Tag: A Mind of Its Own

Not All Heroes Wear Capes…

Dear Fellow Human beings,

It is with great disappointment that we write this letter to you all. You see, it has come to our attention that our faith in humanity has been sorely misguided. What we mistook for your basic human rights and freedom of speech actually turned out to be your egos and lack of compassion for others. This letter has been brewing in the minds of men and women around the world, who have been watching you and your egos as you display yourselves in public like a bunch of Ibises around a full dumpster or toddlers who have had their favourite toy taken away from them during playtime.

As you wander around the streets chanting slogans that a two year old with a mouth full of biscuits could have made up as they soil themselves. You complain about your freedom being taken away from you whilst you fail to wear a mask and be a decent human. By that we mean your duty to protect those that can’t protect themselves, you continually fail to see the bigger picture and are quite often guided by the esteemed alumni of Facebook University. When it comes down to it you’ve let your egos get in the way, you see it as your privilege to walk mask less through the streets ignoring public orders and chanting about your basic freedoms being taken away. You see it as your right and while the constitution of the country we write this from allows you that, we’ll refer to the bigger picture once again.

What you fail to see are all the families struggling to see loved ones, the mother’s giving birth on their own, the father’s missing the most important day of their lives. The children lying in hospital beds without support, the grandparents struggling on their own, mother’s, fathers, sons and daughters who are all doing it tough. Your failure to see past your own reflection in the mirror is that everyone is struggling. This isn’t just about you, this pandemic affects every single one of us, it’s about everyone doing their part, it’s about the lockdowns, COVID and the vaccination plans so we can get back to some semblance of normalcy.

With our egos in the way we struggle, no we fail to see beyond ourselves. We fail to see all the people we could be helping. We fail to see our fellow humans. We fail to see those already laying in ICU beds requiring ventilation in order to breathe or the families that we could be helping. We could be using our privilege for good, our ultimate privilege or ultimate freedom in life is to give to others, to act in a selfless manner. As the rapper DMX so beautifully put it in his song Right /Wrong, “If you help another without concern for a reward or gold, what you give you shall receive tenfold”. That could be our ultimate gift to others in a time when everyone is doing it hard, that privilege could help save lives including yours.

It is your right to complain, to march, to stand on your soapbox and spread your rhetoric to others, whether that be that COVID is a hoax or a government conspiracy or maybe that the vaccine is a way in which to track you. It could be that the government is trying to keep you at home and invading your basic freedoms. It’s also your right whether you get vaccinated or not but what we would urge you to do is your research, we would also urge you to push your ego aside and think about why you started protesting in the first place and is it really helping. At the end of the day the more people who are out protesting and not wearing masks instead of being at home the longer lockdowns will continue to go on and the more time it will take for us to open the world back up. Don’t worry about what’s going on overseas, look in our own back yard and start asking what we need to do as a public to get our country back up and running.

That bigger picture we were talking about at the start of this letter, that’s everyone doing their part. If that means you need to check your privilege at the door and maybe take one on the chin and wear a mask, stay at home or get the jab for someone else then maybe you should start to think about that bigger picture. Start to think about all those doing it tough or spare a thought for our health workers on the front lines. They’ll be the ones looking after you without judgement when you’re laying in the ICU struggling to breathe after contracting COVID-19. Harsh but that’s the reality we are now living in and have been living in for well over 12 months now. The world has changed and we need to change, we need to come together now more than ever in the history of the human civilisation. If each of us can do a small part, if not for ourselves than for someone else the sooner we can open up and live with COVID.

If that doesn’t get you thinking then spare a thought for the women and children in Afghanistan and their rights and freedom that are about to be stripped from them from warlords and leaders who have been branded as terrorists in the past. They’ll enforce a strict sharia law giving women no rights whatsoever. That’s having your freedom taken from you. Imagine being shot at as you protest what is your freedom being taken away from you. That’s a government or power taking away your basic freedoms. They’ll be forced to stay inside, they won’t be able to attend schools, work or have a voice. Having a government that asks you to stay at home to stop the spread of a virus that is wreaking havoc around the world is not a government that is taking away your freedoms, it’s a government that wants to get through the worst of this so that we can have a world that is somewhat back to normal.

No government wants to spend millions in welfare payments just to keep you at home and take away your civil rights nor do they want to spend millions on testing and vaccination dosages or salaries for those having to administer them to you for that matter. The debt that this country has put itself into to protect you and give you those freedoms that you cry are being stripped from you is a debt that your children’s, children’s, children’s will be paying back. Before you go listening to those with their master degrees from Facebook University. Go and do your own research and make an informed choice. That doesn’t mean using social media or listening to podcasts and YouTube videos. Read actual research documents and papers, the internet has allowed us unprecedented access to information and resources to acquire knowledge. Corona viruses have been around for thousands of years, they are just evolving and adapting into bigger and stronger viruses there is nothing conspicuous about them some are just deadlier than others.

Everyone is doing it tough, we all want the country to open back up, we want to be able to travel further than 5kms from our house. We want to be able to board a plane and take off to destinations unknown. We want to see our family and friends in the flesh, not just on a screen from our living rooms, kitchens, bedrooms or wherever it is while we become the zoom and facetime generation. We want to go back to work so that our partners, wives and husbands stop looking at us with murder in their eyes after having just spent 50 plus days with us in the same small space. Only getting one or two hours each day of respite from each other. We want all businesses small, medium and large to thrive but none of that can happen while we march blindly and arrogantly through the streets spreading the one thing that is keeping us in lockdowns.

We aren’t angry, we are just disappointed… as every good parent would say to their child. As a society we can be doing so much better for each other. In the past we’ve poked the anti-vaxxer bear and the flat earth crackpot (Yes that was written with a little tongue in cheek), we’ve even looked at some of the weirder conspiracy theories floating around the world. We aren’t saying go and get vaccinated, we aren’t saying don’t protest but we are and always will ask that you look at the bigger picture and if that involves you taking one for the team or masking up for those in the world who’s immune systems are compromised or in some cases not even developed enough to fight a virus, yes we are talking about those cute smoosh faced things called babies. Then maybe you should stop, take some time to think and figure out what’s important to you.

Take a minute and just ask yourself each time you leave the house without a mask or go and protest amongst hundreds and thousands of others. “Could I be making someone sick if I contract the virus, could it be someone who doesn’t have the immune system to fight it? Could that person be someone I love? Could it be a close friend? Could I be acquiring the virus from someone I don’t even know… Just ask yourself what’s the bigger picture here and how can I be doing my part to help those that can’t and in some cases won’t help themselves. The question on everyone’s mind should be what can I do for myself that can benefit others. Some of the measures are simple (Mask up), some are invasive (Get the Jab) and some will feel like torture and torment (Lockdowns = stay at home and follow the public orders).

From the team at A Mind of Its Own, we hope you are all staying safe, we hope you are staying connected and we hope that you never have to see a loved one suffer. Take care, stay safe and let’s all do our part… We know some people will take offense to this letter but before you do. Stop and think are you really upset by what we’ve said here or is it your ego talking? That way you won’t have to get public safety announcement and pleading letter from us and we can go back to writing about stupid things that everyone wants to know about but no one wants to Google like what is a cleveland steamer?…

Team AMoIO

.

Tunnel Vision…

Week whatever it is, they are all starting to blur into one, we’ve been stuck in the same place day after day with the same people and are starting to lose our minds as a collective. If this is what it is like to be buried in a fallout shelter while the world around you decays and dies, then we hope we go in the first few moments of whatever apocalyptic event forces us to finally look at how much we fucked up the planet and couldn’t play nicely with each other. That being said this week’s A Mind of Its Own belongs in post-apocalyptic earth along with the people that contribute to it and the pain it brings to so many people around the world. No, we aren’t talking about COVID-19 for a change, we are talking about the lack of trying, lack of compassion, lack of caring, lack of compromise and a lack of respect for anyone other than yourself. Read on as we delve into a topic we’ve wanted to cover for quite some time now.

With everything in the palm of our hands these days we have multiple excuses and reasons to brush off people or things we are supposed to do, we’ve become incessantly selfish in our actions and how we treat others. As a society we are lazy and have little concern for others and that often shows through when we are put in situations that are tough. The saying you “think you really know someone”, comes to mind as we wander deeper into a world we now know quite well. There are often two sides to it and two stories and whilst one side will find pain and anguish, without being on the other side we can only have a guess at their thoughts and feelings.

They say “When the going gets tough, the tough get going”. It’s so, so true ladies and gentlemen, our generation is a bunch of quitters. When things get hard we tend to just give up. Now that might sound harsh and a little insulting to those who have faced adversity or hard times and have actually battled through it, but for the majority of people it’s easier to just quit and run. To give up rather than fight and battle their way through the pain, hurt and torment. Picture a hill that you are making your way up, steep as all hell, you are halfway up and things start to go wrong. Your legs burn with each step and your mind screams at you to stop, could things get any worse? Maybe you have a blow out in the shoe department or your feet are blistered, bleeding and rubbed raw or maybe your muscles are starting to fatigue and cramping is beginning to set in. You have two options from here…

The first option is to kick yourself in the arse and slog the rest of the way up that mountain, mind over matter baby, if you set your mind to it you’ll get there; or you go with option two, the easier option and just quit, after all it’ is as easy as that… We are finding that more and more a lot of people when faced with a decision to work hard, whether it be physical or mental, or to quit they are choosing the latter and throwing the towel to the canvas and walking away. Yeah, they might have lasted a round or two but they just couldn’t find the drive to see it out to the 10th. We can guarantee that nine times out of ten their decision won’t affect them and they’ll go on with life as though nothing has happened, no ripples in their pond. But when that tenth time comes around it haunts you until your end of days. People will often tell you that they never want to live with regrets, “Live life to the fullest, no regrets” and it is actually quite easy to walk away from things, to go and seek instant gratification somewhere else rather than putting in the hard work with what you currently have. Putting in a few extra days here or there or working a little harder at something that just isn’t going right at this current moment.

While many people will say that marriage is an antiquated past time that binds two people together for eternity or at least the rest of their lives on this green earth. What we’ll say is that you don’t have to marry someone to prove your love for them. You should marry them because you want to be married and spend the rest of your life with that person. You should also know whether or not that is what you actually want before you go wasting time and money on a wedding. Far too many people get caught up in the romance of a wedding, whether it be the idea of standing in front of your friends and family to profess your love for one another or the celebration that comes with it, perhaps there are other things like children or finances that keep you caught up in the idea of a wedding and spending the rest of your life with someone.

So when you fast forward 6 to 12 months down the track and things get a little hard and you hit a couple of bumps in the road, you are faced with yet another choice. A choice that will not only have an impact on that person you made those promises to, those promises you made in front of your friends and family, it will also have an impact on you.. The choice is to fight or flee, to stay or to go, but the choice will be yours and yours alone. Why are so many people going through or having gone through this? Why as humans do we walk away and not fight for what we have in our lives? Why do we seek instant gratification when we have people in our lives who love and care about us?. It comes down to the fact that we are the only species who is greedy, self centred and egotistical. We are able to only think solely of ourselves and not about how our actions and decisions will affect those around us.

Gone are the days of sticking it out, “till death do us part and for better or worse” are just some lines that are uttered on the day of your wedding. Words are just that, words and actions will forever speak louder than words. Past generations worked through it, granted a lot of couples actually hated each other but there was something romantic about sticking to the promises and commitment made to each other on that day. They stayed for the children, sometimes for their faith but most of it was for integrity and knowing they made a commitment to that particular person for a reason. It was the holding on to those reasons and working on that commitment for generations that saw your grandparents stick it out. They knew that it wasn’t going to be easy, they knew that it wasn’t all rainbows and sunshine and that they would be there to support each other through the darkest of days and that they needed to make love work. Making love work is just that, its work, it needs to be given the same commitment, time and priority as the job that pays the bills.

Speaking with those that have gone before us it became obviously clear that there are patches in every relationship whether you are married or not. The first one seems to come at the end of year one. In marriage this is apparently the toughest year you will face. The next patch seems to be around the 5 year mark and then there are no doubt others to follow, however these are the two that everyone we spoke to outlined as having the potential to make or break your relationship. Throwing children into the mix is also another hurdle that has the ability to snap it all in half, we men need to remember that priorities shift in the first year of having a child. That’s a mother’s time to bond and ensure your child has what it needs to survive and flourish. It doesn’t mean they love you less or care for you less, it is just a shift in priorities until said child is able to fend for themselves, this is particularly evident in the first 12 months. Our advice is to get a friend and by friend we mean a dog or one of those other pets that people seem to have, what are they called? Cats?

What all that also means is that you need to put in a little more effort than you might be used to when things change. It’s all about being able to adapt and relationships and marriage are all about compromise and adapting when things become a little hard or unsteady. They say chivalry is dead and maybe it is, maybe technology has ruined our ability to romance, to be a perfectly imperfect gentleman or maybe as we previously said we have just become lazy now that we literally have everything at our fingertips. Instant gratification is only one like or virtual thumbs up away. Choice and the ability to choose from a variety of people is stopping so many from settling down. What’s next? The effect and can I do better is always at the front of the mind for so many on dating apps and often in relationships. It is the fear of missing out, looked at from the wrong perspective, rather than concentrating on what’s right in front of them they focus on the unknown. As many an athlete has said, “Obstacles are what you see when you take your eye off the goal”.

We have goals for our fitness, careers and life in general but a lot of us forget to set goals and continue setting goals in our relationships. We become complacent and think that just because everything is currently going well, that we don’t need to put in any work. We don’t need to let our significant other know that they are loved. We don’t need to continue to try each and every day. There are literally thousands of examples where complacency has ruined opportunities to succeed. To love and be loved and to continue to build on the foundations you made when you set out on the journey together, to strive to support your partner and be on their team and ensure they are on yours. Complacency sabotages this. It’s not until it’s gone that you realise what you had. You can try to replace that feeling with one night stands and little flings but at the end of the day when you are laying in your cold bed, alone and wondering where it all went wrong, you’ll be able to trace it back to that one relationship you took for granted, that one boy or girl who you thought would always be there for you no matter what.

That time you should have done everything in your power to make it work. That time you should have stayed and listened rather than getting defensive and walking away. Or the time you went looking for someone to place blame on when all you needed to do was look in the mirror. The ability to fight for what we have is in each and everyone one of us. Love is a choice, even when it’s hard. It’s a choice some people make daily, for others it’s easier to walk away and make excuses or blame their partner for the demise of their relationship or marriage. It’s a very narcissistic trait to place blame with others when the decision is yours and yours alone, to walk away and give up, and those questions you have they can all be answered if you take a look inside yourself. It all comes down to choices and whether we are able to fight, compromise, communicate and adapt to those we wish to spend our lives with. After All it’s a Privilege, yes privilege with a capital P, to go through life with a partner.

Upon returning to the Nation’s Capital late last year we came across a lot of friends who were going through rough patches or at the end of those rough patches. Seeing the forest through the trees was a little hard for them when sitting in the bottom of a well filled with hopes and despair. Their worlds were being shattered, their hopes and dreams crushed and in some cases their families being torn apart. It ripped open healing wounds knowing what they were going through and what they were going to face but we ourselves had a choice to make. We could help them navigate through the pain, anger, regret and remorse or we could walk away and leave them to sort through it all on their own. What it came down to, was the fact that we had the experience and could help them through a time that wouldn’t be easy and it has also helped us in our journey.

Whether it’s not having to deal with pain, accepting responsibility or having to have that hard conversation it seems that in today’s society it is easier to engage our flight side rather than the fight side. Walking away rather than working through the bumps in the road seems to be the common practice. Not every marriage and relationship is going to work out. It’s that plain and simple but every now and then there is the one that comes along that’s worth the fight, the pain and persistence. So once again you are left with the choice to step up and take on the challenge of being present, continually working on and improving your relationship each and every day, or closing the door and walking off into the unknown.

At the end of the day you need to find respect for yourself and for those you invite to share your life with. Whether that is a short period of your life or long term, respect is something that will help you through tough times. If things aren’t going well communication is always key, we may not like what we are hearing at the time but over time a respect will grow for the courage it takes to speak your truth. The key to all of this is to not throw in the towel at the first signs of trouble. At least attempt to work through the issues and problems before you decide to walk away. Life isn’t always going to be easy ladies and gentlemen, there will be ups and downs but if you have someone beside you supporting you through it, it makes it a hell of a lot easier.

To quote the toughest, baddest and best fighting force on the planet “For all those who’ve been down range, to us and those like us, damn few” not everyone will go through the heartache, pain, trauma and mental bruising that comes from someone walking away on you. You’ll go through a period in which you’ll blame yourself, question yourself and no doubt wish you were someone else but remember there is nothing wrong with you, you wanted to fight it out, to sacrifice, to adapt and overcome. There is nothing you could have said or done to ensure that person stayed or fought for you. Some relationships will work, some won’t but they all take effort from both parties. Don’t walk away if you know you might one day regret it.

This piece is for the friends and family who stuck it out and tried to make it work no matter what. They have commitment, dedication and most of all respect for those they’ve shared their lives with. Some of them were able to make it work, others were not but they all tried to make it work, they didn’t walk at the first sign of trouble. To them we take our hat off, to those who just walk away we hope you find what you are looking for and don’t continue to repeat the pattern of walking away when things get tough. For now, we’ll wish you all a fond farewell until the next one, which will be a little more regular now that we have everything in hand. Thanks for your patience, family, friends and fans. Hasta la vista amigos…