Fit Dad, Fat Dad

So, it goes something like this ... each year my pub buddies and I have a 'Fat Dad Challenge' the winner of which get his Christmas curry paid for by the losers. The target is normally fitness or weight or body fat orientated but this year it is all about the six pack! Something none of us have seen outside of an off-licence for some twenty years.

No doubt it will mean weight loss, increased fitness, and reduced body fat but as it is to be judged by an independent female it's the look and firmness that will no doubt count. I predict some last minute tricks being administered such as fake tan, body shaving, and some flattering lighting. Anything that tips that final decision after all, all's fair in love and free curry!

A Year in Provence ... Part 2

So having rekindled my love affair with 'la bonne vie', what to do about it? Now I'm not naive, I know the dream often does not meet the reality. So let's start with what I did not like about my trip. 

Firstly, mosquitoes. I've always been some what of an attraction for these critters. Whilst my wife remained bite free, I was bitten to shreds and am still scratching myself raw. Secondly, the bloody cockerels waking me up at 05:30, and then virtually 'snoozing' to repeat their bird song every ten minutes. Now I think I was getting used to this as I seemed to notice it less and wake up later as the week went on. 

Finally, the sun. Yes the very thing that makes it so attractive. By 09:00 it was already on its way to 30. On such a short holiday you feel compelled to make hay, as they say, whilst the sun shines but it was far too hot some days and made for uncomfortable nights sleeping. Given more than a week I guess I would acclimatise more but at the same time would have to adopt a more European approach to the midday sun and escape it. 

From an economic point of view the pound is recovering, French property prices have been falling whilst French property taxes have been rising. In the past, UK ex-pats have often set up businesses to serve other ex-pats but with an increasing number of ex-pats returning to the UK this is hitting them. The other favourite is having holiday properties to let but there is already an abundance of these.

With all of the volatility in the EU at the moment the Euro has suffered and could further suffer if countries like Greece and Spain decline further. Ex-pat pensioners have already suffered with currency fluctuations. If the UK withdrew from the Euro zone then working and living in France would become even harder.

Divorce rates for couples who emigrate to France are high, chances of employment for non-French speaking persons are low. The French education system does not go out of its way to accommodate non-French speaking children often setting them back a year to compensate and not providing further help. Private schooling is better but only add to the cost of living.

So where does this leave my French dream? Well from a schooling point alone it puts it on hold until the kids finish school by which time I will be nearing retirement but I do not want to wait that long which brings us back to compromise. Being a home worker I can work from home, wherever that may be, as long as I have a decent internet connection. With kids being at school they have six weeks summer holiday each year. So I like the idea of letting a property for one month each year abroad. Maybe Provence one year, Tuscany another, Murcia the next, who knows.

But there remains an obstacle. Finance. My wife currently still needs to work and cannot get that much time off. So either she needs a job or business that allows her to work remotely or I need to earn enough for her not to work! Hmmmm......????

Onward Christian soldiers

My wife, like many others, has fallen for the "mommy porn" 50 Shades of Grey trilogy and like many husbands and boyfriends there have been positive side effects. For example, on her first night of reading I had been down the pub with friends. Now under normal circumstances when I creep in from the pub late, with all of the subtleness of a hippopotamus ninja,s he would always be asleep, or at least pretending to be asleep, but no not that night ;o)

But here we are once again with a sense of frustration. One friend was moaning on Facebook how despite his wife reading 50 shades he was yet to reap him any rewards. One female friend responded to the thread that "if you want your wife to act a bit more like Ana, try acting a bit more like Mr Grey". 

Now, despite already benefiting from positive side effects, this sounded like good advice coming straight from the horses mouth. So with this idea in mind I send my wife a text, nothing brash (Mr Grey is too sophisticated for that). Far from a hot lustful reply the response I get was along the lines of  "Lol, so anyway ...".

There you go, dismissed in an instant. It's all very well you ladies rattling on about what you want from us men but first you're going to have to learn to recognise it when your presented with it!

Want, Need, Would like

One of my annoyances in life is hearing what people want. Not because I have a problem with what they want. I have a problem with their use of the word want. All too commonly, what they mean is 'would like' and there in lies the problem. If you 'need' something then it is a necessity. If you 'want' something then it is desired. If you 'would like' something then all you are doing is expressing a desire in a non-committal manner. 

It reminds of a story, I cannot remember the exact details but as with all good urban legends I remember the punchline. The story is of a young man who 'wants', he seeks the advice of a mentor who 'has' and the young man repeatedly keeps asking 'how'. Finally, the mentor leads him into the sea and holds the young mans head underwater. At first the young man is confused, then after a few seconds he tries to lift his head out of the water. The mentor resists and continues to hold the young mans head underwater. Getting more desperate the young tries to force his head up but to no avail. Eventually as he is running out of breath he starts to flail and lash out wildly at the mentor until eventually the mentor yields and the young man is able to come up for air. Confused and angry he asks the mentor why he was trying to drown him. The mentor replies along the lines of "only when you want something as much as you wanted to breathe just then, will you find a way and do what needs to done to achieve it'. Or something like that ...

When people tell me that they 'want' something in life I always want to ask them what they are doing about it. What is there plan? What steps are they taking towards achieving it? There is the crux of my frustration. The answer most commonly eludes to 'nothing'. What they mean is 'would like' or put another way, they'd take it if someone handed it to them on a plate. When someone 'would like' something it leans more towards desire but without the compulsion to get off one's arse and do something about it. 

Being honest about what one needs, wants and would like leads to contentment. I know that if I really needed or wanted something then I'd be doing something about it. If it's just something I would like then it's probably not all that important to me.

Because you're worth it!

Or are you????

The media constantly seem to be telling us that we deserve more. Better sex, more money, fantastic holidays, nice cars, you name it. Of course in most cases it's because they want to sell us something. Almost instinctively we answer this question 'yes' because that's what we'd all like to believe and of course the marketeers know this.

Perhaps before answering this question we should ask ourselves the question, why? Why do we deserve more? What have we done that warrants all of these things? A common term used with regard to the current generation is that of entitlement. It's is the older generations that raise this criticism because it seems they were brought up with an entirely different ethos. They were brought up under the belief that 'you reap what you sow' or put more commonly, 'you get what you deserve' which in short translates to 'you've currently got what you currently deserve and if you deserved more you'd have it'.

Of course this doesn't sit well with our ideals and maybe it's not something we want to acknowledge but in 9 out of 10 cases it's probably spot on. It seems that somewhere along the lines we've been sold a dummy. Somewhere along the lines someone started to convince us that just doing the ordinary day to day things (working hard, raising a family, etc) that our elders did just to get by suddenly entitles us to 'more' than they ever got.  Where is the justification?

When children leave home it seems that they want to walk straight into what they've just walked out of. Perhaps not a house but the 'luxuries' with in it (nice furniture, tv's, computers, games consoles, media players, etc, etc). The parents home represented the rewards of years of work and effort. How can it be conceivable that someone starting out should have anywhere near the same?

I'm not just referring to material things either. It is already acknowledged that the standard of living or quality of life has been increasing with each generation. Perhaps we should be content with this fact and if we desire more, then maybe we should get off our arses and do something to deserve it.

Yes Man

I recently finished the book Yes Man by Danny Wallace. I enjoyed it. I have seen the film that was based upon the book but the link is tenuous and Hollywood didn't do it justice. It follows Danny's own experience when having slipped into a life not just ordinary but positively dull, he takes the advice of a man on a bus to 'say yes more'. The premise, which I tend to agree with, is that things only really happen in life when we say yes. No excludes us. No removes opportunities. No closes doors. No doesn't get us drunk, or laid for that matter.

I can't help but think he has a point which indeed he goes on to demonstrate. Opportunities to live a life less ordinary do present themselves, but it's just all to easy to dismiss them. Let's face it, easy is nice and a whole lot less effort. It's a bit like those invites that you agree to months in advance and as the day draws nearer you start questioning why you ever agreed and how much easier it would  be to just stay in and watch tv. 

When the night arrives you haul your carcass up out of the sofa, the lazier side of you having now realised that going may actually be easier than trying to worm your way out of it and guess what? Yep, you have a great time and you're glad you went! (Okay this doesn't have a 100% success record but you get the point). So I guess the yes idea is a discipline to counter our natural lazy tendency to think of reasons why we shouldn't do something when we should be thinking about all of the reasons why we should do something.

So where am I going with these inane ramblings. Well, firstly I think I need to say yes more, and not just to beer and sex.  Secondly, when I do have a random thought to do something less ordinary (more interesting) then I need to start telling myself all of the reasons why I SHOULD do it.

Be - Do - Have

Ok, so this one isn't mine but it's perfectly valid. In life we sometimes look at successful people and wish we were in a similar position. By successful, I don't necessarily mean rich or famous, just people who are at the top of their game in life and are exactly where they want to be.

We sometimes wish to have the things they have, do the things they do, and to a point be the type of person that they are. So the theory dictates, that this is why we do not. Truth is, to achieve this we must first BE the person we want to be, and DO the things that person would do, and only then can we HAVE what that person would have. To do otherwise would be putting the cart before the horse.

So if I want to HAVE a life less ordinary, I have to DO less ordinary things by first BEING the type of person who, as I have a quite ordinary life, is different to me.