It has been bought in a terrible time. Living in between two cities, made it necessary to use some kind of transport for a young lad in East Germany. As public transport has been OK, a young boy needs something to celebrate his freedom. A moped was long bought and sold and the car this young boy was provided by his grandma was the perfect thing to be blackmailed with. Didn't I have a great grandmother. Thanks again. Well so the young boy decided to buy a new bike - push bike, of course. So he went in a shop and found this beautiful bike. It cost about £600 which was more or less all this boy had. But he bought it. He used it whenever he could. It was the freedom he needed. Well as it came, this guy moved out from this terrifying, blackmailing, lying, self-seeking family/house. Hardly any money was available cause of the expensive bike, was just bought. But this guy never regretted the purchase of this wonderful bike. It helped to get anywhere he wanted, to stay fit, to clear all thoughts wondering around in this guys mind and helped just to feel better. It has always been taken care of and was always stored safely that nobody ever touches it.
The day came when this young boy was leaving his hometown and country to study abroad. He took his bike with him. Traveling 1400 miles on a trailer, safely stored it was used then so often in order to get to work in the new town he was living. There he moved several times. The current home doesn't allow to store the bike inside the house. Despite it has been padlocked and hidden next to the bins, where normally nobody should be and see it.
Well but somebody did and fucking stole it. After many years of taking care of, it has been fucking pinched by some 12 year old, as only can be assumed. And this guy just grudges this bike anybody who took it from him.
Well you know how this guy is. RIP my dear Stevens. You will never be forgotten!
2005 - 2009 distance: aprrox. 3000 miles max speed: 42.6 mph (in Durham) no hard crashes, ever.
How to be happy enough, without being happy enough.
The following 'advise' is dedicated for my good friend Barry, who will shortly have to endure something, nobody wants to witness personally. All the best to you, Barry. Stay HAPPY! How? Well the following helped me quite a lot!
As we all realised our life has become quite capitalistic and materialistic. We seem to always need more: more money, a bigger flat screen, another car, etc. Maybe that is because of the 24/7 bombardment of advertisement which we receive everyday, if we want or not. Maybe we are too weak to resist or just lazy, or we actually like to have what is advertised all day and night. Anyway I’d say that we’ll get unhappy, if we don’t have what is advertised, that we are not content with our small screen TV when watching ads for a 52” plasma, that we get devastated because we cannot have all there is on TV, advertisement boards, and wherever else.
So does that mean that we shouldn’t concede? Should we be against ads and all they try to influence? Should we work without getting anything in return? Definitively not! We work hard, so we should be rewarded. But is the idea of gaining wealth with money and big TV (sorry for picking on the TV all the time, I love TVs ;) So does rewarding by buying things really make us happy? Maybe. For a short while but the glitter and shiny will soon become boring and obsolete, because it’s just an object. Having many things standing at home from Hifi, TV, consoles, self-ordering fridges, cars, amps and guitars to pool table might be impressive but it is really hard to enjoy all of that alone. So maybe having friends is the key to be happy with what you got?
Find friends for certain stuff. (I’ll get back to that later)
What about the hobb(ies). I often found myself in searching for a new hobby because the previous one was getting boring or I just wasn’t able to do it anymore (e.g. because I moved away from my friends). I suppose that you shouldn’t search for new hobbies non stop when not happy with the old one. Why not try to get back into the hobby that used to make you happy and balanced. If you’re not pleased with the old one that might be because of the following:
- not the right hobby
- nobody to share with
- no motivation left (for example all used up at work)
- unsure about hobby
- too many hobbies
Try to find one hobby at the time to avoid having pressure to follow up all your hobbies within a certain time. Again I have the very same experience. Doing too much in your free time does not actually relax you, which is the whole idea of your free time. Don't do lists for your free time activities. At work to do lists is common. In your free time your wishes what to do shouldn't be written down on a ‘to do list’. This creates pressure to achieve the list's content as it would be at work. Enjoying the actual parts of the list wouldn't be possible. You would be already thinking about the next one which needs to be done. So far we know that materialistic wealth is no must to lead to happiness. Furthermore the right hobby, shared with the right people can lead to a more positive attitude.
Be happy with what you have. We want to think positive. But if you think just for a minute if you flat would burn down with all your stuff in it what would you miss most? That's important to you.
So what I am trying to say is - learn to be happy with less. Be amazed by the little things in life, like a happy little child playing in the streets. A nice colleague at work, some nice person in the train. Being happy with less makes you want less. Meaning if your unhappy with things you might get into the buying makes happy thinking. More to buy and to posses makes happy. But is that so? I thing: No. So if other non-materialistic things enlighten your day there shouldn't be a need for a bigger TV or a new hobby?! Think the American way when it comes to celebrating success. But keep it for you, you don't want to be attacked ;) but celebrate what makes you happy to increase you happiness to a maximum.
Be unhappy if you must. Rather short and extreme than everyday a bit. Don't do stupid things to yourself though. That doesn't make things better, at all. But e.g. jogging or cycling to transform your negative feelings into energy and use it up. Again, that is far better then swallowing it down because it'll eat you up from the inside.
Do look out for happy people. Miserable people should be avoided if you're not happy yourself. Talk mainly to happy people or prolonging your chat with a positive person and keep conversation with negative people to a minimum. Listen to happy music, if that works. I personally do get sick, quite quickly, of must-make-happy-music. Do think back to times when you've been really happily and content with what you got. E.g. when you bought something that was very important to you or where you had to save for a long time before it was affordable. Now imagine that moment is now and start to use that 'thing' again imagining that it is newly bought. That'll keep down the need of buying new things because you get bored of the old stuff.
(no spell check performed, apologies for any inconvenience)
Initially two friends, Anja and I planned to have a long weekend trip (Thursday – Sunday) at the Lakes, doing camping. We planned and had a look, found places where to stay, etc. Then we had a look at the weather forecast. Ohhh my gosh. That could not have been worse. Rain for all 4 days. That wasn’t good at all. Having this thoughts in mind, Anja started to have a look at other destinations. And viola, there it came – ‘darling, I booked 4 tickets to Kos’. Kos? What is Kos?! Well it is an island south-west of Greece! Greece? Yes – Greece, you idiot. Well cool. Many things to be planned within 2 days to have a 2 ½ day holiday in and on Kos. Wonderful! 35°C air, 25°C water. Hot hot hot. Anja booked a couple of apartments for us. Cheap, lovely, handy. Nice pool and outside was lovely. Went to beach several times and had a look through the old town. Just far too hot to do anything else than relax! 3-4hrs flight wasn’t the best part but at least there was a meal provided on the flights. Then a further 30 min Bus trip to hotel. But all well organised thanks to Thomas Cook! We have been out for Gyros & Pita, wine was unbelievably cheap, as well as spirits. We didn’t really do anything than lying on the beach, explore the city and parts of the island, sun-bath at the pool. I very much enjoyed the snorkelling in the Mediterranean see with my friend, Gav. As time was short, bigger planning and research wasn’t possible and we did very much enjoy our way of holidaying. I only can recommend the apartments we stayed at: Paradise Olga in Kos! Btw: Kos is cat-land. Cats everywhere. I hate them soooo much! But if you’d kill one, they’ll stone you. Lots of tourism, obviously – can get a bit on your nerves, when everybody tries to lore you into their restaurant, bar or shop. But you just have to deal with this kind of experience in a positive way. Travelling back was a very exhausting part of the holiday. (Yes even more exhausting then lying on the beach and doing nothing – which funny enough is quite shattering when you are not used to 35°C, after all). We hardly got any sleep as the bus picked us up from the hotel at about 1:30am. Well picked us up? We have been very lucky. A group of ‘boys’ was to be picked up, too. As we got to know, we haven’t been on the ‘pick-up list’. So if those guys were not to be picked up we would have missed our flight back. (That would have been a real tragedy ;) Anyway after long wait at the airport + flight + 3hrs back from Manchester + jet lack + being tired of all, we are happy to be back – even if it was only 2-3 days in Kos. I am very happy that my fiancé was making a ‘brave’ decision on booking tickets for us 4 on that short notice.
Conclusion: Kos = a very hot, sunny (hardly any rain in the whole year), little island that offers much for everybody and is not too expensive, after all. Nice people, relaxed way of life. I would not like to life there but definitively want to go back one day.
Please find some pictures attached, as well. Thanks for reading. Bye.
