If there's one thing I dislike more than anything in life, it's when people lack respect for others. It's the I'm-so-important-so-hurry-the-fuck-up people you see in shops, spitting rude words because, don't you know they've "got somewhere to be!!" or judging someone on their choices because they don't align with yours.
I've heard this concept a few times now, and I have to say it's resonated well in my head. And, it's really quite simple.
You simply imagine that everyone is wearing a post-it note on their head which reads "I want to feel important".
It sounds bizarre, but it works. It's such a simple reminder that everyone has a purpose in life and that we all want to feel recognised and appreciated.
Arguably more importantly, it's about recognising that, while you're special and, yes, you yourself have achieved things, the person sitting next to you has too - even if not in the same path/scale/aspect.
As they say, it takes years to gain respect and reputation, and a matter of minutes to shatter it.
My Saturday morning moral of the story is to take the time to talk to those you normally wouldn't, because I guarantee you'll learn a lot.
Saturday, 15 November 2014
Saturday, 8 November 2014
Hair-larious memories
There comes a point in life where you realise you're probably not going to become the entrepreneur-come-famous-astronaut who coaches a football team for fun at the weekends whilst juggling eight kiddies at home. No one really wants to give up the dream, but reality has this funny way of slapping you in the face every so often.
And slap me in the face it did.
So I've had this life changing bottle sitting on my vanity table for the past everrr (c.5 years) because I've been waiting for the day I become cool enough to use it. And today I realised that day's just never coming round.
The day which will never see my hair is "Platinum purple" blonde hair dye. In defence of my throwback purchase, it was for the times when I used to:
a) be platinum blonde (conveniently), and,
b) thought looking like I'd dipped my head in a field of lavender would be a suitably cool look.
For those that know me, the juxtaposition between what I'm like and this fantasy purple-haired me I'd concocted in my head, it's similar to the equivalent of wanting to be a hipster whilst listening to opera. The two don't mix.
Try as I might I spent months, maybe a year even, cautiously dipping wisps of my hair in it to see how it came out, one blue moon at a time. Nothing ever really showed, only I couldn't go through with it.
I'm just not that girl. I like simple things. Neat, chic, orderly. Purple hair doesn't sit in that lifestyle category. I chose then, and still do now, to subject myself to the normalities of hair colour; different shades of blonde, and occasionally - when I feel extra brave - I opt for a shade of brown. Light brown, obviously.
The point is that we all have this secret vision of a different persona we could be. Some are more confident than others to grab their new identity by the balls and throw themselves into it and I really do applaud that. Purple hair, or any wild coloured hair, does indeed suit a lot of people.
I tried. I really did. Alas, I think I'll wait 'til my pensioner years to play with the rinses again.
** N.b. I did once have an ever so slight pink tint added to my blonde, but it faded after two washes to great sighs of relief - what colour clothes to wear?! what style?! what colour lipstick went with the hair and clothes?! - forcefully being cool just took up too much time in my day...
And slap me in the face it did.
So I've had this life changing bottle sitting on my vanity table for the past everrr (c.5 years) because I've been waiting for the day I become cool enough to use it. And today I realised that day's just never coming round.
The day which will never see my hair is "Platinum purple" blonde hair dye. In defence of my throwback purchase, it was for the times when I used to:
a) be platinum blonde (conveniently), and,
b) thought looking like I'd dipped my head in a field of lavender would be a suitably cool look.
For those that know me, the juxtaposition between what I'm like and this fantasy purple-haired me I'd concocted in my head, it's similar to the equivalent of wanting to be a hipster whilst listening to opera. The two don't mix.
Try as I might I spent months, maybe a year even, cautiously dipping wisps of my hair in it to see how it came out, one blue moon at a time. Nothing ever really showed, only I couldn't go through with it.
I'm just not that girl. I like simple things. Neat, chic, orderly. Purple hair doesn't sit in that lifestyle category. I chose then, and still do now, to subject myself to the normalities of hair colour; different shades of blonde, and occasionally - when I feel extra brave - I opt for a shade of brown. Light brown, obviously.
The point is that we all have this secret vision of a different persona we could be. Some are more confident than others to grab their new identity by the balls and throw themselves into it and I really do applaud that. Purple hair, or any wild coloured hair, does indeed suit a lot of people.
I tried. I really did. Alas, I think I'll wait 'til my pensioner years to play with the rinses again.
** N.b. I did once have an ever so slight pink tint added to my blonde, but it faded after two washes to great sighs of relief - what colour clothes to wear?! what style?! what colour lipstick went with the hair and clothes?! - forcefully being cool just took up too much time in my day...
Wednesday, 29 October 2014
Instaobsessed
So I could bore you with my life since we last saw each other, or I could let you in on the current goings on in my seriously gripping and totally unpredictably crazy wild life. I'll pick.
I've become an Instagram addict(!)
Once a social media portal I viewed as being pretentious and, quite frankly, overly FOMO-encouraging, I've converted. What was once concisely said in the medium of 140-characters on Twitter, is SO much more appealing summed up in a photo. Words are so last year... unless they're #hashtagged.
The point remains though - I'm hooked. I'm insanely obsessively obsessed over PHOTOS of peoples lives. Famous people, not-so-famous people, weird people, wonderful people, fashion people, the lot.
Gone are the days when people got their kicks out of window watching people from Starbucks. Now, anonymously scrolling through seams of photos is obvs the thing to be doing. Is this normal??
Us Instagrammers though can all sympathise with that awkward moment when the finger scrolling turns into an accidental like on a random's photo. Worse, still, it could be someone you know who doesn't know that you know that they have an Instagram account and then, bam, the love heart glows and you've pretty much done the equivalent of finding out where they live and turning up on their doorstep just to let them know you like the filter on their breakfast shot this morning.
I've become an Instagram addict(!)
Once a social media portal I viewed as being pretentious and, quite frankly, overly FOMO-encouraging, I've converted. What was once concisely said in the medium of 140-characters on Twitter, is SO much more appealing summed up in a photo. Words are so last year... unless they're #hashtagged.
The point remains though - I'm hooked. I'm insanely obsessively obsessed over PHOTOS of peoples lives. Famous people, not-so-famous people, weird people, wonderful people, fashion people, the lot.
Gone are the days when people got their kicks out of window watching people from Starbucks. Now, anonymously scrolling through seams of photos is obvs the thing to be doing. Is this normal??
Us Instagrammers though can all sympathise with that awkward moment when the finger scrolling turns into an accidental like on a random's photo. Worse, still, it could be someone you know who doesn't know that you know that they have an Instagram account and then, bam, the love heart glows and you've pretty much done the equivalent of finding out where they live and turning up on their doorstep just to let them know you like the filter on their breakfast shot this morning.
I think it's safe to say that E-etiquette is yet to be perfected in this crazy world we call life.
I, for one, am considering a digi-detox. Starting fromtomorr...soon.
I, for one, am considering a digi-detox. Starting from
Friday, 10 May 2013
3 things I've never understood in life...
So there's 3 things in life that really frustrate me. It's more that when I recognise the upcoming points, I just think to myself why?
1. Instaselfies
Firstly, Instagram, in my eyes, is somewhere where the budding artists of the world take to share their photographic passions. Or, for the rest of us mere photographically-challenged mortals, somewhere we can share filtered pictures of our spontaneous nights out, or 'totes unique' dinners. Because everyone's suppers are worth sharing. Alas, it appears a certain group of face-loving people take to share photo after photo after photo after photo (you get my drift) of them posing.
I guess the worst part is, unless you're documenting yourself over the space of a year to make a viral youtube vid (which I hope would be cut down to max. 2 mins) of how your year has gone, your face, nor you, hasn't really changed that much in the past two days... promise.
2. COUPLE SELFIES
An extension of the above, yet this can appear on any social networking site, on any phone background... anywhere. It deserves a capitalisation, honest. Not one to ramble, I feel this issue can be addressed via 4 distinct questions:
How did you come to the agreement to take such a highly posed photograph
(usually in a mirror)?
Was the broaching of the suggested activity awkward at any stages?
What did you feel you gained from the aforementioned activity?
Did you honestly expect anyone else to comment on the photo, aside
from your 'I love you baby xxxxx' point?
These are serious questions, and answers are most definitely welcome.
3. Txt slng
Oh jeez. This one gets me. So I text a parcel lady the other day politely asking if she could pick up my parcel. All in polished grammatical form, naturally.
To which she replied:
'Yes tht wil b fine tku' - 6 words, 17 letters.
Now, had she of written it correctly, it would have looked something like this:
'Yes, that will be fine. Thank you.' - 6 words, 25 letters.
So all in all she omitted a meagre 8 letters from the text. Don't get me wrong, I'm not old school, I'm all for cutting down lengthy words into smaller acronyms such as Tuberculosis to TB. It's just I don't really see what time it saved omitting the 'a' from 'that', or the 'l' from 'will'. It's just laziness. I don't want my future children growing up speaking the phonetics of ghastly grammar. No one pronounces, nor should they pronounce, 'thank you' as 'took u'. It's just wrong!
1. Instaselfies
Firstly, Instagram, in my eyes, is somewhere where the budding artists of the world take to share their photographic passions. Or, for the rest of us mere photographically-challenged mortals, somewhere we can share filtered pictures of our spontaneous nights out, or 'totes unique' dinners. Because everyone's suppers are worth sharing. Alas, it appears a certain group of face-loving people take to share photo after photo after photo after photo (you get my drift) of them posing.
I guess the worst part is, unless you're documenting yourself over the space of a year to make a viral youtube vid (which I hope would be cut down to max. 2 mins) of how your year has gone, your face, nor you, hasn't really changed that much in the past two days... promise.
2. COUPLE SELFIES
An extension of the above, yet this can appear on any social networking site, on any phone background... anywhere. It deserves a capitalisation, honest. Not one to ramble, I feel this issue can be addressed via 4 distinct questions:
How did you come to the agreement to take such a highly posed photograph
(usually in a mirror)?
Was the broaching of the suggested activity awkward at any stages?
What did you feel you gained from the aforementioned activity?
Did you honestly expect anyone else to comment on the photo, aside
from your 'I love you baby xxxxx' point?
These are serious questions, and answers are most definitely welcome.
3. Txt slng
Oh jeez. This one gets me. So I text a parcel lady the other day politely asking if she could pick up my parcel. All in polished grammatical form, naturally.
To which she replied:
'Yes tht wil b fine tku' - 6 words, 17 letters.
Now, had she of written it correctly, it would have looked something like this:
'Yes, that will be fine. Thank you.' - 6 words, 25 letters.
So all in all she omitted a meagre 8 letters from the text. Don't get me wrong, I'm not old school, I'm all for cutting down lengthy words into smaller acronyms such as Tuberculosis to TB. It's just I don't really see what time it saved omitting the 'a' from 'that', or the 'l' from 'will'. It's just laziness. I don't want my future children growing up speaking the phonetics of ghastly grammar. No one pronounces, nor should they pronounce, 'thank you' as 'took u'. It's just wrong!
Tuesday, 5 March 2013
The exception or rule: what are you?
It struck me this afternoon how torn we are in life by ever conflicting advice.
The two most conflicting? For me, by far, it's the decision of whether to be the exception, or the rule.
Let's start as we mean to go on, with an honest, and perhaps blunt, reality: everyone strives for the exception.
Who wants to be normal, to have found a normal route into their career, to have just met their partner through no bout of fate nor bearing a love story so sweet it'd melt the coldest man's heart? No one. Sure, getting by or falling in to place is fine, in fact it's the reality for most, but then there's this distant hope, a glistening dream of how your life could be, if only you could reach it...
And this of course is fed to us through every aspect of our lives. The Olympic hero you look up to so greatly who overcame a diagnosis that he'd never walk again, and yet won gold the next year. The child who was told she'd never make it as an actress picking up her Oscar. The childhood sweethearts who drifted but met again at a train station and fell back in love. Our lives are saturated with seemingly unachievable aspirations that, miraculously become achievable. It's what keeps our spirits alive, it's what pushes us to become the best.
I guess what strikes me so much is why life has to be universal and why that naturally entails our being the rule. We spend our whole lives measuring ourselves against others, seeing how others live and then comparing ourselves against an invisible ratio. It's invisible because there really is no way of comparing one story to the next; we are all born into different histories, economics, and social backgrounds. Undeniably we all partake in the same activity, of being together on this earth, but we, ourselves, are unique.
This isn't about crushing someone's dreams, and I apologise profusely if that's what I have done; it's about being a realist. Maybe if we all became somewhat more realistic in our life expectations, we'd appreciate the promotion we got that little bit more, or celebrate that first we worked so hard to achieve in an essay. The time you realise your life is unique to you, will be the time you realise you're the exception to everybody else.
The two most conflicting? For me, by far, it's the decision of whether to be the exception, or the rule.
Let's start as we mean to go on, with an honest, and perhaps blunt, reality: everyone strives for the exception.
Who wants to be normal, to have found a normal route into their career, to have just met their partner through no bout of fate nor bearing a love story so sweet it'd melt the coldest man's heart? No one. Sure, getting by or falling in to place is fine, in fact it's the reality for most, but then there's this distant hope, a glistening dream of how your life could be, if only you could reach it...
And this of course is fed to us through every aspect of our lives. The Olympic hero you look up to so greatly who overcame a diagnosis that he'd never walk again, and yet won gold the next year. The child who was told she'd never make it as an actress picking up her Oscar. The childhood sweethearts who drifted but met again at a train station and fell back in love. Our lives are saturated with seemingly unachievable aspirations that, miraculously become achievable. It's what keeps our spirits alive, it's what pushes us to become the best.
I guess what strikes me so much is why life has to be universal and why that naturally entails our being the rule. We spend our whole lives measuring ourselves against others, seeing how others live and then comparing ourselves against an invisible ratio. It's invisible because there really is no way of comparing one story to the next; we are all born into different histories, economics, and social backgrounds. Undeniably we all partake in the same activity, of being together on this earth, but we, ourselves, are unique.
This isn't about crushing someone's dreams, and I apologise profusely if that's what I have done; it's about being a realist. Maybe if we all became somewhat more realistic in our life expectations, we'd appreciate the promotion we got that little bit more, or celebrate that first we worked so hard to achieve in an essay. The time you realise your life is unique to you, will be the time you realise you're the exception to everybody else.
Monday, 11 February 2013
The (sad) pursuit of e-popularity
Oh, social media, you never fail to surprise me.
In my e-lifetime to date I've experienced numerous annoying viral social media born campaigns.
Share this status if you want to get rid of AIDS!
Like this photo of my ticket and I'll give you £1,000,000 if I win the lottery!
Urban legends which urge you to re-post this status in the next 4 minutes, or else 28 kittens will get hit by a truck. (The emotive ones always work a treat.)
Just when we thought we'd seen it all... Welcome the 'If I get 1 million likes' phenomenon.
It's like anything, at first it's quite comical - some shy boy who eats his feelings (and everything else) wants to sleep with the hottie, and she only agreed to it because she never in a million years assumed it'd go viral, and so we click that electronically generated blue thumbs up. Like. We laugh. We laugh at how hysterically excited he will be when he shows her the "evidence". We laugh at the thought of her face when she realises she's sold herself online, both visually and physically. We perhaps share said photo.
And then what? Unless they actually somehow manage to inform us fellow million likees that they have actually achieved their goal, what do we gain from this situation? Absolutely bugger all. Did he get to travel to England from Japan to buy fish and chips? Did she sleep with him? Did she actually run around the city naked? No idea. And, to be honest, after you've supported them in their quests, do you even remember liking it? Again, probably not.
So what is the deal with this unending desire to be approved of by strangers online? People will do anything online for their taste of fifteen minutes. The wilder, the better. Whether it's seeking re-tweets, likes, LOLs or shares, the world has become obsessed with strangers making their decisions for them.
And this makes me sad. It's such thoughtless validation, and at some point it's going to end in tears. I can't help but feel that it leaves you with an unsettling thought of a new digital era in which nothing can define us more in life than our extravagant pursuit for internet fame.
In my e-lifetime to date I've experienced numerous annoying viral social media born campaigns.
Share this status if you want to get rid of AIDS!
Like this photo of my ticket and I'll give you £1,000,000 if I win the lottery!
Urban legends which urge you to re-post this status in the next 4 minutes, or else 28 kittens will get hit by a truck. (The emotive ones always work a treat.)
Just when we thought we'd seen it all... Welcome the 'If I get 1 million likes' phenomenon.
It's like anything, at first it's quite comical - some shy boy who eats his feelings (and everything else) wants to sleep with the hottie, and she only agreed to it because she never in a million years assumed it'd go viral, and so we click that electronically generated blue thumbs up. Like. We laugh. We laugh at how hysterically excited he will be when he shows her the "evidence". We laugh at the thought of her face when she realises she's sold herself online, both visually and physically. We perhaps share said photo.
And then what? Unless they actually somehow manage to inform us fellow million likees that they have actually achieved their goal, what do we gain from this situation? Absolutely bugger all. Did he get to travel to England from Japan to buy fish and chips? Did she sleep with him? Did she actually run around the city naked? No idea. And, to be honest, after you've supported them in their quests, do you even remember liking it? Again, probably not.
So what is the deal with this unending desire to be approved of by strangers online? People will do anything online for their taste of fifteen minutes. The wilder, the better. Whether it's seeking re-tweets, likes, LOLs or shares, the world has become obsessed with strangers making their decisions for them.
And this makes me sad. It's such thoughtless validation, and at some point it's going to end in tears. I can't help but feel that it leaves you with an unsettling thought of a new digital era in which nothing can define us more in life than our extravagant pursuit for internet fame.
Monday, 4 February 2013
I know everything about you (from Facebook)
Facebook has the power to destroy a relationship. Fact. Well, a potential one anyway.
The fact that the site actually has a term, 'Facebook stalking', is creepy enough. You're having a chat with someone, you ask what they're up to and you get the response: "Not much really, having a quick Facebook stalk and then I'll get in the bath."
Silence.
AT LEAST subconsciously, you must be questioning when it became socially okay to declare your prying on strangers profiles publicly.
The worst part by far has got to be when you're in a bar, you look around and see Sally who you technically actually don't know, but you know she's got a boyfriend who she's just celebrated her 12 hour relationship with and she loves going to the cinema on Wednesdays and her mum calls her Sweetiepie Sally.
You know too much. And you don't know her. That's bad enough as it is...
...Let's just hope you're not one of those who forgets that Sally doesn't actually don't know you, because she hasn't spent hours stalking your virtual life, and you ask "Hey Sal, how was the cinny on Wed?" -- n.b. at this point, she either walks away - which realistically is probably the most desired situation for you - or she, rather awkwardly, asks how on earth you knew she was at the cinema - and for heaven's sake just make out you were there too! No one publicly confesses to this shit!
It's the same when it comes to boys/potential romantic interests (PRIs) though. Too much trawling, and you think you know them before you actually do. At least give him/her a chance to defend themselves against that hideous photo you found!
I think that right now there's a strong risk of excessive Facebook stalking either:
a) putting off you eventually meeting because there's no desire to 'get to know' them
or
b) putting you off them altogether - oops.
The fun of meeting people is about starting from scratch and building relationships, but Facebook gives you this weird one up from the start, and it can turn out to be one of the best platforms ...or the shockingly worst.
The fact that the site actually has a term, 'Facebook stalking', is creepy enough. You're having a chat with someone, you ask what they're up to and you get the response: "Not much really, having a quick Facebook stalk and then I'll get in the bath."
Silence.
AT LEAST subconsciously, you must be questioning when it became socially okay to declare your prying on strangers profiles publicly.
The worst part by far has got to be when you're in a bar, you look around and see Sally who you technically actually don't know, but you know she's got a boyfriend who she's just celebrated her 12 hour relationship with and she loves going to the cinema on Wednesdays and her mum calls her Sweetiepie Sally.
You know too much. And you don't know her. That's bad enough as it is...
...Let's just hope you're not one of those who forgets that Sally doesn't actually don't know you, because she hasn't spent hours stalking your virtual life, and you ask "Hey Sal, how was the cinny on Wed?" -- n.b. at this point, she either walks away - which realistically is probably the most desired situation for you - or she, rather awkwardly, asks how on earth you knew she was at the cinema - and for heaven's sake just make out you were there too! No one publicly confesses to this shit!
It's the same when it comes to boys/potential romantic interests (PRIs) though. Too much trawling, and you think you know them before you actually do. At least give him/her a chance to defend themselves against that hideous photo you found!
I think that right now there's a strong risk of excessive Facebook stalking either:
a) putting off you eventually meeting because there's no desire to 'get to know' them
or
b) putting you off them altogether - oops.
The fun of meeting people is about starting from scratch and building relationships, but Facebook gives you this weird one up from the start, and it can turn out to be one of the best platforms ...or the shockingly worst.
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