This Is This

I’m aware how my actions and thoughts affect others, but what I sometimes struggle with is how my thoughts affect myself, because sometimes if others aren’t affected, I’ll give it less importance.

Here’s a small example of it. Over the last week I’ve been listening only to classical music and getting early nights and maybe reading a little in bed. Not that normally I crawl into bed at 3 am after rocking out, but I can be up late for no good reason and wake up feeling guilty that I’ve done nothing to help, each morning vowing to be better the next day.

And  each day I would promise myself to help myself as much as I could while having no idea what that was.

Last week anyway, it was early nights, reading and classical music. Just for the dick of it, just to see what would happen.

And guess what? I feel better. I feel clearer and brighter and it has spurred me to go on to do more, because my actions do influence my thoughts and I can influence my actions.

Sometimes I think the wrong thing, straight away. For example today, on the way to the train today I saw a guy in a Philadelphia 76ers basketball tank top. It was a fake, and I did a mental sneer. The Sixers are in the playoffs at the moment, and I know this because I follow them. I follow them because I used to live there.

I sneered because even I am not wearing a fake rip-off Sixers jersey. I sneered because he has probably never been to Philly.

Only a couple of moments later (it may have three moments, I didn’t count because I was too busy sneering) I thought “Maybe that guy back on the platform was a Sixers fan. Maybe he has been to Philadelphia.”

And what does it matter if he has or he hasn’t? Everyone who has a Stone Roses album doesn’t need to have been to Manchester.

No, these things do not have to rear their ugly heads and it makes me less happy when they do, but as long as I keep doing it, I have to keep myself in check, because it’s possible that one day I’ll be so used to it that I won’t notice it any more.

I need to be less cynical and start enjoying life more. And the only way to do that is to try. It’ll take some doing, but you won’t see the sunrise unless you get up early, and the day’s going to happen whether you do or not.

Also on This Is This
I used to have a doctor called Doctor Burn, which I thought was a little cruel, like if your mechanic was called Michael Dent.
Read this post...

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 29th, 2008 at 1:16 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed, or you can skip to the end and leave a comment yourself.