Tag: metoo

Hand In My Pocket…

WARNING!!! If you thought last weeks post was offensive you probably shouldn’t read past this disclaimer in fact you might just want to put down your device walk to the television and turn on a kids television show. Some people will get offended this week and as always, that’s not our intention but we live in a world where everyone is easily offended. We are sure someone took offense to our talk about accidental fingering of our bum last week. Reader’s discretion is advised…

Before your minds all start wandering and head straight for the proverbial gutter, the title like all of them has no reference to the content of this blog. No this isn’t a post about pocket pool and one’s ability to rub themselves raw through the inside of their pocket for some sexual gratification. No this post, well this post could turn out to be quite offensive to some people as we pointed out in our disclaimer. It’s not intended to be that way but unfortunately we are a precious society who easily get upset or enraged at things that have nothing to do with us or seem to affect us. Why you ask? Because we can’t control the one thing only humans have that all other species lack… Ego. We’ve spoken about it before here at A Mind of Its Own, dubbed ‘Outrage Porn’ we are ready to incite some and hope people will read the post before passing judgement or making a decision that we are beating up the people this post is all about. As always we’ll try to be fair and give a voice to both sides of the coin but we will write it in our slap stick, take the piss comedic way because that’s what we do.

This is a post we’ve been working up to for awhile and one that we wanted to ensure we had all the facts and figures for first before we put it together. It’s been meticulously researched and we’ve spent a lot of time in the bull pen editing and ensuring we don’t piss of too many of our friends from the opposite sex. For some reason this isn’t a topic that men should be writing about or weighing into as we are the core root of the problem or so some would have you to believe. Ok so the sordid topic that is generally frowned upon when written by a man or anyone identifying as masculine is none other than ‘the rise and fall of feminism’. Yeah after the #MeToo movement it’s not something that people want to trifle with in an attempt to get out some pulitzer prize winning piece for the wider community to read. But it is something that has started to make even the most staunchest of feminists question. Have we gone too far? And where would one start an article about Feminism particularly being a privileged middle-aged, white male?

Well that was easy we started with articles written by women, for women on feminism. Not blogs or message boards but actual published articles. All written by paid female writers who never once in their articles whinged about being paid less than their male counterparts or spoke of the injustices bestowed upon women. They were factual and to the point, they related the issues back to the real world and spoke of the ever changing face of the feminist movement. The way empowerment has changed and strayed from it’s true definition and most importantly how the collective has now moved to the singular. It just goes to show how selfish we are as humans, when we need to make things all about ourselves rather than what is best for the majority. Reading article after article along with research papers and scholarly articles all based around feminism and written by women, we started to get an understanding on how the movement has changed. And from an outsider’s perspective it hasn’t changed for the better nor is it empowering women. That’s strike one for us but read on and you’ll see why we’ve taken this stance.

Whilst we agree and are all for fair and equal pay across the board whether you are male, female or identify as something else altogether. If you are doing the same job there should be fair and equal pay. There should also be fair and equal job opportunities, our take on that is the right person for the right job regardless of gender, race, etc. Women’s reproductive rights is something that should not come into question, they (women) should be free to make the choice about bringing life into the world. Equality should be something that is just done, not something that should have to be fought for. Woman should also never feel threatened, objectified, inferior in any environment. Rape, assault and abuse are never ok ever, never. After all isn’t that what the feminist movement was about? Ensuring that females around the world were treated fair and equally? It would seem as there is always is, that there are two systems of thought to feminism, the friendly feminists who just want what is right and fair and then there are the extremists who have found hate and anger at the world in particular at men for our poor treatment and often suppression of them.

Firstly what is #MeToo a movement that even the founder of the phrase feels lost it way a little. Originally coined in 2006 Tarana Burke used the phrase to raise awareness against pervasiveness of sexual abuse and assault in society. Now established as a foundation (MeToo), Burke has been quoted as having misgivings about the movement that went viral in the summer of 2017 giving women a voice against sexual assault and abuse. The only problem here was that Burke never intended it to just be for women. It was for people from all walks of life whether you are, male, female, transgender or identified as something else altogether. People from all walks of life are abused, raped and assaulted daily around the globe. “This is a movement about the one in four girls and one in six boys who are sexually abused every year, and who carry those wounds into adulthood,” Ms Burke said.

Where did it all change, it all changed when Burke teamed up with actress Alyssa Milano and it became a movement with more and more high profile women speaking out against sexual abuse and assault on social media using the hashtag #MeToo. But the movement then took on a mind of its own, not like us however but a militant often malicious mind that attacked and targeted even women who didn’t agree with or spoke out about their concerns and worries that the movement would carry with it for women and men going forward once the initial outrage and shaming was done and the dust cleared. These women weren’t necessarily against giving a voice to what should now be basic human rights they were concerned or worried that the movement would bring about some issues in which people were wrongly accused or women weren’t looked at for jobs. In a sense they were concerned that we weren’t fixing the actual problem we were shifting the power from one party to another. Whilst there are those (women) that will say it’s our time, it’s not really in line with the whole equality thing we are all striving for is it? Strike two against the team writing this in the eyes of those who will no doubt be enraged on our take of the whole feminist movement that behind that was a pivotal moment in history.

What that moment failed to do however was continue to unite women around the globe and we as look as several examples of when woman turned on fellow woman because they didn’t like their opinion or didn’t take the time to fully read and grasp what they were actually trying to convey, you can see why several high profile woman are thinking the feminist movement has lost its way particularly with the millenials who want it all now and have this chip on their shoulders like the world owes them something. In a nutshell they feel privileged and deserving of everything whether they have worked for it or not and no that is not just female millenials it is males as well. However when you throw in a cause or an injustice into the mix they are quite passionate and often militant in getting their opinion across. You’ll see from later examples where a lack of understanding and sometimes simple inability to read and or relate leads to abusing other women who are merely trying to point out that there are certain considerations that need to be made and more importantly thought about when embarking down an unknown road.

To sum up how we (humans) got to this point before we embark down the road where woman decided to pit herself against fellow woman. When people feel a system is failing them in this case the judicial system. They’ll seek an alternative path in the case of the #Metoo movement women felt that the judicial system had failed them and in order to provide a voice against the wrongs happening to them all across the world they turned to the internet. #Metoo was tweeted, posted, and marched around the globe. Women had a voice and were able to speak out against the injustices, the sexual assaults, harassment, abuse, rape and abuse of power that men, yes men have done to women. None of it is ok and no woman should have to put up with any of it ever, it’s not ok. Here’s where this post will divide the readers and some people may find it offensive. Whilst we are all for people being able to tell their stories and have a voice one has to question whether this has empowered women or just handed the power to their oppressors by making them publicly tell their stories. Whilst naming and shaming is a great way to get your message across and there are plenty of arseholes in the world who needed to be taken down have we actually managed to change anything?

Several feminist and well known feminists who have been accused in the past of climbing to fame on top of mountain of men’s decapitated heads or being a dominatrix on the subjugation of men. Who supported the #Metoo movement and feminism have found themselves turned upon by the women they have supported and worked hard to give a voice to over the years. Why were they turned upon? The only answer we can think of for that is because of Ego, because of our inability to control ego and the ideology that has grown behind the movement and ideology that now states if you aren’t with us you’re against us. We have seen it throughout history and continue to see it today particularly with religion and extremists. It’s the extremists who make a movement or religion dangerous and it only takes one bad apple to spoil the rest. Look at Islam, now the most misunderstood religion in the world due to people paraphrasing a book written over twenty four hundred years ago. The same thing could happen to feminism and the #Metoo movement it only takes a couple of extremists for things to drastically change.

Award winning Canadian author Margaret Atwood, the creative mind behind The Handmaid’s Tale books, now a hit TV series available on Hulu in the US and Stan here in Australia is among several women who has received backlash for raising concerns about bypassing the legal system. If the current system is seen as ineffectual for handling matters, what will replace it and who will become the power brokers? Atwood then went on to make a comment that could possibly leave the fairer sex devided. “In times of extremes, extremists win. Their ideology becomes a religion, anyone who doesn’t puppet their views is seen as an apostate, a heretic or a traitor, and moderates in the middle are annihilated.” Referred to and attacked by many who stated she was and quote “A bad feminist” after she signed an open letter calling for due process of a professor who had been accused of sexual misconduct.

The problem with all of this is that Atwood was then accused of declaring war on younger, less powerful women. Like she was using her station in life to help get men off charges of sexual misconduct and rape when all she was asking for was due process. She was not the only woman to receive backlash for asking for a ‘fairness’ or equality when it came to judgements of people who had been accused. Accusations are just that and presumption of guilt should not be leveled until all the facts are available for all to see enabling us to make a sound judgment. Otherwise and as Atwood pointed out citing further backlash we may as well go back to the days of the Salem Witch Hunt where accusations were guilty verdicts as soon as they were levelled. Not once Atwood said she is against what #MeToo stands for or represents her issue is with the skirting of a judicial system and the ruining of people’s lives without proof. Gone are the days of innocent until proven guilty.

Looking into the psychology of why women would attack other women we can only head back towards Ego, the only self serving part of every human. Most women will tell you that they have survived at least one mean girl in their past: a girl who dismissed, put down, or even socially tormented them. What does the research say? It probably goes without saying that the research is complex, particularly because it is challenging (or impossible?) to measure a critical, negative, or hostile attitudes given the self-serving bias that makes people want to see themselves as good and upstanding. Yet women continue to earn less money today than men and occupy fewer positions in politics and at the heads of Fortune 500 companies. Independent of what the research shows, it’s understandable on a common-sense level if women feel that they must work hard to secure whatever social power they can, and this may sometimes take the form of exclusionary practices with other women.

The more we read the more things became a little clearer to us. As men we have a responsibility to help make the change whether it be at home or in the workplace just as much as women do. But in order to create equality things need to be equal and women need to start with their fellow woman. For every article that spoke about #MeToo there were two or three outlining the flaws in the women that have merely asked people to stop and think for a moment. They’ve not asked for the movement to be stopped they’ve just asked that wrongs be right through the proper channels, not through through the court of popular opinion where the masses, educated and uneducated alike decide the fate of a fellow human being before they have a chance to state their case or evidence be presented against them. No one is saying that women shouldn’t be given an opportunity for the wrongs against them to be righted or for justice to served. What is being said is that vigilante justice should remain in comic books and the law should hold those accountable whether it be a company or individual they should be made to pay for their deeds.

Instead women now attack women who don’t agree with them and men hide in the shadows for fear of being labelled. Freedom of speech is dying on both the left and the right, we live in a world where you are always on the lookout to ensure you are politically correct and not offensive to anyone. Both women and men are ensuring they tread the line to ensure they aren’t insensitive or crossing some imaginary line that people once knew where too far was. Now the line has gotten underfoot and we trip over it daily, men tend to do it a lot more than women as we struggle to share the power at home, the workplace on the sporting field and everywhere else in life. Equality has a long way to go and we are far from being close to where we need to be as a society but maybe just maybe one day we’ll get there. Maybe one day in a future generation everything will be equal but for that to happen we need to learn to control our egos.

It doesn’t matter if you are male, female or identify as something else altogether ego will be the downfall and the single point of failure when it comes to equality. Why? Because whether its man or woman we are always trying to one up each other and seize control, power does strange things to people and makes the sanest of people mad once they have it. Our egos drive us to always compete, to be the best, to be number one and most of all cloud our judgement when it comes to others. Ego like personality is different to each and everyone of us. They are often another side to our personality and a side that is often not the best of us when it comes to needing to be one top. To take out that number one spot!

What does it have to do with #MeToo and women, Ego is the reason we feel our opinion is the only opinion and is always right, ego is what drives us to right the wrongs, ego is what pushes us to value ourselves above others. Ego in a sense has a lot to answer for but is it responsible for holding us up as we seek out and work towards a truly equal world? Time will tell but for now the message we’ll continue to deliver is men are just as responsible as women for driving the change. We don’t need to feel threatened or emasculated at home, in the workplace or anywhere else we just need to ensure that we are helping to push things in the right direction for everyone as we all have a part to play.

So if you are a woman and you don’t like another woman’s opinion or she doesn’t like your opinion don’t sweat it. We are all entitled to our opinions. You don’t need to throw around accusations on social media or the public realm just let it go. We know it’s easier said than done but in order for the world to find equality we need for the female race to see each other as equals no matter what you wear, look like or how you live your life. We are a race who needs strives to be on top of the pile but we often destroy each other to get there. When we can learn to curb and control our egos we will be in a better place to move forward and truly become equals in this world. We aren’t saying ego is solely to blame but it does have a lot to answer for an example of this and a major part of the #MeToo campaign was women speaking out against men who had abused, raped and used their positions of power to get what they wanted.

Ego and a sense of entitlement drove those men to do those things, the feeling they deserved and had worked hard driven by their egos let them think they could do whatever they liked. Sadly their egos overshadowed the part of their brains that make logical decisions if they were even able to make logical, empathetic decisions in the first place. Some people are just truly evil, narcissistic arseholes who need to be hung and quartered at the first opportunity. Powerful men who are rich are often narcissists who have massive, inflated egos and opinions of themselves. They are also often the same men who feel women are objects and can be treated with little to no respect. They are merely sexual objects for their amusement and pleasure. Without #Metoo these men would still be getting away with these things and the workplace, home and every other place would not feel safe for many women.

We’ll wrap it up for another week and allow you all to digest this week’s blog while we sort through the emails from people who are enraged at our take on what’s going on in the world. Technology has a lot to answer for in all of this, it’s keyboard warriors lining up behind the keys of a messageboard to spread hate and rhetoric against one another rather than spruiking unity, peace and one love. Equality will come when we are all truly equal and treat one another with respect and compassion that all humans deserve and have a right to. Well all except those who seek to do others harm. So going forward be good to one another and do your part. Until next week we wish you yet another good week and you’ll see another post soon. Ok, Peace out…

She Wants My Money…

Another week and another dollar into the taxman’s pocket. Speaking of tax it’s that time of year where we look at what the government took from our pays shudder a little, palm our faces and start a return in which they no longer make it easy for you to claim the minimum amounts back without receipts. And so the saying “you’ve got to spend money to make money” becomes true because if you want a good return you need to have some things you can claim back. The team here are just hoping to get a return and not a bill this year…

Speaking of taxes the world has gone a little mad lately with equality taxes in the business world. As always we’ll provide you with some examples and to be honest we are not for or against them but it did get the old rusty cogs in the noggin beginning to turn as we thought about the future ramifications that movements like this on the small businesses level could have and furthermore is it actually helping or just doing more damage to society and the future generations who will need to attempt to fix any damage that is done.

Where to start, well let’s just put it out there, we are all for equality and believe that everyone should be treated equal. It would certainly make the world a better place for everyone. So when we take matters into our own hands and decide that we are going to put in places taxes or rules against one portion of society it doesn’t make us any better than the group that was originally being suppressed and so the vicious cycle continues over and over never to be settled. Society just hasn’t learnt and perhaps it’s human nature for one group to rise up and hold another down.

A cafe in Melbourne recently started charging men more for their coffees in an attempt to bridge the wage gap between men and women. Whilst we don’t have an issue with this and are quite happy to be charged an extra 50 cents to a dollar as long as the coffee is good that is. You can start to see that there would be those who would have an issue with it and surprisingly it wasn’t just men who had an issue with it. Women were against this particularly when getting a coffee with there husband before work or during the day. The extra charge to there bill was unexpected and when explained to them it was essentially a “man tax” there were a few deeper conversations had about the total of their bill.

Another example was a festival company in the US who decided to charge white people more for their tickets. Essentially it was a white person tax. Several African American performers spoke out against this sighting it as “racist” and threatening to boycott the festival altogether unless they made ticket pricing the same and equal for everyone. Safe to say the event organisers are seriously looking at a change of heart around the “White Man Tax” but for the time being if you are white or have a white persons name you will have to pay an extra $100 dollars on top of the already expensive $300 ticket price for the two day festival. Again we question the sanity around this decision and why you would want to insight further divide the community.

Whilst we support movements, ideologies, religious views as long as they are not against gay marriage or the community and peoples opinions. As we’ve stated before though opinions are like arseholes everyone has one, some people two. Freedom of speech is encouraged, ranting on social media is encouraged, heck standing in the street holding a sign is even encouraged but what’s not encouraged is people thinking their opinion is more important and valuable than others. That’s not showing equality or being equal with your fellow human beings. It raises more questions than we actually have answers for at this point in time. What it is doing, is pitting women against women, man against man, same sex partners against same sex partners, communities against communities and so on and so forth.

As we scoured the internet for further information and articles on equality, gender pay gaps, racial equality, religious equality, hell any equality we could find we did come across several articles questioning whether we were going too far the other way. One article sighted that we are now being unequal towards stay at home mothers. Or women who leave the workforce to have children. Unfortunately women are still the only ones able to give birth and yet there is a stigma around women who are on benefits choosing to stay at home and look after the child or children. The stigma then tells us that those mothers then have further children to keep those benefits coming and often find skeezy men who hang on their coat tails for said benefits.

Now before anyone gets upset this all came from an article written by a woman, yes a woman and titled ‘Has Feminism Gone Too Far? Or Will We No longer have a place for Mothers in Society?’ by Olga Levancuka. While Feminism is the fight for women’s equal rights, the article questions whether this has backfired as much as it has in the last decade. To quote the article, the women in question are those who want to work, and don’t mind to be equal…but once they decide to have children, they just want to be a stay at home mum. Not the most respected respected task among the career minded professionals, or amidst the men who are tired of being the workhorse for the preservation of their offspring and expectations of their not so distant future where the kids fly the nest and they are left with neurotic, controlling women who have lost their positions of strength with the children gone.

Often what used to be considered caring rather than controlling is now directed at their husbands. Men, given that they have finances coming in, are still in control, often feel free and do divorce the women who fail to become anything else but mothers. Alas, their maternal services not only are no longer required, they are also suffocating to the male who wants to feel manly and respected. Instead their balls are constantly grinded and are blamed for related and unrelated misfortunes to the mother in question. As a result, many men or sons of such men, stay further and further away from the desire to marry. As for women? Women stay further and further away from the perspective of being married and with children.

Is there something, perhaps, the feminists or people fighting for women’s equal rights neglected? Perhaps the right to be a mother? Or is the situation worse for the women who want to be equal and have kids? In a sense that men no longer treat them with a required gentleness and only see them as a restricting harness for their future life? It is no longer a secret that the UK’s demographic would be in shatters just as Japan, Italy and other countries, if not for their high birth rate among their immigrant community. The majority of which are either on benefits or their women do not have as many rights? Or perhaps they are not even interested in equal rights, given they do just want to be a stay at home mums and they expect, yes expect for men to be a provider and always a provider.

Meanwhile more men use the excuse of feeling pressure that she just wants marriage and children, should they have a desire to break up. The article further sights that women are scared to be genuine about their motives in the relationship. It’s not they just need a male for love and a relationship. Biologically women are programmed to give birth. Though lately, it seems to be a punishable desire. While on one side, the campaign for women’s rights is flourishing, women, on the other side are drowning in confidence issues. If they don’t get married and have children by 38, the apparent age of desperation, has been pushed so much further, there must be something wrong with them.

Just while the feminists were fighting for equal rights, men had found an opportunity to fight for their freedom. Why commit when you can have your cake and eat it too? We reached out to the author of the article for a comment, she has yet to respond to the team but reading through some of the feedback on the post their was both positive and negative feedback from the majority of female respondents. Another article in the Irish Times published on international women’s day by yet another woman and titled ‘Feminism has become obsessed with victimhood’ the articles author goes on to speak about how Feminism has turned inward and she feels it is disempowering women because so much of it is speaking about what women can’t do as opposed to what they can do and what they have achieved over the past decade.

It seems that in the last decade the push for Gender equality has out shadowed and in some cases overtaken the push for equality in core areas of basic human rights. Religion still often shadows over gay rights. War crimes and atrocities shadow over the basic needs for food and water. And at the core of all of this we are still battling with each other equality but pushing one side of the equation down while the other rises up and takes the place of the oppressor rather than suppressed. But why?, Do we stop and question that at all? Do we stop and ask ourselves why we are trying to swing equality back the other way rather than wiping the slate and building a foundation on equal footing, together, men, women and children.

So when we look at adding taxes that single out one demographic of our community we are no better than those who have come before us and created inequality in the first place. It made the team scour the internet in the search for further evidence that it’s a need of people within society to create inequality. A thought provoking paper written in 2017 by three Yale scientists argued that is not inequality in life that really bothers us, but unfairness. According to the paper over 10,000 papers have been written around “inequality aversion”, people seemingly have a natural aversion to inequality and there are plenty of laboratory studies to back it up. In said laboratory studies when people are asked or subjects as they are often referred to in studies divide resources among unrelated individuals, they tend to divide them equally.

If a previous situation has led to a pre-existing inequality, people will divide future resources unequally in order to correct or minimise the inequality between others. It’s seen as a moral good when resources are divided equally and often express anger towards those who benefit from unequal distributors. Even studies done with children showed they would rather throw out additional items than have them distributed unequally amongst the other children even if the other children would never find out about the unequal distribution. So if kids and work out the whole equality thing why can’t adults and why can’t we bring the laboratory studies into real world application.

A recent study by Norton and Ariely received a lot of media attention that people underestimated both the amount of inequality in society and prefer a more egalitarian society to the one they think they live in. The summaries were accurate, all participants in these studies did prefer more equality than the current situation. The results also suggest that they were not particularly worried about large inequalities. Subjects claimed that in a perfect society, individuals in the top 20% should have three times as much wealth as individuals in the bottom 20%. When given a forced choice between equal and unequal distribution of wealth and told they would randomly be assigned from the richest to the poorest group, over half of the subjects explicitly rejected the option of equal distribution.

So the data would suggest that when it comes to real-world distributions of wealth, people have a preference for a certain amount of inequality. This preference materialised in a study conducted in 16 other countries across people from both the left and right sides of the political spectrum. So how do you go about reconciling the studies with the real world. One politician tried that by promising to close the wage gap altogether not just between men and women but between on all sectors and roles by bringing everyone down or put to around the $70K regardless of the role you perform or how many years you went to university to obtain a degree to doctors. We could just ensure that everyone doing the same job is paid the exact same regardless of age, sex, race, religion etc.

Perhaps in our generation we will never see true equal rights across around the globe nor will we see equal pay but we are working towards it and we are working at ensuring a brighter future for everyone but that will take everyone and if we are too busy squabbling rather than trying to help each other there is a certainty, we will never achieve any equality whether it be gender equality, wage equality, age equality, you name it we’ll not see it unless we work together. But until we can put the past aside we’ll continue to go around and around in the vicious circle we are currently caught in where one group rises and pushes another down so they feel what the other has almost like a vicious revenge.

So we’ll close the door on yet another chapter that certainly took on a mind of its own as we looked at taxes, implementation of taxes against certain groups within society and then went on to discuss equality or lack there of in our society and try to explain why it happens. Unfortunately we don’t think we accomplished anything we set out to do but hey it isn’t the first time and probably won’t be the last time. So as we bid you another farewell all we ask is that you be a decent human and as the kids say, you do you as it seems to be the thing to do lately for all people in this world. So without further adieu adios amigos until next week…

Another One Bites The Dust…

This week on A Mind of Its Own we head out on the road once again to the Nation’s capital. In the midst of a looming election battle we check out ground zero for the biggest school yard fight in the country. Sitting a top of hill parliament house preschool is home to some of the nation’s biggest babies, bullies and bellends. There petty little squabble for leader of the playground is now playing out on every TV station around the nation. Tit for tat they bad mouth one another while making promises to they’ll never keep or be able to keep if they win the keys to the monkey bars. With a date set for the big class vote of the 18th of May the battle lines have been drawn the polls are in place and we head for yet another prime minister in what that last 12 months. We go through them faster than a six pack of tinnies on a warm day.

Already pretty angry as we watch the the boss and his wife go through a separation we’ve noticed a couple of things that have got our back up and made us think no wonder. Whilst separating from someone you love can always be difficult and in a lot of ways painful that doesn’t mean you have to be a dick and create additional angst. The more angst you create the harder it’ll make it. But really had our back up was observations made while out watching the bossman drown his sorrows in top shelf whisky, wine and inane conversation with anyone who would listen to his tale of woe is me. Listen to him carry on you’d think the poor bloke was losing a leg or no longer able to see. Ok so we might be over exaggerating but when you have four days of solid drinking and begin thinking that you are now an expert on relationships and marriage you need to take a good hard look at yourself in the mirror.

One also needs to take a good hard look at their bank balance and question some of the choices made while drinking spirits. The drams of Macallan for a $100 each were probably not the wisest choice but savouring the warmth as it hits the back of your throat and rolls its way into your intestinal tract is a brief reminder that pain heals, chicks dig scars and glory lasts forever? Maybe it’s just the warmth touching you for the briefest of seconds or maybe it’s the numbing of the mind for several hours of inebriation that you’ve engaged yourself in only to wake up and feel the weight of the world once again on your shoulders dragging you back to earth. Showing you yet another hurdle that’s thrown up in life’s journey to teach you lessons. They say everything happens for a reason and there is a huge group of people out there that will tell you it’s true. Learn from the lessons that life teaches as it throws you a curve ball or two throughout your time on this here planet.

Now onto the observations made while in a state of constant inebriation for the past weeks, days and we make no apologies for it. While the corporate card is out and the drinks are flowing there are plenty of seagulls like us to help the boss lick his wounds. That was one of the first observations we made and many will agree with us we are certain, as they all have at least one of these mates we’ll call them the seagulls. They are the person who will always want a beer but never seems to be around when it’s there turn to shout. Always the old “aww did I miss it sorry I’ll get the next one” only to once again houdini there way out of yet another round. They are the seagull mate we all have floating in our lives somewhere and no matter how many times you sit down with them and have the chat with they never seem to change. Their tight fisted ways will continue throughout your days as friends.

One of the biggest observations we made was around the young peacock males that congregate around bars and clubs in the hopes of finding a mate. Or as heard one flannette clad young man who looked like he’d just walked off the set of houso’s say “Keen to cop a root tonight”. There is a reason we have the #metoo movement and a lot of these young men aren’t doing the rest of the male population any favours with their behaviour. Ever wondered why women feel abused and objectified by men? Just spend an hour in a bar or a club and watch the way these young cowboys interact and treat women. It’s almost like a sense of entitlement washes over them with each sip of their beer or overpriced vodka, lime and soda. As they strut their wares only to find anger when they are turned down by attractive females who lets be honest are most likely way out of their league, they morph once again into a hurt child and begin slinging names around the bar like it’s their god given right for a woman to talk to them and go home to bed with them.

Watching the boss transform into the hulk and telling them to have some respect or he was going and we quote “Knock some respect and common sense into them” whilst was quite funny for us to see and got a couple of claps and thank yous from people in the bar. Not someone to often speak up when in public we asked him why he said something he’s response was both measured and to the point. As someone who is going through a separation watching other men conduct and display themselves in such disrespectful behaviour was both angering and disappointing. Women don’t deserve to be treated that way ever, there is no excuse for calling someone a slut for walking away from you ever. In fact walking away from you and your poor behavior is the correct response. Why would a woman go for someone who’s initial reaction is to call them a slut when all they’ve done is politely declined your advances on several occasions.

Why is it when you give a young male a drink he feels he is entitled to say and do whatever he likes. A sip of dutch courage flowing through the blood stream allows males to be pure arseholes to any and everyone. We were young once however our parents taught us to respect women, hell they taught us to respect everyone and the age old adage of treat others how you want to be treated has always been a solid base for us. Yes there are always going to be people who don’t like you or respect you but that is life. You just need to get on with it and ensure you continue to stay true to yourself and your values. Good manners cost nothing, being a good person also costs you nothing and having respect for others should just be a given. Women should be able to go out to a bar and have a drink with their mates without being harassed by testosterone filled, ego inflated, boneheads who have a sense of entitlement only rivaled by those fed with silver spoons all their lives.

Women on the other hand just tend to lose there common sense and forget to dress for the weather. Far too often we see young ladies wearing far too little clothing for the weather they are in, Canberra for example besides being full of politicians, porn salesmen and meat head footballers starts to get cold around this time of year. So when we say dress for the weather a little dress and no jacket is not appropriate unless your intention is to catch a cold and watch it develop into full blown pneumonia. You can still look hot, gorgeous, attractive or as the kids say “on point” and still be fashionably warm. You might look fashionable but we can can guarantee you’ll be regretting it as you lie in your lovely hospital gown connected to a drip of antibiotics so they can course through your veins to fight off the infection attacking your lungs all because you chose fashion over function. Fathers all over Canberra have no doubt been shaking their heads for years and asking their daughters if they are really wearing that, before stepping out of the house and ignoring dads wishes for them to at least take a jacket.

Our other observation made was that if you are going through something that is life changing you won’t find the answer at the bottom of an expensive whisky glass or bottle for that matter. Whilst it might numb your pain for several hours, days or months. At some point you are going to have to deal with it all. Like ripping off a band aid it is often better to just get it over with and deal with it all rather than delaying it and numbing yourself to the world and pain. However that being said we all deal with things differently and certainly have to respect our own process for dealing with our emotions, thoughts and feelings. As we’ve stated a few times throughout the A Mind of Its Own journey it’s ok to ask for help even if its just to have someone sit and listen to us and let us get those tears out. After all tears clear the windows that guard the soul.

Whilst it’s fun at the time their are better things you can expend your energy on, that being said if you need to blow off some steam and it’s an outlet by all means have at it hoss. Just remember it’s not a long term solution unless you fancy your liver packing it in early and killing what brain cells with hadn’t already drowned. While your body and brain are screaming at the genocide being carried out by you on their inhabitants, your heart is breaking over and over again like a tape stuck on loop in your old walkman. As much as numbing it all feels good you’ll no doubt hate yourself for it in the weeks and months to come. You are going to go through pain in your life and unfortunately there is no manual for your life. We are individuals and as individuals we are all very different in the lives we lead the journeys we will go on. All the self helps books in the world will not prepare you for everything life throws at you.

Until next week we bid you another fond farewell and will remind you that in times of need it’s ok to reach out and ask for help rather than reaching out of the closest bottle to give you answers. Unless you are looking for a message in a bottle the only thing you’ll find is a hangover and some drunken memories once the fog of drunk lifts over time. You’ll forever be trying to piece together the moments you lost. We’re here to listen to anyone who needs and provide advice when it’s asked for. Or to just continue doing what we do best and writing killer blogs week in week out for you to lose yourself in. So as we close the book on what is one of the more random blogs we have written we start to wonder what the future holds and where we’ll be through it all. But for now live in the present and make the most of the writing to help our friends and family.