I recently bought [...]]]> I kinda avoided using iTunes because it was unfamiliar to me, and I much preferred to play songs on a track by track basis on VLC players, and since windows media player stopped being an mp3 player and started to become more of a music managment device it because kinda difficult to manage.

I recently bought an iPhone and it sort of forced me to use iTunes, (it won’t allow me to use any other music player on it), and after being annoyed initially, I got into the full flow of things.

I started to rate every song in my music collection from 1-5, I deleted all the 1-star songs, then I got all the album artwork for every song, and name all my music correctly (correct artist, track, album names).

It took my quite a few days to do but got there eventually.

And sometimes it can be a bit of a mind-numbing chore, leaving you wanting to quit and go away and do something else. However once completed the rewards are immense.

Some of the benifits listed below

• Much more organised music collection allowing you to find tracks quick and easily (thanks to correct tags used)
• Better understanding of your music tastes, from rating track
• Easy to create playlists of different genre’s, tempo’s etc of music allowing you to listen to music to suit your mood
• Album artwork makes your music collection appear more “real”, especially when flicking through tracks on your iphone
• Makes you more familair with your favourite artists, how many songs out there do you like but don’t know the name of?

I found this resource invaluable in teaching me how to oranise my music http://ipod.about.com/od/advanceditunesuse/ss/album_artwork.htm

Also the shazam app for the iphone is really good for identifying songs that you dont know the names of, I’ve had quite a few songs in my collection that I didn’t know the name of [because they had generic names like Track1 - Now69 etc], with shazzam I simply press ‘Tag’ and it recorded 10 seconds of a song and came back with the artist and song name.

My family was very poor, when I was a kid I used to resort to stealing from my parents in order to buy stuff that all the other kids [...]]]> I came across this topic randomly whilst browsing the net, and I remember having a strong emotional response to this because it brought back some painful memories.

My family was very poor, when I was a kid I used to resort to stealing from my parents in order to buy stuff that all the other kids used to get. I would steal money from my parents to buy sweets, football cards, drinks and just general spending money that all the other kids were given by their parents.

I remember hating having to do this, however I felt like I needed to do it because it saved me from the humiliation of having no money to spend, and I hated being one of the poor kids at school.

I used to dread every non-uniform day deep inside, but at the same time I had to show that I hated wearing my uniform and was looking forward to it in order to fit in with peers.

What’s funny is that I lived in a working class family and most people in school struggled to pay the £1.5o levy to get into school wearing non-uniform. But nobody dare mention the fact that they couldn’t afford to pay £1.50 to get into school.

So either the kids bunked school or got into school wearing uniform and face humiliation.

I used to enjoy school and couldn’t afford to pay the levy, so I would find out about non-uniform days and save up in order to get in. Other kids would come into school late which meant that they avoided paying altogether.

Non-uniform days would happen once every couple of months or so, and I had to contend with other issues such as how do I avoid wearing the same clothes which I wore on the last non-uniform day.

Kids are brutaly honest, and would make fun of you.

Looking back in hindsight, I never want to live in such poverty as an adult, and would never wish for this for my children. I’ll make sure I have plenty of money and my kinds have their basic needs met. Secondly, it’s funny how much kids care about peer pressure, as an adult I’ve matured so much and I really do not care what so ever  what other people think of me, however this is not the case of kids.

However sometimes dwelling on the negatives are important especially if they keep propping back up over and over again.

On [...]]]> I don’t really like rehashing the same stuff over and over again, I don’t like dwelling on the negatives and I really want to post up constructive commentaries, not have to post up more and more negatives.

However sometimes dwelling on the negatives are important especially if they keep propping back up over and over again.

On an earlier post under the same name, I indentified lots of regret I have in my life, and some areas which I am competent at, I falsely identified that I don’t go after what I want in life, and settle for whatever life throws at me.

This is accurate to a certain extent, however it’s not really the core of the issue, the core of the issue is that I don’t like discomfort. I am afraid of situations where I may experience discomfort and try my best to avoid it, until I am forced to face these situations and then when I do throw myself out there I find that I manage to fare pretty well.

This is the reason why I am going through life at a snails pace, and if I carry on going down this path what will happen is by the time everyone else is getting married and having children, finally then will I start getting girlfriends and having an active social life.

By then, I would have let so much of life to pass me by.

This is the standard pattern of my life:

I feel like I need to do something
I can’t face the discomfort of taking action and making changes so I put my head in a cocoon.
I engage myself with comforts, fast food, television, internet streams, forums
I pass the day by just doing the things I’m good at gym, training, making passive income, eating, shopping, browsing websites
Then situation comes where I desperately need to take action on the stuff I wanted to do.
I take action and enjoy doing it for a bit, but then I get comfortable and the cycle continues.

I need to embrace the feeling of discomfort associated with taking action on my goals. I need to rewire how I respond to "discomfort" from being anxious to being exciting.

I doubt myself in almost all areas of life, except for the routine elements which I have overcome by consistent practice over time, such as Gym, money making and my intelligence. [...]]]> A nagging seed of negativty I have is that I doubt myself a lot, this was made clear to me in the essence advance course.

I doubt myself in almost all areas of life, except for the routine elements which I have overcome by consistent practice over time, such as Gym, money making and my intelligence. Hell yeah, I love the fact that I can analyse things to death, in fact I can’t turn that off.

Anyway, back on topic, I’m writing yet another post at a time when I cannot fall asleep and I have this nagging thought I have on my mind which I must put to rest here before I drive myself mad.

I feel I have underachieved a helluva lot in my life, I regret failing my A-levels really bad, I regret going to a crap uni, and having to resit my finals because I did so bad. I regret getting a medicore 2:2 pass mark. I regret not making many friends in life, I regret not socialising and expressing my voice enough, I regret not having a girlfriend, ever. I regret settling for second best. I regret sticking to my comfort zone for far too long, and allowing the wind to drag my ship everywhere and anywhere it wants, and not using my sails tactifully to dictate my destiny.

In all my years, I have simply been happy to settle for whatever life throws at me, at it sucks. I am in this position right now, because I failed to capitalise on opportunites right in front of my eyes, and simply choose the backseat option because going for whatI want was “too difficult” for me.

Well now, I am paying the ultimate price, and I have to decide right now, I have to seize this moment and ask myself,

Am I happy? NO.

What led me to this unhappiness? The inability for me to choose what I want in life and go for it.

So what will lead to my happiness? I need to mercilessly, unashamedly, go for what I want in life and not settle for second best.

Really, the time has long gone where I can stand back and enjoy the luxury of not taking action, if I continue this, I will grow old a frail man, and I will not have a career or purpose in life. I will be for ever drifting around in this world, like a life drifts along in a stream of water, completely at the mercy of where the stream takes it.

Now please, let me go to sleep.

Just finished pimsleur spanish level 2, my comprehension and vocabulary has improved a lot, going to start level 3 soon, I might go and recap some of level 2 or just go straight on to level 3 tomorrow.

I don’t [...]]]> So I’m sitting here 10pm Saturday night, I’m bored out of my mind with nothing to do now, and nowhere to go. I got back from the gym an hour ago, and since then I’ve ate a grilled chicken breast (protein) and a bowl of meusli (the easiest carbohydrate source I could knock up).

I don’t know why but I feel really down and depressed lately.

I woke up Thursday with only 6 hours sleep, I couldn’t go back to sleep so I carried myself around the whole of Thursday. Got extremely fatigued round about 5pm and then had a nap.

I don’t know why I felt this way, my guess is that I’ve been going salsa class for 3 days straight, I enjoy salsa, and it’s something that’s way outside of my comfort zone, it pushes me into being comfortable with close encounters with women. I’m not used to this at all, in fact I’m a massive avoidant [as you'll get to find out later on], and I guess my brain haqs had enough and after 3 days of emotionally gruelling 2 hour long salsa classes. My brain has had enough and decided to lock up, and prevent myself from going salsa for the 4th time this week.

It was almost successful, except I’m planning to go salsa on Sunday, to complete the 4th salsa dose for the week.

Anyway, back to tonight. I’m feeling a bit lonely right now, I have nobody to talk to or hang out with. I could phone up a couple of people, but I have no inclination to spend time talking to someone.

A couple of days back I phone up my friend Naz, she used to be my supervisor about 2 years ago. She’s the only person who I feel comfortable in phoning up and talkign to. I feel she’s the only person in the world who’ll be able to listhen.

I spoke to her for 70 minutes on the phone, I was impressed because I was never the conversationalist and this was a massive breakthrough for me. We talked about some fun stuff, old memories, joked with her a bit, and talked about my depression for a bit, I felt she could understand because she’s been through it.

Even though she didn’t understand my problem, it felt good to be able to share this finally, and for a day or two it felt good.

Now I’m back to square one, I guess all my problems come down to one thing, my avoidancy, the fact that I don’t communicate with people much, I don’t have anyone to share my feelings, my inner feelings – not just nicities. I’ve been this way all my life, and well this blog I guess is all about changing my life around so I become happy and get rid of my depression, I have a group of close friends and someone to love.