The Easy Life

I'm not sure exactly which way this post is going to go. It's sort of fuelled by two slightly contradictory points. So I'm just going to go with the flow and see where I end up.

The first thing on my mind is the importance of having a sense of perspective. It's not always as easy as it sounds, particularly in the heat of the moment. But I do think it's important to put things in perspective at some stage, even if it's often retrospectively.

I find it quite important for someone like myself. The reason I say this is that essentially my life is, for want of a more poetic and graceful analogy, a piece of piss. It's easy. I don't mean that in a flippant or arrogant way, and I don't just mean the here and now. In fact the here and now is always pretty difficult however easy you've got things because you don't know what's happening until it happens and it can all come thick and fast and catch you out from time to time. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but by definition it tends to come a little late. Sorry I digress. Back to my 'easy' life. What I mean is looking at the bigger picture, I've had it pretty easy. I had a very stable and happy upbringing and remain close to all of my immediate family. I'm academically quite bright and on a social level I tend to find it easy to get along with people. I would be as bold as to suggest that I'm generally a well-liked person (with some exceptions no doubt!). I'm also lucky in terms of the opportunities that have been presented to me. My family are by no means wealthy, but my parents have worked bloody hard and I have been very fortunate in that they have always been able to support me financially, as well as emotionally. Personal tragedy has, relatively speaking, been very rare. Deaths in the family have been limited to elderly relatives (I'm not dismissing the deaths of my grandparents as insignificant, I just mean that they're not as unexpected as others would be) and, touch wood, the friends and family that I would expect to still be with me are. I'm generally a very happy person and to be quite frank, I have nothing of great substance to complain about. I've had my moments, just like everyone. There have been times when I've felt unhappy. I've had health scares, both personally and to people extremely close to me. I've had times where luck just hasn't been on my side and everything has gone proverbially tits up. There's been other times when luck has had nothing to do with it, I've managed to make a rather large mess of things all by myself. But, looking back, with that rock of reason 'hindsight' stood by my side, whispering wisdom in my ear, none of these moments have rocked me to the core in the long run. I've given myself a slap and stopped being miserable. People have recovered from ill health. I've accepted my bad luck, brushed myself off and got on with things. I've even managed to unstick myself from the sticky situations I've landed myself in. And all these experiences have ultimately made me a little bit more something. In some cases stronger, sometimes wiser, maybe more appreciative of what I've got going for me, perhaps more careful, maybe just more aware of my faults or those of others...or maybe some experiences have simply made me a little bit more 'me'.

One thing that I must stress here, and this is my second major point, is that I'm not trying to belittle my problems, or anyone else's for that matter. The idea that people shouldn't be down or moan about things, that people aren't entitled to claim they're going through a hard time just because 'there's always someone else worse off' oozes stupidity. Of course there is always someone with a bigger problem, with a tougher life, but that doesn't make my littler problem disappear, it just means someone else is in the shit even worse than I am. When you've got a problem you've got a problem, it's as simple as that. And whether it's a relatively tiny problem or a relatively massive problem doesn't alter the fact that it's a problem that needs solving. Some people are tougher than others and some people get over things quicker than others. Life isn't and shouldn't be a checkilist whereby everyone compares notes to see who's got it the easiest/hardest.

All I'm suggesting is that sometimes it doesn't hurt to take a step back and ask yourself 'is it really that bad?' Because sometimes we do get wrapped up in our own lives. I've certainly been guilty of intensifying and magnifying my problems disproportionately, we probably all have. It's human nature.

But I do think I'm aware of the relatively stress free life I lead, particularly at my age and in my current circumstances, as a student with no real responsibilities. And I think it's important and healthy to appreciate that.

At the end of the day, when I'm skint it's usually because I went out too many times last month, or bought some new clothes the other week. It's not because I can't afford to pay the mortgage or feed my family. If I really did completely run out of money I'd have to swallow my pride and go home, home to a mum and dad who wouldn't let me go hungry.

When things don't work out with a girl it's a few months and a few memories that are tarnished. A few heavy nights out, a little moping, one or two stupid messages that I shouldn't have sent, and I'm over it. It's not the same as a marriage breaking up, years down the drain and the loss of something truely special. There's not the worry of how it's going to affect the kids, whether or not I'm going to get to see them very often.

When I go to work it's a part time job. It's fun and it's easy and to be honest it's a place to socialise. I don't have to work 40 hour weeks in a job I hate just so I can put some food on the table and a roof over my head.

University, people say how tough it is, especially now it's the final year. And yes they're right. But I'm sure if I'd worked 9-5 every weekday for the entire year I'd probably have finished all my work by now.

So when I say I've got it easy, I'm not gloating. When I described my life as a 'piece of piss' I didn't really mean that everything is a walk in the park. I just appreciate what I've got. And at the end of the day when things do get to me, when there is something I'm unhappy about, I'm fortunate enough, the majority of the time at least, to be in a position where rather than just moan about how shit something is, I can actually attempt to change things. Simply being in a position where I can, to a large extent, decide my own fate is something that I am grateful for in itself.

I'm going to leave you with one last point to illustrate what I'm saying in a slightly random way. Sometimes I sleep funny and have a bad neck for a day or two. Sometimes I pick up a knock when playing football and it'll hurt for a week or two. Sometimes, god forbid, my back starts aching at work because I've been stood around doing not a lot for a few hours. And like everyone I moan about these niggling aches and pains. Someone extremely close to me suffers from pain on a daily basis. They were born with spina bifida, they suffer from scoliosis (they have a double curvature of the spine) and have numerous other related problems. The pain ranges from severe discomfort to excrutiating and almost unbearable. The simplest things such as eating and sleeping can often prove very difficult. Yet this person moans very little and currently holds down a physically demanding full time job. Knowing this doesn't stop me from whinging when my back aches or I've slept funny, because after all it doesn't stop hurting just because I know someone else who is in far worse and more constant pain, but it does make me appreciate that in the grand scheme of things, I've got it pretty easy.