fbpx
Menu

Joe

Forum Replies Created

Viewing 15 posts - 31 through 45 (of 147 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • in reply to: Today I am grateful for.. #128021
    Joe
    Participant

    Even though I am currently out of work (again), today I am grateful for the work I did have over the past few months. I am grateful for the kick in the arse it gave me after a period of inactivity. I am grateful for the friends I made during this time as they told me that I should just go for my dreams of living off my art. I am grateful for the free time I have off now as I am currently planning to launch my own apparel line. Most important of all, I am grateful for coffee; without which I wouldn’t be able to function.

    in reply to: story of my dark night #122908
    Joe
    Participant

    Anita (sorry for the delayed reply, been on 6am shifts all week bleh!)

    I also love to walk as well. Some people sit cross-legged and meditate, some people go to churches/mosques/temples to pray and reflect, we go walking. At least for me, walking is my form of meditation. Do you enjoy the snow? No snow here in the middle of England yet but I love the snow and how ethereal and ephemeral it is. I don’t live in nice surroundings, mainly factories and industrial units but in my opinion snow makes everything appear nicer (but it’s no fun when it causes me to slip over).

    Yes, I’m in paid employment, albeit temporary work (and I have a feeling my contract will be up soon).

    It’s weird, going from thinking that I would never find work to suddenly finding work and earning money. When I said that the past few months were a good kind of crazy, I guess it wasn’t entirely true and that I put conditions on my happiness – having money to do and buy things. Sure I’ve had some fun along the way, going to restaurants and shopping but I also know these things don’t bring eternal fulfillment. It has been nice not having to worry about money for the time being – I have allowed myself some guilt-free purchases and treats, I said to myself “I damn well deserve this” and chose to not feel guilty. Again, I should know that having things doesn’t equate to happiness, they are impermanent and the joy of having them is fleeting. But it’s nice having nice clothes for a change and good quality art supplies and going out for food. Nothing wrong with enjoying those things, they aren’t the most important things. We all deserve good things from time to time.

    Work is work but I was just grateful I found the job. I started off at a warehouse job for a well-known online retailer but it wasn’t really a good place at all – commute was hell and the place was so disorganised which made my job difficult, and because I was unable to do much, the managers were constantly on my case asking why I wasn’t meeting my quotas. I pulled a sickie, found another temp agency and found another job closer to home, where I have had a constant stream of work to do.

    Trying not to worry about what will happen regarding my contract after January – actually I allow myself to worry, forcing myself not to worry makes it worse. I found work for the past few months or so and blew my expectations of not finding a job, I’m sure I can find something else.

    Joe

    in reply to: story of my dark night #122355
    Joe
    Participant

    Anita

    It’s been a while, how are you doing? Sorry I haven’t been online for a few months, it’s been a crazy whirlwind (the good kind of crazy) – just wanted to know how you were doing.

    Joe

    in reply to: How internet effected your life #117445
    Joe
    Participant

    BlueButterfly

    I think for the most part, the internet has been a HUGE resource for me and I think it’s great having the world at your fingertips – I’ve learned so much about art and drawing, music, spirituality and psychology. Without it I wouldn’t have found out about all the cool illustrators that I follow, I wouldn’t have discovered anime or many of the bands that I listen to and I wouldn’t have found TinyBuddha.

    On the other side of the coin, however – I’m not really a huge fan of social media. It’s useful for promoting my art but I’m just not at all keen on the idea of everything about a persons life ending up on an instant feed. My impression is that people are just too concerned about likes or follows, and that they need to seek validation from other people constantly about everything in their life. This also perpetuates the idea that we all need to “be perfect” and project the idea of having a perfect life – we are able to filter, edit and touch up our lives for other people to see through posts and it’s to the point where it all feels artificial.

    People aren’t living in the present moment – when they are at concerts, when they are at restaurants, when they are doing something – they are just taking photos or recording it through a smartphone just to upload it and tell everybody what they were doing, just to score likes. What’s the point? I admit, I used to be a junkie for getting likes when I had Facebook but the feeling is short-lived. Afterwards, you start to crave it even more. You try and make another interesting post about something seemingly interesting that you did.

    It really irked me when I was watching Adele perform at Glastonbury last summer on the television (or any TV recording of any concert for that matter) – most people were just recording the concert on their smartphones and that’s how they were viewing the concert. Just to prove that they saw Adele live? If they really enjoyed the concert and they were present then the experience should have been valid enough. Why do you need to let your followers know you were at a concert? If I go to a concert, I want to be present and to actually engage with the music and performance. I don’t want to view it as I am recording through a smartphone screen.

    Just my two pence on the subject 😀

    Joe

    in reply to: Something to do. #117260
    Joe
    Participant

    @jonathananderson

    Could you perhaps find an organisation or a local cause to donate time to by volunteering? Perhaps you could volunteer at a library, an animal shelter or a charity shop? Libraries always have some kind of free extra-curricular activity or free classes going on.

    What are your skills? What do you like to do? Could you use any of those in some way when volunteering? Is there any kind of club or meet-up with people who love to do the kind of things you like doing?

    Just some suggestions.

    Joe

    in reply to: Worrrking 9-5 #117257
    Joe
    Participant

    Greenshade

    I think Inky is right, it is a balancing act. When you are not working, you are wishing for free time but when you have too much free time with nothing to do, you are wishing for work.

    Some of us don’t have the 9-5 working life (at least not yet, I’m looking for jobs at the moment) – when not working at anything I just feel as though I’m wasting time procrastinating on both the things I NEED and WANT to do, and I need something to do or something to occupy myself with. When I am finally working at something I need to be committed to, I suddenly start to wish I had the free time to draw or paint my ideas. When I do have the free time to work on them, I just don’t want to do it.

    Just my 2 pence on the subject 😀

    Joe

    in reply to: Help! I am Lost. #117050
    Joe
    Participant

    phantom2013

    Welcome to TinyBuddha forums, I hope you will enjoy it here and I hope you will benefit from the advice and wisdom from the many wonderful souls I have encountered here, and I hope I am able to help out.

    I think I can relate to your dilemma – feeling judged and scrutinised by other people (including my family members). I’m not saying I no longer doubt myself or I have everything together because I don’t but it’s taken me 25 years to realise that it’s my life, nobody else’s and it’s not my responsibility to make other people happy or fulfilling their expectations of what it is I should do/be.

    You are NOT responsible for anybody else’s feelings or expectations. It is not your purpose in life to win anybody else’s approval, except your own. You are not your cousins, and you are doing the best that you can. Everybody has their own strengths and weaknesses. You are allowed to not be perfect and it’s okay to not be okay, we are only human. Seek your own happiness. You focus on you.

    What subject are you studying at college? What were you passionate about before you started college? You say you love your guinea pigs – could you perhaps find something to do involving caring for animals?

    Are you perhaps able to seek the help of a counsellor? I daresay they should have a confidential counselling service available to students at the college you attend.

    I hope this helps.

    Take care and feel free to post more

    Joe

    in reply to: Feeling like the world doesn't need you #117046
    Joe
    Participant

    Penguin

    I can very much relate to this – being a graduate and heading for an industry where the competition is fierce and there is no job stability in it whatsoever (I graduated in illustration and I’m more than likely going to end up doing my masters next year). I would very much like for illustration and art to be my full time job but it’s not possible at the moment – I was making very little money from it, I’m burned out from making art and it takes time to establish yourself as an artist. I’m looking for any kind of job that I can do until I start my course next year.

    I’m not sure what jobs you have applied for but have you tried applying for any retail or customer service jobs at the moment? The thought of working in retail terrifies me (I’m not really much of a people person, especially the outgoing trendy type!) but it’s around this time that all the shops are going to be taking on seasonal staff for the Christmas season so it might be worth a shot? You could try the local bookstores to see if they have any vacancies? They might be hiring at a nearby library? Are there any jobs going at the university for campus staff?

    As for long-term goals, have you maybe considered the possibility of teaching?

    You are NOT worthless. There are many people in the same boat, myself included – graduates not knowing what to do with their lives and being out of work. Some of my classmates whom I graduated with 2 years ago, they still haven’t been able to find work. I’m not saying this to scare or discourage you, I’m just saying this to let you know that you are not alone. It’s best not to focus on everybody else, you just focus on you. I know how easy it is to feel discouraged from applying for a job because it seems like an exercise in futility (lots of people applying for the same job).

    I hope this helps, and I hope you will find something soon.

    Take care

    Joe

    in reply to: What do you want? #116868
    Joe
    Participant

    Ketzer

    Fantastic idea! Although I think we’re going to need bigger boats for this kind of operation…Pirate ships perhaps?

    Joe

    in reply to: What do you want? #116696
    Joe
    Participant

    Ketzer

    I want to be self-sufficient. I want a life full of adventure. I want to continue making art and being able to make a living from it. I want to meet my kind of people – the weirdoes and the freaks, and organise a rebel army of misfits. Together we will stage worldwide mass protests and demonstrations to rebel against the idea that everybody has to be perfect, shiny, happy and good looking all the time, and that it’s okay to be as weird and freakish as we bloody well please. And a canal boat…I’d really like to live on a canal boat…

    Joe

    in reply to: I'm lost and dead from inside #116573
    Joe
    Participant

    @prakashraj

    You acknowledge these feelings and you allow yourself to feel them. It’s okay to not be okay. It’s okay to feel disillusioned with everything. People aren’t perfect. These negative feelings will pass in their own time.

    Rejection is a known fact for everybody – we’ve all been rejected at some point in our lives. I guess like most other things, the more it happens, the easier it becomes to deal with. After being rejected a few times, it doesn’t seem so bad. That’s not to say being rejected doesn’t still come with feelings of disappointment after being rejected many times, but after a while you just learn to get up and move on.

    I talk from personal experience – being rejected from many job interviews was disheartening for me and applying for more seemed like an exercise in futility for me. Everybody else seemed to be more successful than I was and I soon began to resent people. I decided I needed to take action because how are any of us going to succeed at anything if we don’t try? I had to remind myself that despite the countless rejections, I have had successful interviews before. I’m not saying I have attained any kind of success yet because I haven’t, I’m searching for jobs because I wasn’t earning much from working freelance but I’m not going to get anywhere if I don’t try. I also learned that it’s best not to focus on what other people have in their lives or where they are at the moment – you focus on you.

    In your own time, you will be inspired to take some kind of action with your life. Take action. If something doesn’t work, change it. We have to do it ourselves and we have to be the engineer of our own happiness. Nobody is going to hand it to us on a plate.

    Could you try perhaps volunteering for a charity? I’ve found that volunteering puts things into perspective and gives a sense of purpose.

    I hope things will look up for you soon. Please do post more.

    Joe

    in reply to: story of my dark night #116566
    Joe
    Participant

    Anita

    I don’t think of your suggestions as spoon-feeding at all. I think of your suggestions as signposts and directions. You don’t force me to take a particular course of action or pressurise me into taking a particular direction. I don’t mind receiving advice from you at all. You allow me to make up my own mind about things, and that’s why I really enjoy our correspondence.

    My course of action now is to find a job. I recently started volunteering at a charity/thrift shop again and I’ve missed working in a place like that, to get out the house and hopefully it will lead to me finding a paid job – I’d much rather find work that involves interacting and engaging with something other than a computer screen. Even carrying large bags to the staff area – I find that I enjoy it. I’m also considering applying to do my masters next year. I’m taking action and that’s better than not taking action. It’s better than waiting, like those illustrations I used to make.

    Maybe I should start drawing magpies, they are adept at seeking things. Maybe I should start drawing chameleons, they adapt to their surroundings, just as I will need to adapt to all of the job descriptions when I will go for interviews.

    Anita, thanks again for your insight. Words can’t describe how grateful I am for how you have helped me to see the light on many areas in my life over the past year or so – I’ve grown. A lot.

    I always look forward to reading your responses

    Joe

    in reply to: story of my dark night #116462
    Joe
    Participant

    Anita

    You are right, I only know what I know – I learn and experience in my own time and nobody else’s. Other people just seem intent on spoon-feeding me because they have more experience than I do – which is fair enough but I would rather learn from my own experiences than being told by other people.

    It’s interesting how you suggest that the people who are so judgemental didn’t have shiny happy pasts, these people who seemingly have everything. It never really occurred to me I guess, I just thought some people were mean and judgemental and too conservative just for the sake of being those things.

    I don’t know for certain what causes them to act so judgemental – insecurity? Peer pressure? Take this person who called me and made me doubt myself – I think he was always pressured to act and behave in a certain way and pushed to succeed, he must also faced a lot of scrutiny from everybody growing up and now he has a high-profile job, the pressure and scrutiny to do well all the time with no margin for error. Being somebody who often thinks the worst in people, I just thought he was being a smug arsehole just for the sake of being that.

    My older sister – she was always the nice one, the pretty one, the girl who was popular, loads of friends and always went to parties. Is it that she had a lot to live up to, being the popular girl? Did she feel insecure and couldn’t allow herself to be flawed for fear that they would look down on her and say mean things?

    Is them being judgemental and condescending their way of avoiding their own insecurities of feeling scrutinised? Do they judge according to how they fear they might be judged?

    I never really thought about it that way. I always thought that they just act that way because they can.

    This is interesting. I have a lot to think about now. Thankyou for helping me to reach this viewpoint.

    What do you think?

    Joe

    • This reply was modified 7 years, 6 months ago by Joe.
    in reply to: story of my dark night #116405
    Joe
    Participant

    Anita

    I have had a few wonderful understanding friendships – I had seeked them out as friendships because they were my kind of people. They also had not-so-shiny-and-happy pasts so they never judged. But sadly this was back at university and we have gone our separate ways now, they have moved on and the friendship just ceased. No other way to describe it. There was somebody I thought I could trust but he was the person I described in ‘a friendship that wasn’t really a friendship’. I even tried to get in touch with him a few months ago to apologise even though I can honestly say I had nothing to apologise for but he doesn’t want to know anymore.

    The only person I know who gets me is my best friend – we’ve been friends for 20 years now. We torture each other and irritate each other at the worst of times but she is the only person who makes any attempt to understand me.

    Joe

    in reply to: story of my dark night #116393
    Joe
    Participant

    Anita

    It’s a fine balancing act, needing to find the in-between of what it is I need to be and what I need in other people. It would be nice to be around people who encourage and believe in me but at the same time not discouraging me, feeding the fears or instilling too much encouragement. Lately I am thinking about the dynamics of many of my relationships. Most of which, they do all the talking 90% of the time. They are either talking down to me as if I am a clueless child, or they are talking AT me as if I am attending a lecture. I have things I’d like to add to the conversation but I can’t because they force the conversation on what they say, and I am never given an opportunity to add to the conversation. They will just waffle on for hours and then go off on a tangent, when it is my turn to speak they have changed the subject. I find it hard to follow through when people lecture me.

    This person I spoke of – I really don’t want to dislike him but there have been many times throughout the supposed friendship where we clashed or he rubbed me the wrong way, and now I start to doubt our compatibility as friends. Generally he talks in a patronising way and sometimes he just comes across as insensitive – he accused me of wanting to go for the China opportunity because I saw it as a vacation which I was really offended by, he thinks it is okay to ask questions about my earnings when I was always brought up on the idea that it’s rude to talk about money in social situations. He often makes annoying and very stereotypical remarks about my lifestyle choices and the kind of music I listen to – if he is not saying stupid things like “ROCK ON DUDE!” like he’s from that film Wayne’s World or something, he makes more idiotic comments that I’m a satanist (he is religious) and he is part of a friendship group I was part of two years ago but I really don’t want to be around. They are all quite judgemental towards others and I can’t help but wonder what they say about me behind my back when they are slagging other people off and scrutinising them. I’ve been avoiding them for the past year and it’s gotten to the point where I’ve told this person I’ve moved to another part of the country just to get out of going for nights out with these people because I genuinely don’t enjoy spending time with them.

    I don’t need validation or approval from everybody and it’s not my purpose in life to seek those things from people. I did that before and I became a junkie for approval. I guess what I’m trying to say is I don’t need constant compliments but I don’t need criticism where it’s not due. I’d just like to find people who are cool enough to let me get on and make my own choices and not push me around.

    I think I know what you are getting at about seeking a connection with another person – I guess I’m not looking for that kind of relationship with somebody else, at least not now. I’m too cynical and jaded about relationships in general and I don’t believe being in a relationship or being married is the be-all end-all, the fairytale ending where they live happily ever after…I just can’t spend too long around a person, I’d resent them or they would end up resenting me. The majority of people I have known end up intentionally or unintentionally dragging me down into their drama and bulls**t and I just can’t deal with somebody else’s drama on a 24 hour basis. I know I sound incredibly selfish but I’m just being honest, personal relationships aren’t for me at this time.

    I’ve reached a point in my life where I am happy being single and I don’t feel the need to explain myself. Society at large seems to have a problem with people who are single – if people aren’t in a relationship, they are clearly sad and lonely or they are some kind of freak and other people will take it upon themselves to play matchmaker without even considering their feelings.

    I was always made to feel inadequate for being single, back when my self-esteem and confidence were at their worst. I wasn’t attractive as a teenager – I was spotty, overweight and greasy and sometimes I’d be approached by girls who would say “My friend fancies you” when they were just clearly taking the piss. I’ve been in relationships before but they all ended. When I reached my twenties, other people started to act shocked about the fact I was single – “That’s so sad!” “Why are you single?” “Are you lonely?” “Are you gay?” “I’m going to set you up with somebody.” It’s also the same with my sense of humour – I am able to laugh at myself and be self-depreciating. The last time somebody asked why I was single, I said “They would have to be absolutely stark raving mad to consider being with me.” They were really shocked – “Oh my god, you can’t say that about yourself!” That is what I believe, somebody would have to be mad to put up with me – in fact, I insist upon it!

    I get it from relatives as well – “Ohhhhh you’re going to get married next!” “When are you getting married?” “When are you having kids?” People seem to make assumptions – “Oh, when you have kids you will……” or “When you get married….” I personally don’t believe in marriage and I don’t want kids. My aunt is under the impression that I’m supposed to be some kind of playboy and that I am constantly flirting and chatting up women and sleeping around. Every time I’m on my smartphone she always says “Ooooh, who are you texting? A new girlfriend we don’t know about?” “No, I was just looking on Amazon for art supplies?” Society dictates that’s what all young men should be like. I find that most men who subscribe to this idea are just vulgar and disrespectful.

    I learned to make peace with being single. I’m not unhappy. As far as I’m concerned I can do whatever the hell I want, I am single, it’s my choice and it doesn’t define me as a person. I don’t need relationships to define me. Me being okay with being single has meant that it’s my decision, it’s something I own, I’m in control and nobody else can take that away from me. Having said that, I’m not entirely against the idea of being not single, but it would have to be the right person and the right circumstances. Rather be single and lonely than spend time with people I really don’t enjoy spending time with.

    Joe

    • This reply was modified 7 years, 6 months ago by Joe.
Viewing 15 posts - 31 through 45 (of 147 total)