The Bumper Book Of Stupid Metaphors

I don’t want to pretend that everything I did this year was a success, because it wasn’t. I’m only human and definitely prone to failure (something I’d like to actually do more often, if we’re honest).

Things for other people

There was a lot of stuff that I did last year not because I wanted to, but because other people wanted me to. I thought about my reputation, and about the happiness of others, before the value of my own time.

If the things you do are primarily things that other people want, you’re going to burn out much quicker than if you’re doing things you enjoy, and finding a way for that to help other people.

Fair?

Do you think that’s fair to say? Or is that stupid and selfish? Let me know in the comments!

Well 2012 I think is going to be a year of habits.

Internet blogger Leo Babauta is a little bit of an inspiration to me. Bits of advice I picked up from his blog, Zen Habits, sort of helped me do a lot of the things I’ve done in the past couple of years, and helped me to figure out various things about myself that I’m really quite grateful for knowing.

New year’s habits.

So Leo rejects the ideas of new year’s resolutions or goals. Instead he recommends trying to get into a new habit, and relishing the journey rather than being miserable because you wish you were at the destination.

Leo Babauta, the man himself

For one thing, when you set goals, they are often arbitrary, and so you are spending all your effort working towards a basically meaningless number. And then if you don’t achieve it, you feel like you failed, even if the number was arbitrary to start with.

- Leo Babauta on goals.

Hopefully after a while you’ll feel that you’re in the groove and your new habit will be, well, habitual. Then you can effortlessly continue doing that thing for the rest of your life – and get into another new habit using the same method.

Failproof.

I love this idea because its focus is naturally on where you are now as opposed to goals, that demand you be at a certain place within a certain amount of time, regardless of what happens in between now and then – and can put an unnecessary stress in your mind.

And if you drop the habit? Well you’ve still made progress, you’ve failed gracefully (it’s a good thing- more about this in a later post!), and you don’t feel bad about not meeting some imaginary quota.

Bingo!

So my first habit of 2012 is the one Leo’s proposed in his most recent post – start off 5 minutes of exercise per day, increasing by 5 minutes whenever I stop feeling the burn.

Dudes:

Do you think you could apply this to your own resolutions? What are some things you might give a go? Did you have a good new year’s eve?

So we’re coming to the end of 2011, and all of the blogs are starting to do that “what I did in the past 12 months” post. I’m going to do it slightly differently.

Home sweet home

I’m at my Dad’s house for Christmas this year. I sat down with my brother Adam today and we both tried to come up with lists of what we did this year.

Adam’s currently studying for his GCSEs and at first he wasn’t sure he had any accomplishments other than having a good round of mock exams.

But we had a good think and came up with a bunch of other things he’s done. Trampolining, making music, work experience, arts and crafts, all sorts of things.

Value yourself

No matter how boring you think your life is, there are always things you can be proud of. However small it is.

And if there really genuinely isn’t anything? Here’s a secret: it doesn’t even matter. Some people love making lists, but you don’t need reams of achievements and goals to feel like you have any value. Just meet yourself where you are.

On the other hand

On the other hand if you’re the type of person who tends to steam ahead, then become down and disillusioned when you burn out, stopping to look at where you’ve come from can be a really uplifting activity, and can help to give you some direction for the future. Meeting yourself where you are.

Your List

So I’d like to hear from you now. What are some of the things you’ve done in the past year? They don’t have to be big things, they can be tiny little things, as long as you feel good that you’ve done them. Just drop them there into the comments!

Quit your job! Work from home! Be your own boss!

What a load of bollocks.

Step one: buy boat.

If you want to cut loose from the moorings that keep you from drifting out to sea, make sure you’ve got a course planned first. Make sure you have a structure. This is different from um-ing and ah-ing, this is moving without rushing it.

Think about this: What free time to you have at the moment? What are you doing with it? What if that free time expanded to every waking hour of your day and you did exactly the same things?

Depending on your answer you may want to try and re-arrange your life without making big changes first.

But then again what do I know? I’m just a blogger.

When I write blog posts, songs or other things I want to show off to the world, I tend to want to publish them immediately. But is this really the best way to work? I’m not so sure any more.

When you’re in the moment of creation you can feel incredibly passionate about what you’re doing, to the extent that sometimes it can blind you to the imperfections. Many times I’ve uploaded a song and come back to it later with better ideas, or noticed things that I wished I had changed before letting it lose in the world.

Coming back and looking at something with a different frame of mind can be almost as valuable as having a completely different person help you out.

I’ve made a decision, I think. I’ve got a little project brewing. It’s a bit different from the other projects I’ve done so it’s pretty scary, but it’s also only small.

Stop Waiting

With anything scary and with the possibility of failure comes resistance, and wanting to take the “best” or the “most right” or the “perfect” path. And while it’s good to weigh up the advantages of different choices, if there’s no immediate winner it’s probably just best to cut loose and go for it. The only other option is waiting around, um-ing and ah-ing.

From You

This post is me trying to set things in stone. I’m looking to be held slightly accountable (by you guys). I’m also looking for encouragement and support, as well as stories from you guys – are you starting anything scary and new right now, or have you done recently?

Why do so many bloggers live in Portland? Loads of them do, seriously. It must be blogger paradise. I bet they all sit around and have LAN parties and motivational workshops all the time there. Do you think it’s Portland that creates these people or does it attract them like magnets or flies?

What the Pros are Doing

Jonathan Mead has been gabbing on lately about how your environment is conducive to being a success above everything else. He’s been saying it in the context of a new product he’s launching, but I bet it’s just an ebook that says “move to Portland” on every page.

However

The Power Is In Your Hands

Soon I’m going to be releasing a free ebook on how to fuck Portland. If you want to be one of only 293 people* in with an exclusive first view of it, make sure to follow me on Twitter! I’m @neonpaul

Comments? Opinions? Hate Mail? Spam?

Oh wow oh wow, look at all this stuff there is that needs to be done!

And look at all of these people, they’re so excited – they think your Big Thing is going to be AMAZING.

Oh but it’s just a Baby Thing really – you’re going to have to do so much more to live up to their expectations!

But don’t.

If you try to make a Big Bad Beast of a Thing and you run out of energy it will be a half-finished, unrefined giant. Everyone will have heard about it but nobody will be that impressed really. And it may step on you. Wouldn’t that be terrible.

You came here to make a Cool Little Thing, so make a Cool Little Thing. If it works people will love it. And from tiny acorns the world is your oyster.

It’s September, and it’s apple season.

There are loads of apple trees all over Southampton, I headed to one on the East Common, along with a few transition members and Alan Gibson, the Urbane Forager.

Man, there were so many apples! And it was only one tree! I must have enough apples to last me the whole year here. If you like free apples and/or climbing trees I would highly recommend fruit foraging adventures!

I thought I’d write a little post on SU Green Action‘s food co-op and how it all runs.

Infinity pulling up outside my house

What is it?

Okay so our food co-op is just a bulk buy scheme, we currently order our food wholesale from Infinity Foods in Brighton and mostly do dried, tinned and jarred food.  Our members all pay a small deposit to be part of the scheme which they get back when they depart.

Shopping Lists

Generally at the moment, the buying process is kicked off by somebody going “hey I’m hungry can we place an order”.

I’ll send an email out with a link to our current stock and members reply by the next Monday with what items they’d like to buy.

Monday rolls around and I start going through the members’ requests. First of all I need to load up Infinity’s catalogue and our database software so I can add the details of new items that haven’t been requested before, and update prices on existing items. Once I’ve done that, I start entering into the database which members want which items,  and how many.

Putting It All Together

After that’s all done the software will generate an order report showing how much of each item we need, how many are already in stock, and how many more we need to order. Most items need to be bought in bulk, so it shows how many will be left over too – if there are too many leftovers on some of the items I need to find out who requested those items and send them an email asking them to modify their order slightly so that we can minimize leftovers (and minimize the money we need to invest in stock – because the co-op doesn’t have a lot of money to invest!)

Receiving The Food

From there onwards it’s easy. Call the friendly man at Infinity and tell him what we’d like to order. Wait for delivery day.

Volunteer Natalie sorting the food into piles.

When the delivery comes we need to make sure a volunteer or two is around to help unload the van and to help sort all of the items into piles ready to be collected by the members. This is the point we pay for the order too!

Aftermath

The members then come over the next few days to take their items and pay for them if they hadn’t already. Everyone eats well for the next few months and then we do it all over again!

"We're filthy rich! Hehehahahah!"