Well world, this is it – the start of my first challenge. Woop!
Prompted by the I-Pod fairy who yesterday, during one of those moments of deep introspection and general moroseness that I've always been prone to on dull, Sunday afternoons, delivered me ‘Everybody’s Free to Wear Sunscreen’ by Baz Luhrmann, the idea for this challenge began to take shape. Granted, it’s not much of a song – totally devoid of a tune for much of it’s 5-odd minutes – and a terrible cover of the old Rozalla classic (whatever happened to Rozalla??), but for all it’s musical blandness those lyrics delivered by that ol’ chap, always seem to strike a chord with me. Yes, it’s cheesy, and the advice is hardly earth-shatteringly innovative, but hey, I'm the cheesiest person I know and ultimately, it’s not a bad reflection on how to live life. As I thought about the words, mumbling them aloud as I walked down the High Street (one of these days I am going to get locked up), it made me realise, how quite appallingly bad I am at the following the advice the song dispenses.
To start at the very beginning, I rarely ever wear sunscreen (or suncream) choosing to cultivate the Des O' Connor mahogony look– a dose of gross hypocrisy from someone who works for a cancer care charity, I know. It doens't get much better from there on in. Examples of other abject failures of adherence include the following:
‘Throw away your old bank statements’ – d'oh. I’ve got reams of them, going back about ten years. They're all carefully filed in chronological order, but I never even cast a cursory glance at them. Yet, would I throw them away? Not on your nelly, you never know when I might...erm...might what? Decide to spend a weekend reading through 'March 2003' / need to burn them for fuel in the event gas supplies suddenly run out during a particularly cold spell / fashion them into an attactive mackintosh and galoshes combo? No idea, yet I daren't part with them!
‘Do one thing every day that scares you’ – steady on there! As someone who can’t deal with my chosen brand of toothpaste / bread / washing liquid (insert several hundred other examples) being out of stock and would rather walk ten minutes to another supermarket than purchase an alternative, actively choosing to scare myself doesn't compute. Examples of things which send me into a blind panic include losing my keys, leaving the house and suddenly remembering I've left a window open, and reading about some new symptoms of some terrible debilitating illness, after which said symptoms mysteriously develop within a matter of hours.
‘Stretch’ – Now I get the point of stretching, but I’ve run five marathons, eight half marathons and covered thousands of miles. Have I ever stretched? Have I buffalo (to borrow a line from Victoria Wood - there kight be a few of those during the next 365 days). I’d rather moan about the aches and pains, the stiff knees and the fact that at the age of 36 I’m convinced I’m shrinking, than put in the ten minutes of stretching required to deal with the lot. Who knows, maybe had I stretched I could have been 6ft tall after all?!
‘Don’t berate yourself too much’ – don’t get me started on this one.
‘Enjoy your body, use it every way you can. Don’t be afraid of it or what other people think of it’. Wooooah, there. I’m British for goodness sake. This brings with it a degree of modesty – buying clothes that are way too big in an attempt to hide the lumps and bumps and not allowing anyone to see any flesh between neck and knee. I've never quite understood how the Germans do it? Is it law that once you're over 50 or over 50 stone, you have to let it all hang out at every opportunity? Not content with putting everything on show, many of our Deutsch freundes choose to add various body art embellishments to highlight theire particularly gross bits. As someone who doesn't even take my t-shirt off on the beach in front of people I know, I fail on this one at every level - I’d consider converting to Islam for the burka alone!
‘Don’t worry about the future’ Now this is just silly. The past, the present, the future, someone else’s future, some bloke on Emmerdale, the next door neighbours cat, you name it and I can easily work myself up into a ball or nervous tension over it.
...and so it goes on. However, in the spirit of fairness and balance (themes which I'm pretty passionate about; well as passionate as I ever get about anything), it's not a completely blank scoresheet. I never read beauty magazines - not because they make me feel ugly, but because they're utterly tedious; I think I'm nice to my siblings, helped by the fact that both my brothers are absolute legends and two of the nicest, most rounded people you could hope to meet, and I've never seen the appeal of jealousy - why begrudge others their achievements when you can just as easily give yourself a good kicking fo the lack of your own! Overall, having reflected on the song and the 35 separate pieces of advice within, I score it 14 - 21 in favour of those bits I'm failing on.
Why am I analysing this now? Because 2011 has, thus far, been a year of unexpected transition. It began with absolute certainties and a degree of balance and stability that I've always enjoyed, but five months in it's suddenly all up in the air which is all very scary and unsettling as I can easily talk myself down into the various worse case scenarios - they tend to end up with me living in a skip in Cumbria, drinking White Lightning out of a paper bag - and yet, on occasions, I'm suddenly aware of the sheer scope of endless possibility which now exists, which feels strangely exciting and liberating (although the brain kicks in and I'm back in the Cumbrian skip in a few minutes). I can only liken it to that old 80s cartoon 'Dungeons & Dragons' where every episode the kids are given a glimpse of their promised land, home, which is then slammed shut (normally due to that ruddy unicorn - was I the only one screaming 'leave him behind' at the TV?) Anyway I digress (there'll be a lot of that too).
Basically, the point of this challenge and this blog is simple - I have a world of possibility in front of me, but I simply don't trust myself to make the most of it - or indeed much at all of it. I'll find reasons and excuses not to take the risk, I'll spend hours weighing up the pros and cons and finding ways to ensure the cons outweigh the pros and before I know it, the opportunities will have gone. Yes ladies and gentlemen, I am that unicorn!
I should point out that I actually have a very lovely life with lots of very pleasant elements to it. In particular, I am very fortunate to be surrounded by the most wonderful and inspiring people who every day do things and achieve things which inspire, shock and delight me at every turn. I often wonder how my life would be if I possessed some of their traits - particularly those who are super-ambitious, ridiculously confident or (and these are the ones I particulary admire) those who seem to wing their way merrily through life as though it's a Disney movie...
so, I'm going to try to find out. For the next 365 days I’m going to hand control of much of my life to them - my friends, colleagues and confidantes. I’ve asked them to set me some challenges, give me some goals and chuck me some objectives which will challenge, stretch and amuse me and enable me to maximise my potential and start living life to the full before that gate of opportunity closes for good. This may sounds stupid, childish or incredilby self-indulgent - and it's all those things - but for me, the uber control freak who has spent 36 years seeking ever deepening lvels of security, this is a genuinely big and scary move. I'm trusting in the fact that they know me, my limitations, foibles and fears and am hoping they will set me things that will challenge me in the right way and not get me arrested!!!
Undoing 36.5 years of sensibility, habits and plain ‘stick in the mud-ness’ won’t be easy – if I fall at the first hurdle, this blog may begin and end here – but who knows, I may just surprise them and me and actually start delivering.
So, the journey starts here. Bring on the challenges (gulp)…
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