Tag Archives: happiness

Reflections on 2017

17 Sunday Dec 2017

Posted by in Music, My Journey, Writing

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I’ve been thinking a lot about what I’ve done over the year even though there are still two weeks left of 2017.

If I made a list of what I did this year it would be sort of inadequate to express what I’ve achieved. I’ll try to make this an interesting reflection on the things that went well and the things that didn’t go so well for me in 2017.

Writing

My commitment to my writing this year has had a few challenges. I finished a manuscript that I started last year in NaNoWriMo. It was 104,000 words at the end of the first draft in July. I pitched the manuscript to three publishers at the Romance Writers of Australia conference in Brisbane in August. Of those three, two wanted to see it. I thought I was finally getting the hang of this writing thing.

Since then one has come back to me with a no, the other hasn’t yet replied.

I participated in a weekly workshop for much of the year. Unfortunately that workshop became something I dreaded and sucked the joy out of my writing. I suspect the other members didn’t like my style, and so looked for something positive to say, but it felt forced. As a result, I felt like a fool even when I got positive feedback.

I’ve also written about 50,000 words on a new story, this year’s NaNoWriMo project. I’m considering using it for a self-published collection coming out next year. The story is reasonably solid, and it will need a bit of work to get it into shape.

Finally, I entered three writing competitions. I had aimed for five, but it didn’t quite happen. Perhaps I could count my pitches as competitions.

I’ve learnt the valuable lesson that I can’t listen to all criticism all the time. Not least because it depends who you ask. Editing is a skill I’d like to improve however I became so disheartened trying to please everyone that I didn’t even want to read my own story. From now on I’ll try to be more discerning in taking on critique.

Music

I joined Hello Volume in September of 2015. The three band members and I got on well, we were great at improvising and jamming out new material and I really enjoyed the process. One of my goals for 2017 was to get Hello Volume performing regularly, as well as working on new material.

Unfortunately, as of last month, I am no longer the bassist for Hello Volume. My priorities for the band were not the same as the other members, and I chose to move onto another project which was more in line with my personal goals.

Hello Volume played a number of cool gigs while I was involved: the Bendigo Hotel and the Workers Club, and open mics at Cherry Bar and Mr Boogie Man Bar. Thanks for jamming with me.

I wish the band all the best for the future and I’ll keep you in the loop with regards to my new project.

Day Job

I’m slowly coming to accept most art creators have a day job. There are lucky humans out there who make their living from their art, and that gives me hope. Most creative people I’ve met over the last year have jobs in the ‘real’ world.

It doesn’t make me any less of an artist that I have a job. I keep telling myself that. Artists have to make opportunities for themselves, self-publishing or putting on an independent show, or finding music performance opportunities, for the love of the art. If there’s some monetary reward then that’s a bonus.

It saddens me the world is structured like this. We are a society who doesn’t like paying for art. I’m as guilty of it as anyone else. I work hard for my money and I often don’t value art with my dollars.

My day job has been going along pretty well since my new boss started in late July. It’s probably sadistic of me to say I feel validated she’s getting frustrated by the same roadblocks I was before she started.

 

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Relaxing with my backyard banana lounge and a book (not pictured)

Overall, I think I’ve achieved a lot and learned a lot this year. I’ve done many things I’d never done before. I coped with some pretty difficult life crap too, like being evicted from my home with three days notice (the building was unsafe) among other things.

I think I’m starting to get a handle on the things I need to do to keep myself happy. I’m allowing myself to sit with my feelings more, particularly anger and loneliness. After having four good friends move away from Melbourne last year I’ve been looking for new people to hang out with. It’s a slow process.

Next year is looking busy and exciting. I’ll be doing my annual New Year’s Goals soon so stay tuned!

On why I choose to be poor and happy rather than rich and miserable

09 Friday Mar 2012

Posted by in My Journey

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Recently both my psychologist and one of the guys who works at my gym have commented on how much happier I appear; that there is much less rage emanating from my presence. This makes me happy.

I know that when I started this blog I said ‘I will never get a job’ – but I’m sure you all knew that that was a bit of an oversimplification. I was (almost) completely unemployed for about 4 months (Nov-Jan) but then two things pointed me towards some sort of money-brining-in-arrangement:

1 – in a capitalist (or any really) society one cannot exist without contributing to the machine (e.g. working) and getting something in exchange (e.g. money); and

2 – I was starting to go a bit peculiar spending a lot of time alone in my house.

The problem with being largely directionless is that there is no external motivation to achieve things. There are no deadlines or commitments to juggle and so you (or at least I) end up procrastinating the whole day sitting on your ass in front of either computer, tv or both. It also didn’t help that I didn’t have any money to go out and do ‘exciting’ things like eat out, or see movies, or go to galleries etc.

So I started applying for jobs; I applied for all sorts of things, all part-time; recruitment, HR, office temping, reception, hospitality, child care, call centre etc. I had a few interviews for HR/office jobs and to be honest they all sounded kind of awful. I didn’t really want to go back to the office world where people earning $100,000 + complained about not being paid enough – that and the obsession with full time work as the only viable option sounded horrible. As it turns out I was not offered any of these positions; maybe they new that I wasn’t really in the cult of the office worker, maybe they could smell the hippy from across the desk, or maybe there are just way more people out there looking for part time jobs than there are jobs.

The job I ended up being taking is 4 days a week in a canteen in a school in Melbourne. There are a few cons such as having to stand all day and getting minimum wage but there are a lot of pros to this job: I make coffee and sandwiches, I chat to the teachers and the kids, I finish by 3.30pm, I get free food and I get school holidays off! The biggest pro for me however is that I don’t spend the day watching the clock tick down until home time, I smile a lot and I look forward to going to work*.

I have never thought of myself as being money driven and I was always of the opinion that you spend whatever money you get in no matter how large or small the wage. When I finished in HR I was earning a pretty decent wage but I was also spending most of it and I was miserable.

I have found that the exercise of stripping back all the layers of stuff I was buying but didn’t need and trying to function on the barest of minimums has forced me to look at my buying habits. I don’t have the money now to buy random stuff, so every time I want to I have to think: am I buying this because it’s there, because it is marketed to me, because I can or am I buying this because I am replacing something that is worn out or something that I really actually need (in a utilitarian way)? It’s kind of hard in the beginning to try to rationalise every single thing you buy but once you get the hang of it, it’s pretty empowering.

I buy things because I need them; food, toilet paper etc. I buy things because I need to replace something; my pants are worn out so I need a replacement pair. I buy things from op shops because it’s cheaper and greener. And if it’s not one of these things, I basically don’t buy it.

I feel like the decision to step out of the rat race, the career oriented, money hungry office job market has allowed me to take a step back from the ‘you need this product to make you cool’ mentality. It makes me much more conscious about where my money goes and much more aware that it is a finite resource that I should try to spread as far as possible.

So what am I actually saying? I am so much happier being poor. I didn’t realise I was miserable but I was. That’s really what it comes down to. I am living for me; I am working to live not living to work. I am taking charge of my life and making the system work for me, instead of becoming a cog in the machine.

Oh and I’m back at uni, but that is a story for another day.

 

*getting out of bed is still not my favourite but once I’m there I’m all good.