A picture of a mug caused me to have an epiphany...

I just absent mindedly doodled this the other day

My preoccupation at the moment is all about what I can add to my life to make it better. I want to be happier and worry less and feel like I’m really living the best, most worthwhile life I can. I had a week off for my birthday and it reminded me what it’s like to properly be myself 24 hours a day for more than 2 days at a time. But until I’ve found some magical job that is some awesome, flexible, freelance extension of me, I just need to get as much out of the time that's left me once sleeping and work have been taken away... this is where the mug epiphany comes in.

This mug has been all over pinterest. I saw it when it was repinned by a Beyoncé obsessive I follow, but if you look at who has pinned it and all the associated pins, it’s been taken on as a mantra for super busy, super mum types who seem to be living I don’t know how she does it.* There’s even a thing on thought catalog called No, I Actually Don’t Have As Many Hours In The Day As Beyoncé.  This is obviously not how I had an epiphany. My epiphany was just that I do have the same number of hours as Beyoncé, I have the same number of hours in the day as J K Rowling or anyone I admire. I’m just a human on earth and so are they. Yea, there are people who have staff and stuff to help with responsibilities like kids etc. But I don’t have those responsibilities. I just have me and sleep and work. In fact, I have the same number of hours in the day as anyone who has ever pursued a creative career alongside a day job.

this unicorn pleases me so much that I've included it despite it not being all that relevant

Even more than that: I have the perfect day job. My job is pretty boring and could easily done by a talking monkey (which is what I am...) but, crucially, it’s not that hard and doesn’t require me to do any overtime or take my work home with me, and despite how I feel when I’ve been on an 8AM start, the job isn’t really that tiring.

Once I established that my job really shouldn’t be dominating my week to the extent it does, I started to think about what I actually do with my time.

Here are the things I actually have to do in a week:

Work – 37hrs

Sleep – 56 hrs

Volunteering  - max 2.5 hrs

Travel + getting ready for work – 17 hrs

Total = 112 hours and 30 minutes.

That leaves 55 hours and 30 mins unaccounted for. This is time I spend reading blogs, watching tv and sitting. It’s so much time that I could have another full time job.  WHAT AM I DOING WITH THAT TIME?

Have you seen one of those youtube clips about time management, where someone gets a big bowl or vase and fills it with golf balls and sand and marbles to demonstrate how important it is to prioritise and think about what's really important (here is one if you have somehow missed it)? I feel like this a lesson I really need to learn as I’m clearly just filling my life with sand when I could be using that time to learn a new language or train for a marathon or whatever.

So, step one in project awesome – STOP FILLING MY LIFE WITH SAND I.E. DO SOMETHING WITH MY TIME THAT ISN’T CANDY CRUSH.

*I’ve never seen that film/read the book but it’s about some woman who tries to be perfect at EVERYTHING by never sleeping and just staying up all night making cupcakes, right?

25

Tomorrow (today, really) is my 25^th Birthday. This is something which I really don't believe. I’m pretty sure I’m going to wake up and find that I’m still 17 and this has been a very, very, long and bizarre dream. But the evidence looks a lot like I might be a grown up: I have a job, a credit card, I never get ID'd anymore, and my neck and shoulders have decided to hurt today FOR NO REASON AT ALL which is a sure sign of old age.

In all seriousness, I am pretty happy to be turning twenty-five. Twenty-four worked out OK in the end and I’m confident twenty-five will be even better. This year my Birthday Resolution (because New Year's Resolutions are always depressing and lame) isn't really a resolution, I just want to work on becoming the best version of myself that I can be. I want to build a life full of things that I love and am passionate about so that my idea of who I can be/should be matches up with the reality of who I am. I don't want to fundamentally change who I am, I just need to be braver and believe in myself more. 

I have a couple of slightly more concrete goals e.g. get a tattoo! Move in with Paul! But I’ll either save them for a separate post, or perhaps spare you having to read about them at all. 

this is 24

I haven't died or forgotten how to read or how to blog or anything, I have been awol because of my yearly existential crisis and I've been chucking out clothes and going through all my stuff and thinking A LOT. So much thinking. All because....

I am now 24. 

TWENTYFOURYEARSOFAGE! How did this happen?

What’s it like to be so very old?

Well I dress like a puritan now (this is my birthday dress)

my eye looks really creepy here and I think it adds a certain something

I wear lipstick lots now because I am a serious grown-up 

My face is FINALLY, reliably, spot-free (most of the time... touch wood) thanks to this £3 serum from Superdrug that's probably already discontinued.

I have dyed my hair red (very badly – it looks almost like it’s been tie-dyed)

I’ve also been incredibly hungry since my birthday. Is this why people gain weight as they get older? Or did I stretch my stomach with all the ferrero rocher?

And then there is the existential crisis which is very complicated and time-consuming. I have some posts in mind about it so I might write some stuff about it (all about feminism and identity etc.) but it could end up a bit ranty and incoherent. 

I have also added to my TBR pile:

Now I better go and catch up with my reading...