Smart Thinking

The late nineties was a bad time of my life. I met a monster, married it — and two years on I was going through a messy divorce. At the time it was a high price I paid for making such a bad life decision. But now? I’m quite glad to be able to say ‘Yeah I’ve been through a divorce. It was fun, NOT!’ A negative experience contributes to our overall good in the long term. All manner of bad experiences from petty arguments through to bereavement can all be put down to experience — something that builds our character and strength. Having this view on negative experiences gives you the emotional intelligence to control your reactions to the negative experience in the instant they occur. You’ve just bumped the car quite hard in a car park; there’s a spreading of glass and the other bloke is out of his car waving his hands. Your heart rate increases, several thoughts shoot through your mind in quick succession (usually overreactive thoughts covering phenomenal detail in a matter of seconds — w...

  It was around 1997. I was 20 — and the internet was finding its way into most UK homes, thanks to Freeserve, AOL, big beige PC towers and those robotic dial up modems. It even WAPPED its way onto mobile phones (I’d kill to use a Nokia 7110i again!) Sending an E-card was quick, convenient, fun — a quick(ish) dial up and a bit of email tinkerage and you could send your gran a ‘card’ straight to her inbox. Convenient yes — but I thought it was a bit impersonal and came up with this crazy backwards-step idea of selling good old physical hand written cards online. Pick a design, add a photo, write your ‘Dear Nan’ verse, pay a couple of quid — and a nice card would arrive at your grans house in the post 2 days later. Afterall, Amazon was selling old fashioned books like hot cakes. Without the time, confidence, money, drive — this ’crazy’ idea fell out of focus and life moved on. A couple of years on, I was partying like it was 1999 (it was). Take away delivery was becoming more popular...

Disclaimer - I’m not the booze police! This is just my account of an experimental lifestyle adjustment I’m going through. 2024 - The first half I'm no alcoholic, and I'm no athlete either. But since Christmas 2024, I started to question what Alcohol is actually doing for me. I was only a weekend drinker - mostly a few beers and a couple of bottles of wine over the weekend. Maybe a JD & C here and there for good measure. I often had that feeling of guilt when enjoying a few drinks hung around like tinnitus. I was thinking about my future self and what health problems I may or may not be fuelling further down life’s road. The noise finally got loud enough that I decided to take action, in one of those spontaneous moments like when you decide you’re going to run a half marathon. I think the first weekend after Christmas - I poured a beer, drank half of it and thought 'You know what?’ - I don't need this!'. As well as the longer-term thoughts about what A...