My current list of Struggles: August 2021
I am currently discovering what the purpose of this blog is. It seems to be part entertaining, part encouraging, part sharing my life, and part imparting wisdom. It's the last one that I want to be careful about, because I don't want to give off the impression that I have every part of my life entirely together. I am just good at processing thoughts and sharing them. Unfortunately, this skill makes me look like an expert in things that I have no idea about. Well, I have some idea; my confidence makes up for the rest.
This effect is best demonstrated when it comes to math. I am ok at math, probably a little better than average, but I am not a human calculator. But many people think I am because when someone throws out a random math question like 'well how much is $7.80 divided by 5?', I will quickly say $1.68. Now I didn't use a calculator, and I know that is not the correct answer, but I know it's close. And because I said it quickly, no one checks. Instead, they say, 'wow you are good at math'.
Have you checked it yet? I am going to now. Oh, it's $1.56. I was 12 cents off, but usually, when people ask that kind of question, they want a ball park figure anyway.
My next blog will be a share my wisdom blog, but today is going to be purely honest. I talked about how struggling is to strive to achieve or attain something in the face of difficulty or resistance. I am going to give you my current list of things that I am struggling with. I may do this at the start of each month as it might be fun to see the progress.
- My weight
I have a weight range of about 40 pounds, and I have gone up and down over the years. I got to one of my highest weights when my first child was born (11.5 years ago), and my Wii Fit told me I was overweight and then made my avatar chubby. That year I exercised & dieted for the entire year and lost 20kg (44 pounds). It didn't last too long. When I got to London last year, I weighed the highest I ever had in my life. I was determined to lose it, and 365 days later, I have lost 5kg (11 pounds). I seemed to have lost the knack. I am older now, and it is so much harder. Also, things that work don't work for long, so I have to keep changing my strategy. Since June, I have gone into overdrive and have lost another 10 pounds. So 20 pounds to go.
2. Exercise
I set a goal at the start of the year to do 365,000 skips and 20,000 push-ups. I started a little website so some friends could track it. I started strong and then got behind and did a crazy catch up streak in June to get back on track and since then dropped the ball and am even further behind than I was in June. Currently, I am at 209,640 skips and 11,360 push-ups. So again, I am getting there but still struggling.
3. Money
While I live and work in London, I still have a financial life in Australia. We own a property in Sydney that is rented out and pays for the mortgage. In London, we pay rent as well as everyday living expenses. Juggling between the two is complex, and I am still struggling a bit with it. This week our rent came in at 50% of normal (due to expenses), and I had to scramble to get the money together for the mortgage payment because if I sent money from the UK, it wouldn't get there in time. I made it with $14 to spare. It's a struggle, but you get that when you do something crazy like move 16,000 miles away from your home.
4. This blog
I was almost tricked into this blog. I saw a youtube channel talking about using Ghost.io, and I thought it looked great. What I didn't know is that everything needs to be built. That means you can customise, but you need to build from scratch. It took me 3 hours to work out how to add a comments section. What comment section, you ask? Well, after 3 hours and working out how to edit the theme's code, IT STILL FLIPPING DOESN'T WORK. Also, if you hit home, the title is squashed in the corner, and I couldn't get the 'about the author' section to work. But I promised myself that I wouldn't wait till it was perfect to start it.
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So these are my current list of struggles, and instead of keeping them in the shadows hidden in shame, I am wearing them proudly like a badge. These are the things in which I am facing difficulties and resistance, BUT I am doing them anyway.