Making sense

Tonight I caught up with a good friend of mine in town at the GPO. We had another great tapas dinner at one of the restaurants down the stairs, I forget the name, but it was delicious. Over this tasty meal we caught up on the day to day stuff, before getting into the complex head problems that we've both been dealing with.

My friend and I share similar paths in our brain problems, but he is a couple of steps ahead of me in his endeavours. So it was with interest that I got to sit back and listen whilst he talked about how he researched and dealt with his in a practical way. He spoke of a resource he found which gave a lot of practical advice and set him up on his many steps towards managing his brain. None of it was rocket science and that is why it worked, it required consistent effort to control how he felt, but it worked. He admitted that it needs consistency, because once he felt good he stopped doing a lot of the exercises. But he still had the skills to turn to when he wasn't feeling good recently and it reminded him how powerful they are at changing his state of mind.  There are not many people I know that will research, read and then actually act on the advice given, or better create their own plan and stick to it. I take my hat off to him for that and from the heart I say well done, I'm proud of you mate.

Listening to him talk was a pleasure as I saw how far he has come and that it is possible. It highlighted various things that I need to work on and deal with. One of the most revelatory points was the necessity to stop being nice. This may sound strange, but being the nice guy doesn't get you far in life. If we are honest with ourselves it really doesn't. The nice guys get taken advantage of and walked over. They spend so much time worrying about how others see them, or how others might react to them saying no that they just go along with everyone else. They become the "yes" man, appearing easy going to all and never any trouble. In reality these people have weakened themselves by being nice. They hate confrontation and avoid it at all costs, because they are weak. They worry about stupid little things that most people don't give two seconds of thought. Inside all of this makes them f*cked up, their heads are a scrambled. They are a walking contradiction and though talking and being sociable is their skill they are unable to talk to the people closest to them about the things that matter the most. Welcome to my life. Being Mr. Nice Guy is not nice. So the hardest challenge I have set myself in my whole life is to stop being nice. It doesn't necessarily mean I will be a d*ck (although that is part of the process), but it means positive things like taking control, speaking ones mind and above all else living life without worrying what people think.

As I sit here and read back over what I have just written I think that this is a bigger challenge than all the marathons and ultra marathons I have run put together. But it's not terrifying. For once in my life I  can see that this is possible. All I need is a plan and I think I just wrote that out above.

Are you ok?

Tom