Don't #reminiscent on the #past but #look #forward to the #future!

I am sure you have heard the expression “I got out of bed with the wrong foot” well this is how I feel about 2015, I think I started it with the wrong foot!

And I am not talking about my bad knee which has caused me a lot of issues since the beginning of the year and to date still not fixed. But this, together with other bits and pieces at the time didn’t help and me start 2015 with the wrong foot.

I am, by nature, a very positive person. And I believe that we all are masters of our own destiny and how we feel and think has a great influence on this destiny. After having an injury on my knee last year I decided, quite rightly, to stop running and see a specialist. As a running junky that I became, I began 2015 having withdrawal symptoms and fell into a bit of a depression. Running gave me lots of energy, making me feel alert and enthusiastic and more importantly it gave me time to think and clear my head during the exercise. Not having this, took away that moment where I could think clearly, get ideas for my writing and let some adrenaline out! I began to slowly put on weight and the next thing you know I began to feel tired, with less energy and unable to get out of bed feeling good and ready for the day. To date, I have gained almost 7 kilos and done very little writing, and every time I have to get up I feel I haven’t had enough sleep or been out parting all night (something I don’t do anymore, and I don’t think I could on my present state!)

But why am I telling you all this? It feels I am writing a letter of complaint to the weight watchers or the knee fixer up people. But in reality I have been thinking about this for a few months and this is the opportunity I have been looking for. Let me explain.

I think the last time I wrote a blog was probably three months ago. And I have not completed any scripts or stories until recently and only because I was in the annual New York Midnight script writing competition I enter every year. My knee still not better. I am struggling to loose those 7 kilos I have gained. With my knee not showing any signs of recovery, at least for the near future, and unless I go into an extreme diet, I am not likely to loose the 7 kilos I have (in fact I may gain more with the holiday season ahead of us) and I know I have to do something before the bells chime twelve times on the 31^st December and I am facing 2016.

I am not a believer on New Years Resolutions, in fact I think they are a waist of time but I do think that how I start 2016 will have a great impact on the rest of the year as I have come to learn in 2015, and I guess learned it the hard way!

I believe I have to change my attitude and face the fact that I may not be able to run again at least for a while, that I may have to find different ways to get my energy back, alternative ways to have time to clear my head and organise my thoughts to get new ideas to write blogs and scripts. I know that I want 2016 to be as productive, exiting and rewarding as previous years and it all starts with me, on that first minute of 2016 when I get out of bed with the right foot.

Back in 2013 I set myself a challenge to write a blog every week in 2014 and the previous year I wanted to write my another epic musical, in 2011 I worked on my first film script and event before that in 2010 my first ever musical! Where I failed in 2016 was not having that drive, that vision, that passion that helps us achieve things. I have been the victim of my own negativity and this drove in turn the lack of inspiration and energy.

2016 I feel like Arnold Schwarzenegger, “I’ll be back” and this time no feeling sorry for myself. I am taking the next 5 days to prepare myself to welcome 2016 with a positive attitude, an energetic outlook and inspiration to do something great.

If you, like me, are glad to see the back of 2015, then join me in forgetting about the past and looking forward to a bright and prosperous year ahead and make sure you welcome 2016 with the right foot, and that is with the right attitude, the right spirt, the right energy and the right goals, it's all about getting that right foot right!

Week six 2015 – the Perception of time

Time waits for no one! This week I’ve learned that time isn’t always what it seems and when you least expect it, its gone!

The subject of time has been the centre of previous blogs I have written and I never get tired of writing about it. If the truth be known, I think time is something non of us really understand and therefore do not appreciate fully. If you are fan of the “Back to the Future” movies or indeed any kind of time travelling stories, you would know that the theory of time travel is based on the premises that you fold time to get to the future faster (or to the past depending on which way you are going!) But how do you fold time when you cannot touch it? I guess I’ll leave that to the scientist trying to discover time travel!

But one thing is for sure; we don’t have enough of it and really understand how it works. Let me give you a couple of examples.

In the past I have talked about having time for everything and that your time is the same as mine, yet one of us can have a more productive use of this commodity. This week I have also come to realise something about time, which I guess I knew about it but it hit me finally in the face. We don’t really know how fast or slow time goes. What does this mean? Well even though we measure time with a clock, I am not sure, just like I’m not sure how you would fold time to get there faster, that time always goes at the same pace.

Of course a clock would accurately tell you what has gone by, how many seconds passed since you last looked at the time, but I am not sure it really shows you how you have “travelled” across this time. This is where this “time travel” theory starts to make sense. I actually think time isn’t always the same and some times it goes faster and some times it goes slower; think about it.

This happens all the time is our lives, but it became more evident to me this week as I travelled to Armenia, which is four hours ahead of the UK. I had a very busy and tight schedule and I was away for four days visiting two cities and I spent two days travelling there and back due to time zones. Part of the trip on Tuesday was to stop over in Vienna where I had a ten-hour layover! Now, ten hours in an airport sound ten too many hours and most people would agree that this would be a killer! I had been offered to go down to the city and spend time there rather than at the airport, but I chose to stay, I had enough work to keep me entertained for the duration of my visit to Vienna Airport! I don’t know what it is, if it is because you keep yourself busy, or perhaps because you don’t think about it, but soon after arriving and settling in the lounge to do some work, I looked at my watch and it was already time to board the plane! Time just flew so fast and I didn’t get to accomplish everything I was hoping for in that ten-hour layover.

So here we see what the perception of time is. When you say ten hours, it sounds an awful lot of hours, but when you think about it, on average that’s how much people spend in the office every day. But when you ask someone who works in an office if ten hours go by fast, they may say no (depending on how much they enjoy what they do)

When I finally got to my destination, it was 5.30 in the morning and my meetings where starting at 9 am. I tried to get some sleep on the plane but I’ve never been very good at it. I’m not one of those people that as soon as the plane takes off they are gone. On the airplane I experience the opposite with time. The flight from Vienna to Yerevan was only four hours, which when you take 40 minutes for take off and landing, it leaves you with just over 3 hours of actual flight. Take another 30 for your mean and it’s really not a lot left to get proper sleep. After finishing eating, I closed my eyes trying to snooze. I only had two and a half hours, but talk about time going slow! After what seemed like five hours of trying to sleep without success I opened my eyes only to discover I’d only been tossing and turning for 60 minutes and I had an hour and a half left! What! I tell you the next 90 minutes seemed like a lifetime and I couldn’t wait to land as the seconds just dragged and dragged and dragged…

When I finally got to my destination I wanted to get to bed as soon as possible to try and get as much sleep as I could before my meeting. I arrive at my room at 5.35 am and I calculated that if I moved fast I could be in bed by about 5.45, I only needed to do a couple of things and jump into bed. And again the “fast-forward time” ghost got hold of my time and the next thing I know it’s 6.15 am and I’m just getting into bed! Where did the time go? I should stop folding my time when I shouldn’t!

I had two days of very successful meetings and I guess being so busy kept me going with very little sleep. By the way time passed so fast for the two days I think I was folding it too much!

I love the phrase “time waits for no one” because it tells you how little control we have over time. You cannot stop it and this week I’ve come to realise you cannot control how fast or slow it goes either. What may seem like a lifetime, it may be nothing to others. Waiting for someone or something may seem an eternity and when they arrive or you get there, then it’s over too soon, and time just passed you by, not waiting for you or anyone else!

But one thing is for sure and I still believe it’s true; don’t waist your time! It doesn’t matter how fast or slow it goes, always put it to good use because once it’s gone, you will never get it back!