I Know I've Got What It Takes

How many of you have heard of Alex Day? He's a British YouTuber and independent music who writes his own musician and produces and releases it without the help of a record label. What he has achieved on his own is amazing. With the help of his fanbase, he has managed to get 4 of his own songs in the UK Top 40... incredible!

Recently on his YouTube channel he released the video to his latest song, "I've Got What It Takes" and I have to say, it's a beautiful song.  Today, I decided that I would find/work out the chords and have a read of the lyrics, and those lyrics really spoke to me.

The song talks about having faith that things will turn out well, and that you should follow your dreams, and those words are a huge comfort to me especially at this time. The whole idea of feeling that I can get through this no matter what is really quite uplifting.

"And if people don't like it, well it won't bother me.
Failure's still something I can say I've achieved.
I won't forget that opinion, moving on isn't easy,
But not doing things would be boring indeed"

 So, if I've got what it takes, then so do you!

"I don't have superpowers, there's no magic spell
But I remain faithful for things to go well
I'm not looking for miracles, at least for today
I know I've got what it takes"

Stay Strong
Michael

What I Don't Understand About...Birthdays!

Welcome to episode two of this series of mine where I rant about things that I don't understand or have twisted views on.  This 'episode' focuses on birthdays.

It's not that I don't understand the concept of a birthday. As we all know, it's the day when we exit our mother's womb with much crying, screaming and shouting (and that's not just the baby that is you).  Obviously, it is great to celebrate such a thing, much like when we celebrate wedding anniversaries and the like, I just don't think we celebrate them properly. The focus of the celebrations seem to centre around the person whose birthday it is and , in my opinion, that is slightly wrong.

It always amuses me when people say "Congratulations on being a year older" and then applaud you. I don't understand this for multiple reasons. Firstly, you aren't a year older. You're a day older, or even a second older. We get older all the time so why are we celebrating getting older just one day a year? Also, why are you congratulating the birthday person? All they've managed to do for this 'achievement' is survived another year.

My view is that the birthday person shouldn't be the one receiving presents or gifts, but the mother of the person for it is them that struggled with you inside them for nine months and then had to deal with all the actual giving birth stuff. They had to deal with buying larger, rather unflattering clothes, back pains, cravings for bizarre food combinations and all the stresses of gathering all the baby equipment and clothes that are necessary. If it wasn't for your mother, you wouldn't be here. Also, if it wasn't for the father although he has to deal with considerably less pain, about from the moans from a baby-carrying woman. Maybe have a "Happy Conception Day" for the father so he doesn't feel left out.

I doubt any of this will change anything, but I think a lot of it should be taken on board.  I know that it's nice to wish people a "Happy Birthday" but, to me, for that individual, there is no point in congratulating them... unless they're one of those extreme risk takes then, sure, congratulate them on surviving life!!!

Stay Strong
Michael

What I Don't Understand About...People!

There are lots of things in the world that I don't understand; parametric differentiation, fashion, hair, Japanese, cooking, vegetarians... but the thing that most confuses me is YOU and, specifically your mind.

I mean 'YOU' in a generalised term, like in French where you have 'You' (singular) and 'You' (plural). Basically, I don't understand how people think and why they act in certain ways. It seems logical to me that, if you think something then you should act upon it. I don't like it when people constantly change their minds, or say they're going to do one thing and then do the opposite, or they refuse to learn from their mistakes or lack of judgement.

We all make mistakes, or say things and do something different. I'm not going to say that I have not done any of these things, because I have. I'm not perfect or amazing etc.. I'm just me.  I have been involved in and witnessed situations where someone has said they'll do something and then not, and that can get to a lot of people and make people feel hurt, but also angry and begin to not trust you. It also hurts you... more so I would imagine as you begin to do things you don't want to do, but you do them because you 'have to' or someone else 'wants you' to.

Thing is, we need to get out of that mindset. It helps a lot. I've had a great week because I suddenly feel liberated. I'm doing things because I enjoy them, not because someone else wants me to or because I feel I have to do something to impress someone. I've become my own person again, and that's what I want everyone else to do. Don't do something when you don't want to.  Stop hurting yourself.  Something that I learned today is that, in order to love other people, you first have to love yourself. That isn't self-love and big-headedness but more accepting who you are and being happy with who you are and what you do and how you tick.

Quite a few people I know seem to be going around in endless circles in their life (metaphorically of course because literally would just be down right funny). What they need to understand is that they have the power to exit that circle, but they just seem to choose not to use it.  And I can't help them anymore because I said all I could the first time and my opinions rarely change when it comes to morals.

But, hey-ho. Life goes on... and I still don't understand those vegetarians. Maybe that's a rant for another day... and maybe I should turn this into a series every *insert period of time here*.

Stay Strong
Michael

Snow More!!!

I feel I need a rant.  I'm angry.

Everybody loves the snow don't they? DON'T THEY??? You know what? I don't. I hate the stuff. Why? I shall tell you why.

It has snowed three times here this year. That doesn't sound a lot but let's compare that to another fact. Three times this year I have had to be someone important, somewhere which, if I missed, would affect my future. And you'd never guess what! Those two facts, the snow one and the important places one, both coincided with each other. What are the chances of that???

I don't believe in coincidences, or destiny, or fate, but I do believe that things happen for a reason, but this is beyond a joke. It is not great for a university interview, a rearranged university interview and a grade 8 piano exam when you have to deal with the threat of this vile thing we call snow.

What's even worse is that everyone else gets the day of school, but my college refuses to have days off, which is fine and something that I actually agree to, except for everyone at my college decides not to even bother turning up for their lessons and flaunt this 'achievement' on the social networks of their own regard.

No doubt tonight will be full of people telling me that they went and made snowmen or had a snowball fight whilst I'm stuck here rattling through maths problems and fuming at the college for wasting my time by putting my cover IT lesson in a room where the computers don't have the correct software installed on them and when you confront the cover teacher, who has no idea what they are doing and doesn't hide the fact that they'd rather be somewhere else at all well, over this software matter they shout at you and say you can't leave the lesson early or even go to a room where the software is available.

And... relax

Stay Strong
Michael

A Time To Laugh

Looking back over my recent blogs, there seems to have been a trend. I seem to have written a load of rather depressing blogs about life decisions, the lack of destiny and other things that just seem to be me waffling on about things that really aren't very entertaining. I mean, I'm supposed to be an entertainer after all aren't I?

People don't read this expecting to come out crying, I don't want that. I want people to laugh with me at my life.  So let's lighten the mood a little:

Yes... that is me. The sound quality is poor, but I hope you laugh a little at it.

Anyway... what was I going to say. Surely I wrote this with a point other than to plug my Youtube channel and things...

I guess the message is to stay happy. Things may well be going wrong but it's finding the joy in the small things that makes life worth living.  I mean, take me at the dentist this week. I had to have a filling and I was dead scared because it was my first one. Thing is, the one thing I was focusing on during that whole ordeal was how much I sounded like Johnny English when they all get injected with that numbing serum and can't pronounce their words properly... and I was quietly laughing to myself.

The little things in your life are usually the most important, most fun, and make you the happiest.

Stay Strong
Michael

Complexities, Cups and Comfort

Decisions are a complex thing to make.  I think our human nature makes these things difficult, but that's natural. We all want things for ourselves yet at the same time we don't want to tread on others toes... to hurt other people.

I've come to a decision because I'm hurting many people. I'm hurting friends, family, me and, above all, the one person I don't want to be hurting, so I need to move on.  I'm not going to lie, the last few months have been hell for me but, would I change them for the world? Probably not. I've learned a lot about me and who I am as a person. I've discovered new things about me, some of which I will embrace, others that I will look towards changing.

There's a reason why things are happening to me right now, that's what I believe. They will make me stronger, more caring and an all round better person in the future. I just need to give things a little space and time. "For the greater good" and all that.

On my email I have a status because I use Gmail and you can do that apparently.  It currently stands, and has done for a while, as:  

"Take this cup away from me, for I don't want to taste its poison".  

This is a quote from "Jesus Christ, Superstar" as Jesus sings to God about not wanting to have to die, because he doesn't want to. I can't recall exactly why or when I put it up there but I feel like this now. I don't want to make this decision, but I am going to because it's for the best for all parties, even for me in the long run. So, that status is going to change to a quote later on in the song, when Jesus finally agrees that he needs to die:

"I will drink your cup of poison. Nail me to your cross and break me, bleed me, beat me, kill me. Take me now before I change my mind."

God help whoever has me on their Gmail and needs to click to see that...

I thought I should leave a little message at the end here, a message of comfort and support.  For those who don't know, I have started writing a musical and it is something that I wish to continue doing and eventually finish.  I've been writing some of the music recently and one of the songs is nearly finished and, looking back at it, it's near enough a song about me. A song about how I feel so, I thought I should leave a quote from it as a comfort:

"There's always someone more caring or clever, but I'll be a shoulder to cry on whenever you need it"

Stay Strong

Michael

A Time for Everything

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:

a time to be born and a time to die,

a time to plant and a time to uproot,

a time to kill and a time to heal,

a time to tear down and a time to build,

a time to weep and a time to laugh,

a time to mourn and a time to dance,

a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,

a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,

a time to search and a time to give up,

a time to keep and a time to throw away,

a time to tear and a time to mend,

a time to be silent and a time to speak,

a time to love and a time to hate,

a time for war and a time for peace.

(Ecclesiastes 3:1-8)

I was asked to draw a graph of my life, featuring major ups and downs, today.  It was an interesting experience but what was most interesting was the discussion afterwards. I've always thought that I had a positive outlook on life, but I will admit that that has been masked somewhat by experiences in the last few months, but whilst speaking in our groups, I realised that there is so much more I could do to stop the immense downs.

Something I've asked an awful lot recently is "Why me?", and "Why is this happening to me?", but today I learned that, maybe, I should ask, "Why not me?" because I am strong.  Everything is a test and we should learn from our downs so that we are prepared for the future.

Another interesting thing I learned was that the most fertile soil is at the foot of a mountain, so things grow better before the mountain climb.  This of course is something I don't just mean literally. We can imagine the mountain as the climb up to your high points in life, but we grow more and understand ourselves more when we're at the foot of the mountain.

"When you climb a mountain, that's only half the journey"

Stay Strong
Michael