Broke but Happy

Don't have much in the way of money at the moment. Working a great deal of odd jobs to try and make everything work out. Most recent has been cleaning busses at the depot.

Cleaning busses has been my favourite job to date. I never knew such peace could be found in the workplace. I just arrive at work and then get on with one job after another until the shift is over. It's really straightforward. On occasion someone tells me to go faster or tells me I've missed a bit with the mop, but such things can be overlooked given how much worse other jobs can be.

In terms of the working class life you can only ever really appreciate a "good job" once you have experienced some truely terrible working conditions.

Such is life. I potentially have other jobs lined up although I have the logistics of moving to a new flat to worry about. Still, I always find that logistical life problems that are beyond your control lie in God's problem solving domain.

Prayer really does work and my experience has been that the good Lord does provide for us if only we are willing to accept what He offers with gratitude and humility.

My next job will be better paid and in a pleasant office environment. Most likely an opportunity I wouldn't appreciate had I not done the rounds in less comfortable workplaces.

I read a book called Psycho-Cybernetics. I don't know if the book prompted a growing change within myself or if my reading was a consolidation of something that has been changing within me recently.

There really is something to be said for a radical positivity. In trusting that things will work out for the best in the long run. Without that kid of hope you wouldn't be able to persevere through any kind of difficulty.

Recently I have been much more calm and denied the anxiety that normally creeps around in my mind. I'm not saying that mental health problems don't exist, although sometimes that "feeling good about life" seems to be more of a choice than we allow ourselves to think.

Nothing is more ugly than a man who feels sorry for himself, and so I try not to feel sorry for myself but rather just get on with the matters at hand and not become too fractured in mind.

I think that's what got me through the interview process for the good job.

A strange sort of gravitas is needed.

A trusting that whatever opportunities that do come your way are as much a calling to be more than you were previously as something you are entitled to.

Indeed we aren't really entitled to anything. Everything must be earned in some way. Although often good things come our way without regard for our hard work in any particular direction.

Such things are from the grace of God.

Dealing with all of this: the practical issues of life, other people and the demons that lurk in your psyche are necessary. They are the very things that make up a human life well lived.

I feel there is something truly good in the not giving up and in the perseverance through whatever difficulties may arise.

Yet when it comes to satisfaction it is not simply about how hard we try to achieve one aim or another. It is about the WAY we strive. It is our nature in every interaction. It is the words and kindness we show others. It all adds up, if not in your bank account then in the greatest reserves of the human heart.

I am reminded of "The Idiot" by Dostoevsky. A story about a man who seems to have little thought for self preservation beyond what is absolutely necessary. A story about a man who strives but always in a way that is well natured and in service of others. A story about a life well lived internally, even if invisible to the rest of the world.

In my meanderings through one job and another I feel a closeness to the idiot that redeems and preserves me. The living out of Christs mission for the human life and heart.

To live well in word, deed and in thought rather than in the things we say about ourselves or in the pointless striving for worldly ends.

Going to work in a few hours. Looking forward to speaking with friends. Enjoying the solitude of thought where lack of company allows. 

If we do not enjoy time alone then we must be in bad company

I don't know who said it but it's true. So let me be in good company for a change, let me continue to stay true to proper direction and not allow negativity or anxiety to take hold of my mind for another moment.

Godspeed.

Banksman

​I started another job as a construction guy, and so I showed up today, and it turns out I'm going to be a banksman.

In the classic style of working for an agency, they don't always tell you what the job involves until you show up on the day. 

But here I am, guiding the forklifts as they pick up pallets of bricks for people to put down as paving stones. 

It's pretty chill, all things considered. As with most minimum wage jobs, you tend to spend most of your time pretending to be busy rather than actually doing any work. 

But I've learned to love it. I've learned to embrace it. The art of looking busy. The art of looking like you're working. 

Because if you don't look like you're working, you end up in trouble, I guess. 

It's weird how the system works, but at the end of the day, we don't have much of a choice other than to get on with it. 

I guess that's what's strange about the world of work. You enter it as a young person, thinking that if you work hard, if you focus, if you do your job well, it'll somehow benefit you. 

But as far as I can tell, in every occupation, that is not true. Actually, the best thing you can do to survive a workplace is to do the bare minimum and to only do what you're told to do. 

Because if you do too much or you try too hard, you tend to make other people feel uncomfortable. You tend to make other people feel insecure. And so it's not so much giving up, but it's learning where and when to actually try. 

And you've got to be a little bit strategic about it, I guess. But at the end of the day, when it comes to minimum-wage jobs, the work culture necessitates a kind of unwillingness to do work in the worker. 

I don't know. I mean, it's true and it's untrue. It's true and it's untrue. Actually, people at work genuinely want to do a good job, and they want to get on with things. 

And they do get on with things, otherwise, nothing would get done. But it is an art. The art of labouring. I'm a labourer now, today, and so I might as well embrace it.

By the Bench

​Moving from bench to bench in search of nothing, allowing things to slow down for a bit. 

On the phone with a friend, meeting other friends by chance. Others keep us grounded in reality. They pull us back down to earth when our thoughts take us a little too high in the air. 

Of course, people come and go from our lives as they must. Although perhaps we always have the people we need when we need them the most, it is too easy to be ungrateful for the others in our lives. 

It starts to rain a bit, but just a light pitter-patter. Pieces of ink swell and dance upon the loose scraps of paper I strategically placed in my jacket pocket for situations such as these. 

This all takes me back to something original, to how things used to be—not so much nostalgia, but a reminder that some aspects of our lives remain unchanged amidst the change. 

My friend tells me about this day and this life in a way that redeems me, the listener. How quick we are never to allow ourselves to be bored and to be together with others.

To be a little bored with others—that is the real charm of the people we have.

Because at some point, the mask of a useful and self-preserving persona really must slip off, even if by mistake, and we are left with the space between words, not feeling the need to say a thing.

Of course we need to talk and listen and enjoy the business of good company, before a true shared silence can occur. Before a good and restorative boredom can overtake friends.

There is a real sense of peace today that I can't seem to shake. Indeed, the best things always seem to come when we least expect it.

Often we are most deserving of grace when we feel as though we are least deserving.

I have been experiencing some anxiety recently, although rather than dissociating, I’ve been trying to feel it completely, to let it run its course, so to speak.

It is uncomfortable at first, but after the discomfort comes some kind of internal certainty that the problem at hand is resolvable.

We are not meant to worry so much. 

Yesterday, rather than losing my sporadic mind in the mess of anxious activity, I allowed myself to tidy up my room.

It is true that when our physical surroundings are messy, it is very much an expression and representation of the mess within.

Our internal worlds reflect as much in our external situation as much as the world imposes her conditioning on us.

I hear the birds from the park over the phone with my friend. It reminds me that life is good and can be seen to be good if only we are willing.

My room is clean and tidy, so now my mind can be too. So I can wake up and have a fighting chance at fulfilling the aims of the day rather than being bogged down. Isn't that interesting? 

How we can get terribly bogged down sometimes. How we can approach the day with a sort of internal certainty approximating insanity.

How restorative it can be to do nothing rather than something. Then, in the stillness. Then in the quiet. We can reorient in a better and more life-giving direction.

By The Pond

​There are a lot of people walking past. I recognise some of them, but it is unlikely that they should see me. I never forget the people I meet. I might not remember their name or occupation, but their signature remains burned into the fabric of my shaken memory.

I want to say something about those who come by again and again in this pressing, this passing storm. I want to speak of the folly and of the brilliance of this crowd. I want to have something of merit to say, but I only seem to have something to say about myself. How narcissistic, how perverse of me, only to have a self-focus. Yet I seem to have found sense enough to forgive myself.

The music plays in my headphones. I'm completely alone, and yet I'm not lonely. I wonder if I have simply become bored of my loneliness or fed up with my internal conversation about my loneliness. Things seem to get better when you don't expect them to be good. Is that being realistic or just hopeless?

Yet there is nothing more hopeful than to carry on living, no matter what it might look like, no matter how it should feel.

To be recklessly in favor of life, not because it has some purpose that you can conjure up in the unforgiving center of your mind, but because purpose is purpose enough—not to dance alone with those untrustworthy phantoms we call dreams, but to live, to see, and to listen.

It is true that the stories we tell ourselves have a profound impact on us, but what about those quiet moments where we cannot find the story? When the push and pull of the everyday embrace seems to hold us just enough to bear the sadness of some deep, untouchable sorrow, do I fancy myself to become or at one point have been broken and mysterious? Am I eccentric? Of course not. There is nothing going on with me that isn't going on with someone else. I guess I just have a harder time making peace with it. My fault, no doubt.

But why do I believe—or rather, why do I blame myself? Perhaps that is my demon for today. I can ask the Almighty for a response with all manner of words and deeds, but what is that worth without an honest response and movement of the heart?

It comes back to some kind of question I didn't know I was allowed to ask: How do I wish to feel? How do I wish to be? What do I want? The selfish, selflessly selfish question, that vibration of no sound, the rumble of life from the depths of an ocean heart—the price of life's spice.

I don't like what I am saying, or perhaps I don't like the way I said it. There is something within me directed towards the negative with undying certainty. How can I correct it? Can I correct it? Should it be corrected? Is there anything to be corrected?

Is anything correct? Is there a question? If so, what is the answer? Do answers come from within or without? The music plays regardless. Words hold an empty purpose, yet they plunge beneath the surface. They overcome a lazy cursive. People pass by as they should, as they ought to do, as they must.

Buildings stand and waters flow, but what does it show? It shouts to me, it screams something that cannot be overcome. It tells an indifferent story of times lost long ago, times that stay today, times that lay the way for what exactly? For completion of some grand project? Some interminable embrace? Some narrative of the soul yet to be told? Yet to be pulled and scraped and collected from the fabric of the mind? Some striking pose which carries a boring message home where it belongs?

Hair flows and glasses glisten, laughter overpowers electric audio signals in bursts and cracks—too human, too natural for the noise-canceling neural network to restrict. Stopping by the pillar to exchange details for another day that will never come, looking out at the pond and its blinding reflection of brilliance, forgetting that this is the last time. Let it shine, let it be brighter than ever before. Let it sing a song, and let it be out of tune. Let it be crooked and dishonest while it is honestly so.

White shoes and neatly kept beards, cigarettes and jackets, hoods up and hoods down. White shirts tucked or untucked, messages left unread, messages left on read, messages left, messages forgotten, messages lost. Stolen phones on mute and loud, all the same. Craving for fame or a reason to blame, trying to outdo and overcome some stubborn shame. Lame, tame, what is my name?

Morning Routine

Trying to get my morning routine sorted out so that there is a sense of consistency in my life.

Can't seem to ever get it quite right. Can't seem to do what I am supposed to do at the appropriate times.

Eating breakfast is one of my struggles at the moment. I don't think I have ever made time to eat breakfast consistantly.

I have also given up fast food for lent, as it was becomming ridiculous in terms of how much and how often I was going for these binge meals.

Still, I know that with some perseverance I should be able to get the morning routine a little better and with time my life ought to improve.

I don't believe my life will ever be fully optimised but at the bare minimum I can look after my body it ought to make a difference.

About to drink another coffee, stimulants make me feel relaxed. Undiagnosed ADHD...

What is interesting is that I often skip breakfast because there are more important things that I know I need to do and my brain can't quite seem to prioritise the basics like going to the bathroom, drinking water and food. Although in that dehydrated and tired state I can hardly produce high quality work. Then I am often so distracted that I get lost in some task that has nothing to do with what I set out to do.

Now as a more experienced human being I am wondering if an element of routine and getting the simple things right will actually help me get more work done in a more timely way.

I have had to humble myself to the process in order to bring about this positive change.

Granted I am only two days into the eating breakfast agenda and by all accounts todays breakfast was partly a failure considering it consisted of shortbread and two custard doughnuts. Still, it is progress.

I wonder if I should go for a walk through the park while it is such a nice day. Often I wait until it is dark before I finally get myself organised enough to get outside. Although it's not like I am lazy, I just can't seem to align my activities properly with my situation.

I do find it easier when I have somewhere to be at a certain time. There is nothing worse for my sense or prioritisation when a shedule is not imposed on me from the outside.

Having said that, I do love following my own schedule.

I can't really go for a walk because I have left all of my laundry until I was going around commando yesterday in swimming trunks. So now I am on my third load of washing and hoping for the best.

May this be a good day, regardless of my disordered interior world.

Deepest Darkest Fears on Saturday

Sitting in the kitchen and talking about our deepest darkest fears.

My deepest darkest fear:

"That I might take myself too seriously" - Dan 2026

What do I mean by this?

I mean that sometimes I find myself all too worried about this, that or the other... I feel as though I am troubled and broken more than is reasonable. Yet when it really comes down to it, things aren't so bad.

Over the years I have learned that positivity is as much a choice you make every morning as it is a result of your life situation.

"Don't think" was what my old boxing coach would say when I was in the ring.

He was right about something. "Just box, don't think" he would say. On the surface that may seem counterintuitive but it works. Something about it works.

Becuase before you have a bout the training is already done. Typically you have already run the hard yards and now is simply the completion of your hard work.

Having said that I was rarely as prepared as I should have been.

The point is that when someone is trying to punch you in the face you don't have time to think, instead you need to rely on your instinct which has been honed by your training.

In the middle of a fight thinking is something approximating worry. It isn't helpful to worry. Better to act and trust your gut.

"Don't think" feels like a solution to my tendancy to worry too much about what people think of me. Then in that worry comes a tendancy to take myself too seriously and put on a more professional act for the world.

But it's better not to think. It is better not to worry. It is best not to take yourself too seriously.

But why is that something I fear? Why is that my biggest fear?

I guess it's because there is some part in us all that is original, that is unique and is in some way good. We are often punished by the world for being ourselves.

One solution is to blend in and just act like everyone else.

Something about this eats at you from the inside. Somthing about this draws you away from the life you are destined to lead. Something about acting how others want you to act and taking yourself a little too seriously corrupts your soul and goes against the simple spirit of life.

Nothing terrifies me more. I should rather be messy, unsuccessful and an all-round good person that is real and genuine and immersed in life.

Obviously seriousness has it's place, although there is something about being "too" serious that scares me.

20th February 2026

Hanging out in the Library. I have dropped out of my university course but it is great I can still use the facilities.

Decided to make a blog where I can post whatever whenever rather than working towards my degree in computer science.

I left my MSc half finished to do teacher training. Then I realised I didn't want to be a teacher. Now back doing computer science. I am terrible at coding and don't even know why I am studying it. Don't know why I am doing anything to be honest.

Find myself wandering aimlessly sometimes, although sometimes that aimlessness too has an aim of it's own. Almost always a means to avoid doing my work. I am lazy and don't do things properly. I don't like doing work until I am doing it, then I like it too much and loose myself to it.

Started doing therapy to work through my troubles. I'm not troubled enough to feel as though I need or deserve therapy. Yet my life is messy enough at the moment that I have saught it out as a means of securing a good future.

Try to stay positive I tell myself. But I tell myself all manner of silly and unuseful things. Hoping for a good day and a better tomorrow. Then I will write my self-help book.

I drove to the library today and I feel as though I have been robbed of something divine which lies along the paths between home and here. The ducks. Quack quack. Music to my ears.

Thank you,

Dan