fluffy Oakes. His area of
expertise is largely animal psychology, but he knows a surprising
amount of human science as well. Through assistance from his
sessions, I've taught myself to cook, I've got back in touch with
old friends, I've finally got into street dance, which I've been
meaning to do for a long time, I've sorted out a TON of Inland
Revenue stuff and have got my finances in order, I've cut down on
the amount of sugar I eat and I've even taken part in a TV show
(More on that next year). I've also learned to relax when I'm faced
with a problem, and not be smacked with an overwhelming sense of
self-pity the moment I find something difficult. These things were
not as easy to do as they sound, and this is due to the ridiculous
memory difficulties I have had all of my life. That, however, is
becoming less of a problem every day. In short, I've learned how to
minimise the damage that the memory difficulties inflict and have
managed to do some of the things I've been meaning to do for so long
(see the posts just before this one).
4) Meet
more people who like house music.
One
or two people here and there I know like house music, including a
few people I've met only recently... I've spent quite a lot of time
looking for some kind of music social group with an emphasis on dance music: no luck. I have, however, found a street dance group and they're all decent people. Each week we learn a set routine for
a particular R&B song, led by a qualified instructor. Everyone likes to dance, obviously, so I've got that in common, and we have a
few drinks afterwards most times.
So.
Yeah. When I trim it down, most of the important things I've achieved
already. There's just one thing left. But I'm almost there. Almost.
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