scumble on 15/9/2007 at 10:27

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My wife took those - this is one of mine:

http://scumble.net/images/seb23.jpg

A lot of it is down to the expensive lens of course, and the background blur is rather nice at 200mm.



You have some good advice, and I try to follow similar methods of getting on track, trying to acheive small goals. The key problem is not so much knowing what you ought to do, as making yourself get on with it.

Scots Taffer on 15/9/2007 at 17:16

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I thought I detected a tinge of uncomfortably familiar pessimism tainting our last communique and I'm not surprised, I reached the same juncture as you maybe four to six months ago. I've got a house, a job, a wife, a child, responsibilities, debts and so on. I started getting stuck in the work-chores-sleep routine, not really getting much out of each week as it came and went.
Then I started to re-evaluate it all; my job - while not terribly satisfying, is well paid, easy, and extremely easy going, set in a friendly environment - and my house is a giant debt, yes, but it's also a lifestyle choice in a part of the world where, for at least six months of the year, I can eat dinner outside on a deck in the warm evening, have a swim in the pool in the morning or early afternoon, and to top it off, my wife and child provide much of the joy in my life. In fact, Evelyn is such a bright spark that I can almost never look at her without smiling - she is a picture of contentment.
I still struggle with it, don't get me wrong, and there are days I bemoan the current degradation of once-important hobbies and the gradual increase in my procrastination and mental slovenliness. It's all a matter of balance. If you aren't finding anything in your life that's making you happy right now then you're going to find it very difficult to achieve anything close to an optimistic weltanshaung. You need to work very hard, I'd suggest in close consideration with your wife, as to establishing a few set things that make you happy and at right with the world, then once you can work those into your well-worn routines you'd be surprised by how it breaks it up.

Stitch on 15/9/2007 at 20:28

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Get a new job.

Also: scumble works for the government lol

Mr.Duck on 15/9/2007 at 23:31

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Can't add much other than your kid's growing up nicely and, well, wishing you best o'luck, m'boyo.

Tocky on 16/9/2007 at 15:55

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Having merely dug a long trench I can't help at getting out of the hole of work but I do know that life is what happens during those other hours. Very few of us have perfect jobs where we skip happily to work. Very few of us are not cynical about government. Getting more gravy on our own bisquit is the preoccupation of any occupation and the government is no different. We know this so get off your ass and quit saying you lost the paperwork three times in a row.

If you want a new job then fine, think about what you really want and go get it. But meantime you are a man, a husband and a father. As a father you do not have the option of being weak. That is for crackheads and drunks. I guarantee your son loves you and, barring a few teenage years, will look up to you for digging in your heels and doing your best no matter how poorly you may figure that to be. It will never be enough to you anyway. The knothead will even tell you one day that he wishes he were a better son as if he weren't the best already.

Enjoy today. That is my main point. Life doesn't happen twice. Twenty years from now will be twenty years from now no matter what happens. Stop looking inward and look around you instead. Find a way to make those around you happy and be damned if it doesn't make you happy too. "Always there will be greater and lesser men." Be one. Get off the internet and go do something with your family. Right now is the best time of your life.