What really matters?

I'm working nearly every waking hour at the moment; most people I know are.

Why?

I'm starting to find that the majority of us are living to work, rather than working to live. It's all work, work, work yet we don't seem to get any down time to spend the money, nor see the benefits of such excessive working hours.

Today, somebody told me they had a brain tumour. I can't stop thinking about it. I've known her a while and yet never knew. She hasn't let it stop her living her life though, no. She's still working nearly 15 hours a day, headaches aside, and nobody knows of her condition. I've been trying to think why she has kept it to herself and the only conclusion that I can get to is that she wants her life to continue as it always did and if people knew, they may take pity on her and have negative effects on the way she's trying to keep going as normal.

It's really got me thinking though. We work every hour god sends, and for what? To pay the bills, to buy the food shop and for the odd new outfit. Some of us have bags of disposable income, so we go on numerous holidays and go shopping for luxurious clothes, as oppose to those of us who shop for clothes purely to avoid being arrested for 'indecent exposure'. But those of us who are working purely to pay the bills and stay alive are just stuck in a viscious cycle, and that cycle seems to be 'life'.

But surely we get to a point where we say enough is enough? Or is that what is known as 'retirement'? What if we never make it that far? After all, we don't all reach the finish line of life. It's scary.

I've begun to think that although working 60 hour weeks to save up money for my future seems a good idea now, and I will look back when I'm in the future and be thankful that I did it, what's to guarantee that I will reach that time. What if one day in the near future I realise I won't make my far future? I'll have wasted hours and hours of valuable time for nothing. If we're always living for the future, we're missing 'now' - or we had 'now' a long time ago. If this is the case, when people ask 'how's things at the moment?' we can't truly answer unless we can remember and pinpoint a day and time when we were working for this moment. Ok - that's looking a little deep in to it but it's not hard to see where I'm coming from. My head works in weird ways.

Some say we live once; some say we have afterlives. Either way, there's no guarantee that we'll meet the people we have in this life again; our mother, father, family and friends. I'm starting to think that the only thing that matters in life is the people close to us so why are we fighting for other things, such as money?

- Live life to the full; but don't cross the line and live everyday like your last - you'd blow all your money and do everything you've ever wanted, so what'd be the point in living on?
- Don't waste time regretting things, just add them to your lesson book and try to steer from getting in to that same kind of situation again. And don't regret things you've said because at that moment it had reason and it felt right.
- Do what you enjoy, whether you're good at it or not. If you like singing, sing, if you can't sing, still sing.
- Do something new everyday.
- Do something nice to somebody everyday - you never know when it's going to be you who needs a hand with something.
- Be nice to people you don't know, people never forget that 'lovely' person they met - they never forget the 'horrible' one either.
- If you live alone, or sleep alone, wake up to the radio - waking up with somebody will give you a good head start to the day, even if it is Chris Moyles and he's talking to the whole nation - it put's you in a group.
- Stop waiting for the perfect moment, what if it never comes? Dare yourself to jump...
- Don't think too deeply in to things - don't think too much about new opportunities, by the time you've thought of every possible outcome you'll have missed the opportunity.

So far for me, life seems a series of sharp turns on a country road. You can never see what's coming around the corner towards us, whether it's a bike which'll nicely pass us by, or if it's a lorry on our side of the road about to cause problems. Whatever happens, there's no controller, no stop button, rewind or fast-forward - no matter how much we wish for one.

We're stuck in what we think is the present and always will be.

We never see tomorrow because yesterday's tomorrow is today and now tomorrow's another day away. And there it goes, another cycle. It seems Ronan Keating was right all along, tomorrow never did come.

Standard Procedure

It's standard procedure, once a year.

I can't remember a year where I've not had exam results. I vaguely remember the time where life revolved around who was 'on' in Tig and the only thing we had to worry about was who had the most sweets. That's laughable now.

We've gone from have no responsibility and hardly even a purpose in life, to planning and determining our own future. And it's serious.

When it comes to results, to most people you either pass or you fail. To me, you fail, do badly, do ok or get 100%. For me, it's all about self satisfaction and getting out what you put in. I remember the first results we got from University and I threw out this cringy line, the one about self satisfaction and getting out what you put in; this was the point where I re-branded myself as a joke!

Maybe I am a bit of a joke.

Kacee xx