I don't know who coined that quote but it is very apt, around a year or so ago, before I hooked up with My current Girlfriend I was what Psychiatrists (or is that Psychologists) would call comfortably depressed. I was actually entering a Codeine addiction but still I thought I was comfortable and happy, in reality however: I was the opposite I was in a co-Dependant relationship with my father where I ran around for him, doing the little things he should have been doing for himself, in order to feel validated. The reason for this was down to my long term unemployment, which has its own myriad of reasons most of which are frankly pathetic and also down to family relationships.
This of course looks quite self pitying and in a way it is but it is also an exercise in scene setting, you see because of my dependence on the Codeine based pain killers I put my partners life at risk, Almost killing her in fact because of the state of my flat at the time. Because of this I often feel very uncomfortable in her presence because of guilt, she often mistakes this for me sulking, but I take it as a pure misunderstanding nothing more.
Since then though, with her help, I have decided on a career path (something denied to me by both family and myself) as a teacher. This came to me through doing an access to higher education course and talking to my partner, both of these took me well outside of my then comfort zones especially when I had to do presentations. Like most people I do have some trepidations when it comes to speaking in public but I notice this fear rapidly turns into excitement as soon as I have to do it. But back to the quote most of my life I have avoided being uncomfortable, oh there are times in my life I was forced to be uncomfortable. One fond example of this was when My dad took me camping on Dartmoor because he was sick of me saying that I was bored and that there was nothing on TV, this both scared the hell out of me and excited me at the same time. But the fact remains I was a sheltered child of my own making, I often see this all around me people get comfortable and stagnate in their lives and complain but do nothing because of fear, usually of the unknown and the what ifs like "What if it doesn't work?" or "What If I fail". I as the question now Why worry? The chances of success or failure are 50% either way so take a chance, I have and so far it seems to have paid off. I have lost something like eight stone or so in just under 18 months when before I was rapidly heading to Morbidly obese sizes. I started tis witha quote so I'll end it with one.
"Failure lies not in falling down
it lies in failing to get back up."
Chinese proverb
