Wow… What happened?

I am making some changes around here. In time I will probably tidy up the design of this blog, but the main change will be me. Leave The Office initially came about because of my desire to literally leave my office life behind. Anyone who has followed this blog at any time may already know that from the original idea my writing developed into a kind of personal growth account.

Well I think any personal writing counts as personal growth, unless one always says the same thing all the time and I feel that in trying to keep things "inspiring" or "profound" I am indeed finding myself with less to say because I feel like I need to come up with better words on any given day and sometimes even find myself writing something, which I have, in a round-about way said before and then I end up not posting anything for a few weeks, so…

I’m going to write what I like, when I like from now on. This is a personal blog, which I will contribute to when I feel I have something worth reading, to write. No more worrying about how many people are visiting to read or if my rankings are slipping or not. No more wondering if my traffic has increased from last month. I still believe I can provide some inspiration to certain people by just putting down my own thoughts and insights and I do know that I will have success stories to tell along the way, which will inspire. If I didn’t believe that then it would be a pretty meaningless existence wouldn’t you say?

So I guess my intention is to lay off the worry of not having posted for a few weeks and just enjoy what I do, when I do it. I started about four other blogs after this one and I just haven’t been able to keep them all going. One is enough! Websites are ok, but several blogs is a different story.

I just hope I’m doing the right thing….. I am aren’t I?… Yes I do believe I am. I’ll be focusing my attention on my music production and my website PowerBook Studio… It’s about time.

Now, off to play my guitar.

What with Christmas being not-too-far away I thought it would be a good idea to write down a thought I had today, mainly because I thought it was a good practice for myself.

In keeping with the theme of personal growth and goals it will not be too long before the obligatory New Year’s Resolutions are being made and forgotten soon thereafter and one of the most common ones will be the resolution to lose weight, especially after all the overindulgence of rich food over the festive period. Of course I could write for hours about how and why these good intentions always lose steam after a couple of weeks; how and why we tend to be pulled back into our regular ways and can’t keep up the "good" work etc…. but that is not what this post is about.

How about an exercise in prevention for once rather than a feeling of guilt, followed by a resolute move to improve, followed by another bout of guilt after those good intentions have been trashed before they even got going?

I have noticed my waistline becoming a little bigger than I desire it to be. I am starting to feel uncomfortable with things this way and I am also concerned about my blood sugar levels, which is why I have taken the time to get a blood test (results next week) and lay off sugar at least until I get the all clear.

Why do so many of us stuff ourselves to the point of bursting over the holidays and then try to embark on a mountain-climbing task to undo all of that damage? What if the diet came before Christmas? The intention could be that if I were to lose the required weight before all the "goodies" arrived at the table then I may feel less inclined to eat so much if I was aware that the price to pay for it was to completely waste all those weeks of hard work prior.

A few days before my 30th birthday I came down with Pleuracy. I was a fairly heavy smoker at the time and I physically was unable to smoke for 2 weeks. After the 2 weeks I realized that I didn’t miss the cigarettes all that much, so I just contiued to not smoke. That was how I gave up smoking and I can’t tell you howgreat it made me feel inside. I figure that a similar approach to losing all that Christmas weight may just work.

If you spent the time from now until the holidays losing weight and keeping trim and healthy then aren’t you less likely to just throw away all that work for the sake of eating too much just because it’s so easy to do.

I think it’s worth a try, so I’m going to continue on the low to no-sugar trail regardless of what my blood test results are and maybe I’ll have a little treat at Christmas, but I may not even feel like it by then, prefering instead the feeling of being healthy, fitting into my jeans without any over-hang to the taste and bloated feeling of too many sweets and mince pies etc.

If anybody feels motivated to do the same then please contact me. Knowing that others are doing the same thing at the same time will help keep our intentions focused.

This post is something I wrote down in my notebook a few days ago when I was feeling a little sad about returning to the UK from Thailand.

What I realize today is that I have been aimlessly looking for something or somebody to provide me with a solution for "having it all", being happy etc… This is not what I am truly searching for. I felt something today which, from now on I will always refer to as The Feeling.

What I am really searching for, deep down is the power, strength, confidence, however you want to describe it to embark on the path of what I truly want to do. I have known for sure for about a year what I want to do with my life and now I realize that I have known this for about 17 years although never getting close enough to know it to the point of realizing it, if that makes any sense at all.

The first step or rather in reality, the next step I need to take is more tangible to me than I have ever felt before and thus the decision to take it is that much easier. What’s enlightening about this is that fact that it only seems closer now than it ever was, but in truth it was always as close as this. The difference now is that I, inside am closer to it.

The decision to live and work in a far-off land, doing something new with a huge drop in salary along with all the uncertainties that come with it will never be any less easy or difficult to take no matter how long I wait. There is no such thing as "The right time", not really. Who is ever ready for a life changing experience when we almost always spend all of our time trying to keep our lives as familiar as they already are?

The fact is that I will have to be somebody who I don’t recognize exactly as "Rob". That’s the scariest part of all, but the paradox is that it is the biggest illusion of them all. In actuality I am a different "Rob" everyday of my life, if I were to really wake up to myself.

It doesn’t matter how much more time I spend saving money before I "dive in". I can see it is a stalling tactic, run by my natural impulse to stay in the safety zone. How much money is enough before I set off to create the life I want? The truth is that even if I had ten times the amount of money saved as I do right now I would still have to go through the process of taking on a new career and having to adapt to my new surroundings, fall down, pick myself up. I don’t need an abundance of money or a lack of it to do that. In fact I have to do that no matter what the parameters.

This is how today I got "The Feeling". It has never been any more or less easy or difficult since I first decided I wanted to live somewhere else, except of course as I get older my mind gets more and more adept at creating the illusion that it’s more difficult to do.

So, I urge anyone who has any "big" decision to make or who has a grand idea for themselves. Don’t think too long and hard about making the decision. Not because life’s too short, which it is, but because it will never get any easier to make that decision. You can only make a decision now, not in the future and statistically speaking, the most successful people are those that make decisions quickly and change their minds slowly and seldomly.

I’m ready.

Wow I was really starting to get bored with the rain here. It hardly stopped since I arrived. Yesterday, just as it seemed to be getting better it turned again and the skies just broke. I got soaked on the motorbike and then had to try really hard to not focus on being really annoyed with the constant deluge of rain. My girlfriend is far more tolerant of such things and her pragmatic mood really showed me up, so I decided to just be more cheerful. After a nice evening in the restaurant with our friends and with the rain stopped we noticed how everything seemed so light and clear and a sense of freshness in the air. I could just feel that the High Seaon weather was now upon us and the next day would be dry sunny and beutiful I just felt it.

Today is such a day and I believe a reflection of the mood within. I am now looking forward to the rest of my stay here with the best weather that the Thai season’s have to offer. High Season is upon us already!

It reminds me of an episode of The X Files, where a guy’s emotions affected the weather and whenever he was sad it rained.

Allow me to indulge in some trivial posting for a while, although not trivial to me I can see that there may not be much for people to feel compelled to comment on. I am posting from my dream location once again. Sitting outside my room, so close to the sea and reading some of the latest comments here at Leave The Office.

So now the blog becomes a little bit more of a personal travelog, except I’m not doing much travelling. I’m mostly relaxing, although my fitness regime always kicks in while I’m here, so arun on the beach before sunset followed by a healthy Thai dinner will see me right. For now I can smile in the knowledge that part of my dream is a reality; being here and soaking up the atmosphere. I’m sure it’s not everyone’s cup of tea here, seeing as it is very quiet indeed. If you like nightlife then this isn’t the place, but it suits me down to the ground.

I am living my bliss here, especially with my studio equipment in tow and the quietude to inspire composing my music. Time to get running on that beach.

Where is the line between having a burning desire that you never lose sight of, always stay focused on and go through whatever you have to go through to get it and an unhealthy obsession that consumes your life, leaving you looking back over the years wishing you had actually experienced life?

I don’t know the answer exactly, which is why I ask this question. I have a few ideas about how it could be viewed, but I think this is a critical question because so many people ask everyday. "Am I on the right path in life?".

I suppose you could say that an unhealthy obsession is something that you allow to become so. For example if you had a desire to be or do something that took years of pursuit and so much of your energy, which you then decided to give up on you could say that it became an unhealthy waste of energy the moment you decided to give up. Therefore until that point it was still a burning desire and a clear vision, which as we all know is the main ingredient to achieving your desires. The result of such a situation could then cause you to spend the rest of your life regretting the time you spent trying and wondering what could have been if you had not given up. That I can see would definitely be an unhealthy obsession and a waste of energy.

I’d be interested to hear opinions on this, especially from the many great writers out there who feature on the Personal Development List.

Bob Doyle, creator of the Wealth Beyond Reason program and one of the teachers featured in “The Secret” movie has made another video podcast in response to many questions people have about the Law of Attraction with respect to religious beliefs, the media and science. I think it is one of Bob’s best responses so far as it’s important to realize that no religion is called into question when discussing the subject that we all create our own reality.

I’ll let Bob explain this as he is far better at doing so than I am!

You can also view his previous responses to other questions about the Law of Attraction here… Bob Doyle Responds

Law of Attraction, Science, the Media, and Religion.

After being invited to write a post about 10 things that happened to me by Joanne at "I’m Happy Fish" I wasn’t sure if I could remember 10 things that had happened to me that would actually be interesting to read. Still, after Joanne kindly tagged me I started to write without having a list planned first. It took a while, but here it is. It’s been quite a journey of self discovery!.

As I write I have just had an idea. Seeing as I am enthusiastically in the process of discovering what habits and patterns I perpetuate that create the results I currently have in my life and having the intention of changing them, so they create the results I want rather than the ones I just get given to me I thought it appropriate to make a statement.

I acknowledge and I take responsibility for the fact that what happens to me does not simply happen to me, but in fact came from within me. Not intentionally or consciously, but nonetheless came into my reality through certain thinking and or behavioral patterns… somehow.

Now I have made that clear, here are 10 things that, at the time I perceived as happening to me. They are in no particular order:

I hope you enjoyed reading the 10 things that "happened" to me. This was hard work. I had trouble going through my memory banks to find these facts. It has been quite a journey and, in many ways quite a cleansing experience for me. It’s great when a blog post has this affect on me because I feel that there is more chance it will provide some value to those who read it. I feel I have exposed my self quite a bit in this post, which proved to me that I have grown since I started this blog. I am more open to sharing these days. Thank you so much Joanne for tagging me to do this post.

After having the honour of being included in the Personal Development List and being invited to participate by Priscilla Palmer I felt a wave of pride. I know the list is long and it’s easy to get lost in it, but it feels good to be acknowledged. It shows that my efforts here do not go completely unnoticed. I don’t give nearly enough acknowledgement to other blogs in my posts, although there are so many great writers out there, so today I can make myself feel a little better by giving something back.

My favourite self development blogs so far, or as I prefer to call them places of inspiration are:

I am really grateful for the inclusion of my blog on the list. I am glad to be of service.

The full list is via this link to Priscilla’s blog.

In a post I made in July about having some "Car Trouble". I told the story of how I attracted a large amount of drama into my life during a period of a week or two. My life since has not seemed anywhere near as dramatic since then, which I see as good, although it gives me less interesting material to write about! Still I am not going to wish for any particular situations one way or another regarding this due to what I am about to mention in this post.

It is the following chapter in the story. One month ago my insurance claim was settled for my old car and therefore the shiny red, new sporty car I had been provided with had to go back. I had 7 days more driving of it and then it would be collected. Unfortunately the claim on my old car left me with nowhere near enough money to buy a new car, so I would be without wheels and reliant on the train for getting to work, so I remember making an affirmation to myself whilst driving the new car during that last week. I only said it once and then forgot about it.

Please listen… "Be careful what you wish for because you might just get it". This article explains why this is more than just a smug-sounding cliché

What I "wished" as I was driving the car home was this "I want to keep this car for as long as I possibly can even though it is scheduled to go back in 7 days".

What followed was uncanny. For three weeks that car sat on my driveway, unable to be driven because I was no longer insured to drive it. On 3 separate occations somebody was due to collect it and they never turned up at my house. One of these occasions they even called me to ask if they could come and collect the car "within the hour sir" and they never showed. I had to call the company 3 times to remind them that the car was still in my posession and that I was getting really frustrated seeing as I couldn’t drive it. I just wanted it gone! All it was doing was reminding me that I couldn’t drive this lovely car, which just annoyed the heck out of me! Every representative of the car company that I spoke to was shocked that I still had the car on my drive. "That’s unbelievable. This has never happened before".

So to summarize. I wished I could have the car for as long as possible, longer than I should have it. I did. What I realize now that I should have affirmed to myself was ""I want to keep this car for as long as I possibly can even though it is scheduled to go back in 7 days and legally be able to drive it! ". Oh how it all makes sense now…

The car was collected this morning and now my drive is empty.