Status Update

It’s been a long time since I’ve written much on this blog. I’ve recently lost interest but feel I’ve suffered from it; writing this blog so far has been a great way to organize my thoughts and make me more centered.

What’s happened recently to “Fifty Sets of Challenge” and what’s happened to me? Well I’ve left London, and may not return for the forseeable future. Nope, the police didn’t catch up with me for all the kiddy-rapes, thank God, but my dad suddenely deteriorated quite severly with his Alzheimer’s disease and his partner could not longer cope alone caring for him. She needed immediate help in looking after him day to day plus me and my sister needed to start looking for care homes and begin transitioning him into one; a difficult process which requires one of us to be here for a few months at least. Given that I was ‘between contracts’ and my sister wasn’t I decided it made more sense for me to go back up north than it did her. So I packed a bag and went to King’s Cross.  Boom! Just like that. All decided within an afternoon. I’ll be back with a van to collect my stuff.

So “Fifty Sets of Challenge” dies and I can’t see myself doing any game for the near future and I’m essentially working as an unwaged carer in a socially deprived part of the country. I may still leave the Fifty Sets of Challenge page up and in the future log any approaches I happen to do, whether that be one a month or one a year. It’ll be interesting to clock them up irrespective of overall duration.

My situation is good in a way though. Give me a minute. After listening to Anthony Robbins’ “Get the Edge” course (a truly phenomenal product which changed my life) I now make a determined effort to see the positive in everything. I reframe. I can’t see how negative thinking in any situation provides any benefit whatsoever, ever. Honestly. Think that one through.

Here’s my reframe:

• It’s not until I left London that I realised how much I despised it. I am now not in London. I live in a large, pleasant apartment with my own car. It’s an area which is far safer, cleaner and convenient than London and all the scum are our scum. British scum. Scum that we, the British created and which we have a shared cultural heritage with.
• I was struggling with the job hunt and it was proving extremely stressful. My last few jobs have been ones where the ratio of exportable skills to role-specific skills has been firmly tilted in the employer’s favour, plus managing offshore teams for several years has meant my technical skills, plus my confidence levels have nose dived. While job hunting I was massively stressed, and was frantically trying to swot up on years of missed material in the space of a few weeks in order to blag it through an interview.  Not only that, once I got the position the stress would only get higher as I had to continue to blag my way along, probably frantically hitting the books each night to bring myself up to speed. Ontop of that let’s not forget that as a contractor you are the tar-baby of the project. All of the project management incompetence: ridiculous timelines, inadequate employees, unreasonable requirements, they’re all dumped on the head of the poor contractor who walks in the door ready to soak it up. This is stress I really don’t need. Especially given my father’s situation. In fact I decided it’s stress I can’t handle right now.

It’s gone! I quit my job hunt. And now I feel like a weight has lifted off my shoulders. Living up in the North I can retrain myself at my own speed and leisure.

• ..Thus I don’t have to get up each morning and go to work each day doing a job I hate, surrounded by tossers and becoming increasingly stressed.
• Living up North I am in proximity to my friend Mr T. Mr T inspires me to live life less ordinary and to be more entrepreneurial. He has a great idea for an I.T. project and I’ve decided to get involved. Not only does it have legs and might go somewhere but I can use it as a less boring way of skilling myself back up.
• I’m less lonely up North. I spend a lot of time with my dad and his partner and this is more companionship than I had in London, where I was looking at ways to try and engineer a social circle.
• And most importantly: I get to spend time with my dad when he needs it the most. You only get one chance to do the right thing and I’m doing it.

I’m certain I made the right choice. If I’d landed a contract I’d only have had to quit it so thank God my job hunt so far was unsuccessful. The thought of being stuck in some high-stress IT job in London while all this is going on doesn’t bear thinking about. Thank God I have some options; a flat which I own and just enough money put away so that I simply don’t have to work for a while, years if I want to, and I don’t have to worry about it. So here I am, living in a nice apartment in a peaceful street next to a park, I have a nice little car and can drive everywhere. I don’t have to work for a living and am slowly skilling myself up for the time when I see fit to do so again. As well as that I am involved in an exciting project with a close friend, which is a dream scenario for me. I don’t have to work… which is fucking great (for a while). I’d recommend it to anyone. Obviously the situation with my dad is awful but it can’t be helped and I thank God that I can be here to deal with it.

I see myself being up here six months at least. Once paps is in a care home I still want to be here so I can visit him daily and spend time with him while he still knows who I am. It’s a compromise: I can’t stay up here forever; I need to get on with my life, but on the other hand I need to give him some time. Six months feels about right. This will give him time plus give me plenty of time to reskill and do some work on this project with Mr T. After this I really have no desire to return to London, it’s a shit-hole. I think I may move straight to asia. I currently have the rough date of 1^st October in my head as the day I get on a plane. And I plan two or three months travelling then move to Singapore, settle down and get on with the rest of my life.

…Which will involve fucking hordes of asian women and having an awesome social life.