I'll write what you want. Just ask

I got this idea from reading about it somewhere else.

Basically, you tell me what you'd like me to write about in a comment below. You can suggest a topic, or ask me a question, and I'll write something about it. No question is too big or too small. Share in the comments below and I'll get started!

Choose yourself, not your abuser

For all kinds of different reasons, we may end up in the wrong relationship with someone. When things go bad, we try to hold on to those relationships because it's important to us to try and show our commitment by staying with them, trying to work through things, and trying to make the relationship a good one instead of a bad one. Nice sentiments, but not always practical.

If you're with the wrong man, then you might be struggling because you're both trying to put a square peg into a round hole.

One of the things I've come to understand over the years is that passive aggression (something I'm intimately familiar with) exists in all people, but for most of them, it only occurs in isolated instances. People with passive aggressive personality disorder (PAPD) have it most of the time. It affects their life, and their relationships.

And one of the most fascinating aspects of PAPD is that it seems mostly men suffer it. But the very nature of its most predominant symptom of denying their responsibility means they avoid seeking healing because they don't want to believe they're responsible for the issues in their life or relationships.

I also came to understand from my own experiences that when I wasn't around people trying to control me, I wasn't passive aggressive. Part of my own problem in life was that sometimes I was choosing the wrong women to be around, and this is part of the problem with all PAPD sufferers - and their partners too. They choose the wrong people.

Loving connections between people include mutual respect, care, support, communication, and happiness. Having all of those in your relationship means you're with the right person. Maintaining that takes effort, but you should be maintaining a state of happiness and fulfillment. When you're trying to constantly fix something that's just broken, you're in the wrong relationship and you're wasting your time and your life.

Your consistent happiness over time is a sign of whether or not a relationship is right for you.

[Tweet "If you're happy, keep going. If you're unhappy, change course."]

If you're unhappy and struggling in your relationship, get the hell out of it. You don't need to be with someone who abuses you with their behaviour. They're not going to change, because if that was likely, they'd already be trying to change and trying to talk to you about their issues and seeking your help to overcome them.

If they're not doing that, all you can do is look forward to more of their continued abusive behaviour if you stay with them.

And you know what? A big part of the reason your partner abuses you with passive aggression - or other forms of abuse - is because you're still with him, regardless of everything he's done. You've been inadvertently telling him that it's ok to abuse you. If it wasn't ok, you'd leave him. Since you're still with him, it must be ok. That's what he's thinking.

I want you to choose yourself. Choose your own happiness. Choose a good life.

If you're in such a relationship with someone who is passive aggressive or abusive in any other way, I want you to know that I'm here for you, to help you with any questions you have, any advice you need, or any guidance. As long as it's all based on choosing yourself and moving on. You need to move on. You need to leave him behind. You need to get the hell out of this abusive situation you're in, and start building a wonderful, exciting and happy life for yourself.

I know you can do that.

How did I change my own situation, and get treatment? How did I heal my own passive aggressive personality disorder? I realised I was the one at fault. I had to take control of my life, and take ownership of my responsibilities. I had to make important decisions about what was working in my life and what wasn't, and I had to walk away from what wasn't working so that I could work out what did work.

I took some time out for myself, spent three years exploring my life while single, trying to work out exactly what kind of person I wanted or needed to be, and what kind of person I needed to be with. I needed to know myself in order to know who I was best suited to be with in a relationship.

I worked out that I had been choosing women who were dominant like me. We were two bulls butting horns, all the time, and that's why I was passive aggressive in those relationships. There were relationships I'd had with women where I wasn't passive aggressive.

Once I knew what was going on, and why my passive aggression was being triggered, I knew what kind of woman I needed to be with. From that moment, I very quickly found my ideal woman for me and thankfully, I happened to be the ideal man for her. We've been together for almost 3 years, and got married about 6 months ago. She's perfect for me because she doesn't trigger my passive aggression at all.

If you like being in control in your relationships, for whatever reasons, then don't be with someone that hates being controlled. Trying to control someone that doesn't want to be controlled is a 'trigger' for their passive aggression, especially if they feel it's unsafe for them to express themselves.

If you're a dominant personality and experiencing passive aggressive reactions from your partner who is also dominant, then you might need to be with a submissive personality in order for your relationship to work. And if that's your choice, such a relationship is perfectly ok. Whatever makes two people happy is absolutely perfect. It doesn't matter what other people think; it's not their life you're living.

In order to heal, you need to avoid whatever it is that's been hurting you, so that you can have the space and the time to heal your wounds.

If you're here reading this because you're at a point in your life and your relationship that you're considering choosing yourself instead of your abuser, I know it's not an easy journey you're considering. I wish you all the strength in the world.

Why do you keep coming back?

Quite a few of you are regular readers. You either subscribe for email or RSS updates, or you've bookmarked this site and it interests you enough to keep coming back.

What is it that keeps you coming back? What particular topics on this blog do you enjoy reading?

I'd really like to know. I'd like to know what you enjoy about this site and my writing, so that I can continue doing more of it for you.

You're my audience and I'd like to get to know you, and what you enjoy.

Thank you for commenting below about why you keep coming back.

Taking selfies means you're mentally ill

If you're someone who takes lots of photos of yourself in a bathroom or out somewhere enjoying yourself - instead of taking photos of what it is you're enjoying - then you're probably a narcissist with a mental illness. There's something wrong with you.

From International Business Times:

Selfies Linked to Narcissism, Addiction and Mental Illness, Say Scientists

The growing trend of taking smartphone selfies is linked to mental health conditions that focus on a person's obsession with looks...

From Wikipedia on narcissism:

Narcissism is the pursuit of gratification from vanity, or egotistic admiration of one's own physical or mental attributes, that derive from arrogant pride. The term originated with Narcissus in Greek mythology who fell in love with his own image reflected in a pool of water.

Every time you take a photo of yourself and share it with the world, you're seeking gratification and approval from others for your appearance.

Back in 2012, I was intrigued by a work of art that someone had done, where they took a photo of themselves every single day for 365 days and then put it together into a video. It was to show their personal changes over a year. I thought it would be fun to do the same kind of thing.

I gave it up after a few months because I was uncomfortable with taking photos of myself. I recognised there was an element of vanity involved, showing myself to the world on a daily basis. The fact I was doing it for an artistic experiment didn't matter, because I felt uncomfortable doing it.

Being all narcissistic and putting myself on display just didn't feel right to me, so I stopped.

Lots of women take selfies. Lots of them take lots of selfies. They seek the attention of men so they can feel better about themselves. And they're encouraged by idiot, lonely and desperate men that give them that gratification.

"You're so hot! Here's my number, call me."

Etc etc.

What about you? Do you take a lot of selfies? Maybe you should just stop it, it's only catering to your mental illness. Your friends know what you look like. Strangers can see what you look like with your profile photo, if they're interested. The rest of your photos? Just share the beauty of your life and the world around you.

You can see your future too

There are some people who claim to be clairvoyants. They might be, they might not be - that's not the issue. The issue is - how valid is the future that they see for people?

People who go to clairvoyants are usually unsure of where they stand in life, and are insecure about what they're doing and where their path is leading them. They see clairvoyants, fortune tellers, tarot card readers, etc, in order to gain some reassurance about their lives, that what they're doing is right, or that there's hope for them in their near future.

Everyone is born with what I call 'reality's road map' of their life and the paths available to them, but most people can't see their map and they're lost. They're drifting around, trying to find a path that will take them somewhere positive.

Their visits to the clairvoyant are their attempts at finding some sense in the madness of confusion and uncertainty. They feel that people who can 'see the future' are going to help them find the correct path, or reassure them that the path they're on is the right one.

The problem is that the clairvoyants aren't always right.

Some people swear by certain clairvoyants, saying that everything they were told came true. And then others who might see the same clairvoyant find that years later, nothing that was said came true.

What makes their predictions for some people come true, and not come true for others?

It's because your path on reality's road map changes. It changes because you have free will. You can choose your path and you can change your mind at any time.

The path you're on at the time you visit the clairvoyant will lead you in a certain direction, and they may see that path and describe it for you. If you continue to follow that path, what they described will probably eventuate. But if you allow yourself to be diverted from that path, which can easily occur through interaction with other people and events, your path can change. And before you know it, you're on a completely different path as a result of your freedom to choose your own life.

But then, as far as you're concerned, the clairvoyant was wrong.

Here's a wake-up call to those who then use this as 'proof' that the clairvoyant is a fake. If they can see a future ('if' being the operative word here, of course) and describes it to you, then they're never wrong. It's always only a possible future that's relevant to your life in that instant. But if they don't understand the nature of change and free will in this universe, they won't tell you it might not happen. Hell, if they even let you think that everything they describe could be completely wrong, then there'd be no point in you coming to see them any more, let alone paying them for the session you've just had! They need your money as much as you need hope and reassurance.

I used to be a clairvoyant, a long time ago. I had success with telling people's future, and even seeing people's past. But I quickly learnt that sometimes, what I saw of a future didn't always happen. Parts of it did, but other parts didn't. I came to realise this was because the future is never certain. It's fluid, and it changes with our decisions.

So how is it that clairvoyants can see things that may or may not come to pass?

Good question, young grasshopper! I'm glad you asked.

The only explanation that makes sense, of course (at least to me), is that our choices in life create other realities (other dimensions) where each of those choices are real, as well as the ongoing consequences of those choices. They aren't necessarily the reality that you might end up in, but they exist nonetheless.

If you have three choices, but you can only choose one of them, realities come into existence where each of those choices are real.

Clairvoyants are able to psychically see the most likely reality ahead of you at the time you visit them.

Try to get your head around this (and let me know if you can!) - as a spiritual being you have the power to see how a choice may affect your life. You have a connection with a higher self that's not inside this reality, and therefore can see it from outside. You can see how choices create new realities, and you can see the consequences of each choice. You can see all the paths that become available to you as a result of each choice.

If the connection to your higher self is weak, then you're not going to be able to connect with that awareness of the consequences of your choices, and you're going to be drifting around, not knowing where you're going or what you're doing.

Anyone can be psychic and see their future

Clairvoyance can be available to anyone, not just 'special people'. Your 'spiritual connection' makes itself available to you in your trust and awareness of your intuition, your 'gut feelings', and even your own personal wisdom. If you have none of those feelings or qualities, or if you ignore them, then you are operating entirely on a physical level. You're not seeing the big picture.

The big picture is that if you trusted yourself, trusted your feelings and your heart, and let yourself do those things which you know and feel are best for you, then you would actually be on the path that you're meant to be on.

The interesting thing about reality's road map is that just like the map we have in a car's GPS, it details all the different paths that are available to us. It's up to us to choose which path we follow.

Opening our hearts and honestly accepting our feelings is the best way of choosing the best path for our life.

The signs showing the path you should follow are visible to you in how you feel about people and events in your life. If something or someone is causing you grief, you have the power to change it or walk away from it.

By walking away from something that's just not working for you, no matter what you're doing, then you're choosing a different path, and that can often be the most rewarding thing you could do for yourself.

The next time you have a number of choices to choose from, try something different. Take the time out for yourself to imagine, one by one, the results and consequences of each of those choices. See where your imagination takes you. Focus on the reality in your mind that branches off from each of those choices. Allow yourself to make a decision based on your feelings about each of those imagined realities.

How do you know that what you imagine isn't actually a link to that spiritual part of you that sees those realities taking place? How do you know that by making this a habit in your life, you are doing exactly what you hope the clairvoyants will do for you?

You're seeing possible futures, and you can use what you see in your mind to help you make wise choices in your life. The future you choose is entirely in your hands.

Reality's road map is unique to each individual, and everyone has access to it - if they only let themselves see it.

This blog now has a forum for paying members only

A long time ago - probably a bit more than a decade ago - I used a forum instead of a blog. It was quite successful at the time (and some of you were even around at that time!), and I filled it up with a LOT of content. Much of it was mine, but a lot of it was also from those who participated in it.

I stopped using it after a few years because I wanted more control of my content without having to deal with the constant onslaught of forum spammers that were often bypassing the security protections, and I ended up just focusing on the blog format. But I've never forgotten how popular the forum method was.

As of the most recent change to this blog's theme, which I really like, I decided today to bring back some of the forum methodology, but integrating this blog with a forum instead of replacing it with a forum.

It's now completed, in place, and ready to be used. But....

 

How to deal with forum spammers?

One of the significant challenges bloggers face is fighting spammers, who have ever-increasing levels of sophistication in their methods of attack. This is more prominent with forums. I've had forums over the years where spammers were a huge problem, even just last year with a forum integrated into a blog. It was an experiment, but it didn't work.

I spent more time dealing with spammers on the forum than I did with members of the forum community. It got so bad that I just had to shut it down. It didn't work because of the spam, and no matter what measures I took, the spammers overcame them. The only measure that worked was to not allow automatic membership.

While manually adding members can be tedious and time consuming too, it's nowhere near as time consuming as dealing with spammers and spam. The solution to fight spam is to manually control who gets access to the forum.

As a result, one thing led to another and I decided to make the forums private, to paying members only.

This is the best way I know how to combat spam, to ensure that members are added manually, and only when they subscribe to become a member by paying whatever they want.

Further information about this and how 'pay what you want' works is on the public forum topic, An Introduction.

 

It's about the value

Free forums are ridden with spam and often useless content generated by people who don't value what they're part of, or what they're able to contribute. When something is free, it has NO VALUE, because no money was exchanged for it. It's worthless.

By having forum membership via a paid subscription, it's going to be of value, and that means members are going to be thoughtful about what they're reading, what they're learning, what they're applying to their life, and what they're contributing.

Paying members will help ensure the forum is of a much higher quality than people who pay nothing.

 

You'll be a part of a quality community

You won't be alone, and you won't be part of a community that values nothing. You'll instead be part of a like-minded group of people that want to grow, and want to be part of a community that helps and supports each other's growth.

We're all on this journey through life together, and I'm asking you to join this community and be an active member of it. Its success will be helped by you, and in return it will help you find success too.

 

I want you to be a member

Using the 'pay what you want' model, there's no reason why you can't join in. For a minimum of $1 per month, you get access to a forum that will provide you with content of value, that will help inspire you, and help you learn and grow and achieve success in your life.

Surely that's worth at least $1 a month for you?

You probably spend considerably more than that on coffee every day. One coffee a day (how many a day do you have?) during working hours is about $60 (or more) a month. Think about that when you consider the value of subscribing to The Journey Forum to find ways of improving your life.  :)

Read more about it here, and I look forward to you joining in!

Backing up my life on the cloud

For well over a decade I've been using online storage solutions for files that have been important to me. But as the years have gone by, what I've wanted to store has quite dramatically increased in size. 2Gb of free storage is no longer suitable.

When I first began using online storage solutions - now called 'the cloud' - I used it to just back up a few important documents. I think it was Google Docs that I first began this process with. But then I began using Dropbox to include documents created on my computer, and various other personal files.

The normal amount of storage available to people using Dropbox is 2Gb, but I currently have 55 Gb of storage. Free. Don't ask me how I've got that; I think it's related to the number of times I've added Dropbox to new computers (or new installations on the same computer), and they give me a bonus every time I do so.

I used to have about 12 Gb of that storage taken up with documents and photos, but with the amount of times I reinstall Windows or Linux, re-downloading everything has been really annoying - not to mention a drain on the monthly download limits we have here in Australia.

I like the idea of getting everything backed up on the cloud, but when you have so much that you want backed up and stored forever, how do I do that completely and successfully?

I have a 1 Terabyte hard drive on my computer which I use as a local backup drive. It has about 700 Gb of files stored on there at the moment. Admittedly, much of what's stored there is sentimental rather than important. I found a 4 Gb backup of important documents on a laptop I had back in 2005. Do I need that now? No.

But I DO need that 50 Gb of photos I've got backed up!

Later...

(I started writing the above earlier this morning, and now it's almost midnight.) This afternoon I did some extensive research and worked out that the best solution for my needs is Google Drive. Free gives me 15Gb a month, but for $2 a month I get 100 Gb of storage, or $10 a month will give me 1 Tb of storage. Nice!

And the good thing about it is that once I upload folders of data, I can deselect the option to sync that folder every time, so that it just stays there in the cloud, always backed up, but never to be downloaded when I reinstall Google Drive on new computers. However, at any time, I can still access the files via a web browser, or I can download them at a later time.

This is a good thing. For the past couple of years, all my photos have been auto-backed up to Google Plus online photos, and always available. The 50 Gb of photos I have on my secondary hard drive is simply old photos from my past that I don't want to lose. I don't always need them available, but it would be nice to know they're always available should I need them.

Once I get all my needed files backed up on the cloud without syncing with my computer, I'll have less of a need for a large secondary hard drive. Most of my activities can be based on cloud storage, and I'll only use the hard drive for the installation of programs to run on the computer. All my really important, must-be-always-available files add up to about 5 Gb. Those are the files I can afford to always be syncing with a local copy for easy and fast access.

What about security concerns?

Unlike many people affected by media hype, I know that my data has no interest to government authorities. They don't care about me, because I'm not doing anything illegal or suspicious. And if corporations use my data to try and send me advertising that's relevant to my lifestyle, so what? I use ad-blocking software in my web browser so I never see advertising anyway, and email spam just gets trashed.

Life's much simpler when you block the advertising that you don't want to see.

It's also much simpler when you can base your activities in the cloud so that you can access important files wherever you are in the world, on whatever computer you might be using - your own, or someone else's, or even on your phone.

Having cloud access to files has allowed me to access them on my phone to show someone, or to send to them by email on the spot. It's very convenient.

Cloud storage helps with a minimalist lifestyle

If you're trying to simplify your life and become minimalist in your approach to it (as I am), then the more physical stuff you can get rid of, the better.

Files stored in your desk or even filing cabinet can be photographed and stored in the cloud, and then the physical files (where appropriate) can be thrown away. You don't have to worry about them any more. Just make sure your photos are adequately named and categorised and you no longer need physical storage in your house for anything.

You can even do this with those sentimental items that you put on the mantelpiece or in the cupboard, or in the garage because there's no room in the house. If it's your memories you want to cherish and a physical item helps you do that, then just take photos of it and throw the item away. The photos will help you remember as the years go by.

Backing up everything onto the cloud just makes life easier.

The website has changed again

If you're a subscriber reading this, I invite you to click here to check out what I've done to the website.

When I created my other new website, Alan Seeks A Boss, the website theme I used on that site was something that I really liked, but I used it in a way that was inconsistent with this site, Alan's Journey.

Today I got around to updating this site with the same theme. I've put the sidebar widgets into the footer instead of into the sidebar, and I've tidied up the contents so it looks much neater.

I removed the Facebook Likes widget, because no one was using it anyway. 50-60 unique visitors a day and no one liking it suggests to me that it's a waste of time having it around. So out it goes.

The end result is something that is still simple, which is one of my most important parameters, because simple is fast and the faster a site is, the better it is. But not only is it simple, it also looks good and is responsive, so it changes according to the size of the screen it's being viewed on.

It also looks unique and different to any of the other blogs out there, and that's important to me. I like to stand out from the rest of the blogs out there, presenting my own unique face to the world.

And finally, I updated the banner to look the same as what's on the Alan Seeks A Boss website. I think the avatar and the style of the font in the header lends itself to a brand style. My avatar is my brand, and so I'm using that across the different sites I have.

What do you think?

Meditation and wisdom

It seems that the theme for me over this past week has been about meditation and wisdom, which is something I'm quite happy about.

A long time ago, I was a wise young man. I also meditated a lot.

And then I got older and became a grumpy older man, and wisdom has been something I've felt is lacking in me for quite a few years. I haven't meditated for quite a few years either.

And just like I've been seeking wisdom in my life again, I've also been seeking the motivation to return to meditation.

I think there's a huge correlation in the amount of wisdom a person has, and the amount of meditation they engage in.

Young people can display incredible wisdom, if they spend time in quiet contemplation about life and the human experience.

Wisdom is not something that is automatically gained the older you get. There's some really immature and ignorant old people out there. Nor is it something that you're born with, despite many children or teenagers seeming to be wise beyond their years.

Those who manage to calm their mind and avoid engaging in the chaos around them, seem to display wisdom.

It's usually in those who have learnt over the years that keeping their mind calm leads to a better life, but even children can find a peacefulness in their mind, and end up being wise too.

In my premium post this week in The Journey Files, I wrote about meditation. I wrote about how spiritually connected I used to be back when I used to meditate. I wrote about how much I miss meditating.

Since then, I've been thinking about this topic, and the connection that meditation seems to have with spiritual connections and experiences, as well as with wisdom.

I don't think it's a coincidence that the wisest of people throughout history also used to meditate.

If one seeks wisdom, then one should seek to meditate on the intricacies of life. Or even just to clear the mind. If one seeks to find clarity in thought, then meditation seems to be the path to that objective.

It's clear to me that I need to meditate more. I've already started this week, but I've only done it once. I intend developing it into a daily habit, first thing in the morning when I wake up. To clear my mind after sleeping, to begin each new day with clarity of thought.

I suspect that one of the side effects of it will be increased quality in my writing.

I also recognise that I need to purposefully move away from those things in my life that distract me from my purpose, which in this instance is to improve my writing. In order to calm my mind, I need to eliminate those things which cloud it.

There's going to be some changes around here as I work at simplifying my life and removing these emotional distractions so I can have a clearer mind when meditating.

Lots of changes, lots of processing

One of the things about my life is that it's always full of change. Something is always changing, somehow, somewhere. I usually embrace change, because it's been a part of my life ever since I was born, but sometimes change can be overwhelming.

Like the past few years of stress leading up to having to declare bankruptcy. That was a time full of change that I really didn't enjoy. It was overwhelming at times, but I kept on plodding away, one foot at a time, making my way through it.

And the past few months without work; that's been quite a change. Along with having to manage a wedding at the same time, and then a move to another city. Again, lots of change that has been overwhelming at times.

I realised tonight that during those periods where it's all been too overwhelming, I've needed to do a lot of mental processing of it. Even if that processing is to distract myself from the reality of my situation for a while, to allow me to deal with it a little further down the track. While I'm doing something to distract myself, my mind is processing in the background.

If I spent my time focusing on the overwhelming changes, I suspect I'd go mad. Or turn to drugs or something.

But instead, I spend any spare time gaming, to distract my mind from a reality that is highly stressful. And without work at the moment, I have a lot of spare time.

We're making our way through life, my wife and I, despite the challenges we have with me out of work. We're grateful for the resources that have come our way to help us through very trying times. The universe - through good friends and family - has provided for us when we've needed it, and we're always going to be grateful for that.

There's been a lot less posts on this blog over the past few weeks, and over the past few days I've been trying to work out why. My realisation tonight has been that it's because I've been overwhelmed by change, and that it's too stressful for me to write about it, or even to feel comfortable writing about anything else, and so I've stayed silent.

The fact I'm writing about this is something I'm finding amazing.

But I wanted to share this with you to explain why I haven't maintained my desired 500 words a day. I wanted to talk about it because I need to justify it for myself as to why I'm slacking off.

And in doing so, I might even end up justifying to myself why I should ignore all that and just get on with the 500 words a day again.

There's a lot of people out there going through a lot harder experiences than I have been.

"I complained about having no shoes, until I met a man who had no feet."

We can always find something stressful and overwhelming in our lives, but we have to find a way to get through it. There's no other way forward. We have to be grateful for what we have, and for what we've achieved.

I appreciate the reminder to myself about that.

Best of Melbourne Photos #1

I've been here in Melbourne for almost 3 weeks now, and I've had the chance to get out and about and take a few photos here and there. Here's a link to where you can view...

The Best of Melbourne Photos #1

Please enjoy!

Alan Seeks A Boss

I found some websites yesterday talking about finding a boss that you'd love to work for instead of simply finding a job. I fell in love with the idea! Everyone out there looking for work is doing it the same way - all applying for jobs online, competing with dozens or even hundreds of others for the same position.

I've been doing the same thing for the past 4-5 months, just like all the other job seekers out there, but it hasn't worked for me this time around. So far, of course. This time around thee environment has been phenomenally bad. It's been on my mind that I need to try something different.

I then found this article talking about How many job ads are fake, and it reminded me of how many times I've wasted my time applying for jobs that aren't actually real. I shared it to friends on Facebook with these comments:

The number of times I've applied for jobs that have ended up being fake over the past year has been shocking, and seems to be an increasing trend. I've personally seen position descriptions for jobs that require specific experience only internal staff have, because they've already got an internal person in mind and are simply following the process they're obliged to follow.

And of course there's also the jobs I've applied for which have been advised to me are 'market tests', advertised simply to see if there's any interest in a possible role that they've got no budget for yet. I've appreciated those agents that have told me to not waste my time, but always been angry at those agents pushing for your interest in a fake job so they can prove to their client that there is interest, and hopefully get them to create the job. It's only after the client doesn't go through with it that the agent advises my application was for a fake job.

It's been a really frustrating time, trying to find work. It inspired me in February to try and create work instead, and I started my own web design business. But then yesterday I was inspired to find a boss I want to work with, instead of finding a job that I might not like. The result has been really exciting!

So I was inspired to do something to create the kind of change that I want. I worked on it into the night last night, going to bed around midnight, and then continued it today, until I was finally happy with it about mid afternoon.

www.alanseeksaboss.com

All I need to do now is share it out to the world and have it go viral so that hundreds of excellent bosses can see it and decide they want to apply for the role of being my boss!

Please help me with this by sharing it out to the world!

Use Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Tumblr... I don't care what you use, I just hope you can help me reach as many people as possible!

It would be awesome to be able to find a great and rewarding job by seeking a boss to apply for the role. It's creative, it's fresh, and it's exciting to think about how this might turn out!

Life comes first

One of the things that has always been important for me is to maintain my enjoyment of life, and I've always treated my life as more important than my work. I have never lived to work, I've always worked to live. It's often resulted in me feeling a bit sad as I've seen workmates work 10 or 12 hour days because their work has been more important to them than the rest of their life.

I know it's everyone choice as to what they do in their life, and how they want to do it, but I'm also aware of how much they're missing out on in their life because they're far too busy working. They miss spending quality time with their children, and they miss important events like school plays or even birthdays. Or some occasion important to their wife, or their husband. All because they feel they have to work their asses off in order to get paid so they can pay the bills.

I've never bought into the programming that I exist only to please the managers or the companies that I've worked for over the years. Thankfully most of the managers I've worked for have been of similar mind to me, and have done their 8 hours a day and then gone home. But there's been a few here and there who have done their 12 hour days and make it quite clear that they expect their subordinates to do the same.

Most people are too afraid for the security of their job that if they're asked to stay back or even if it's implied, then they'll work extra hard to make sure they keep that job.

And meanwhile, life passes them by, and all those things that they wished they could have been part of, are all gone.

It's never been me, and I doubt it'll ever be me. I think it's also why having my own business appeals to me so much, because I can set my own hours, and my own time, in accordance with what's important to me and the rest of my life. If I need to do a few 12 hour days, then I can at least schedule the work around the other events that I need or want to be part of.

Freedom.

Most people don't know what it's like. They don't know that they can take control of their situation and create freedom for themselves rather than continue being slaves, while forcing them to miss out on their life. They don't know that they could find a different job that gives them more freedom. Or they could start their own business and create the freedom for themselves.

Freedom is a luxury most people don't have, but they could have - if they really wanted it. But for one reason or another, they don't really want it. They prefer the sweet illusion of stability than the harsh reality of insecurity.

I think the harsh reality of insecurity has become a pattern throughout my life, but I'm happy that I've always had the time for all those occasions and people that are truly important to me.

As I move through my life, I'm going to continue focusing on making sure that my life is more important to me than my work. I'll always work to live, never live to work.

Which side do you lean towards? Do you live to work, or do you work to live?

Simple is good

One of the things that's been important to me is simplicity, and even though I've tried to use images in my website designs, I've always tried to find some kind of balance between simplicity and including imagery. I know that images help a website look better, but really, my own focus has mostly been on the material that I write.

And to be honest with you, it's been annoying having to find photos online that seem relevant to the content, when I don't really feel like making the content about the photos.

So I found a new blog theme tonight that I really like. It's one that's designed for accessibility on computers and mobile devices, while retaining its simplicity. I fell in love with it, and just had to use it. (And of course, being a Scanner, I love finding new and more interesting things to play with!)

Here's a few screenshots of how the display resizes according to the dimensions of the display it's being viewed on.

Normal size:



Smaller size:



Smartphone size:



 

And another thing that I like about this particular theme is that it has much better styling for the display of comments, so it's really obvious which comments are in reply to previous comments, as well as looking great! That was something that was bothering me about the previous theme, and other themes that I've been playing with - very few of them actually look at appropriate style controls for the comments, preferring to instead focus on everything else.

I'm happy now!

Oh, and you might have noticed I've added a custom avatar of myself. That was an enjoyable time this evening, trying to create something that looked like me. Did I succeed?



Close enough is good enough.  :)

The great vegetarian experiment

Each week I’m doing a new article sent directly to subscribers of The Journey Files that provides updates, insights, observations and information which just might help you with your own life journey. If you’re subscribing to it, that is.

My latest article is called The great vegetarian experiment. This is the first paragraph from it:

I was speaking with my wife last night about exploring the idea of becoming vegetarian. I know there are various health benefits associated with it, but I don't know what all of them are. I want to find out, and one of the best ways of finding out something is to explore it completely.

If you want to read it, as well as other articles that I write, I encourage you to subscribe. It’s on a ‘pay what you want’ basis, and your paid subscription will be helping to support my writing.

More information on The Journey Files and how you can subscribe is here. Thank you for your support!

I'll be deleting inactive subscribers every month

I found a new, interesting writer today (thanks for the referral, Miles!), who has a policy I quite like. On the 1st of every month he deletes from his mailing list all those subscribers who haven't opened any of his emails. I liked this so much, I'm going to do the same.

I recently had a cleanup of my mailing list, inviting everyone in the list to resubscribe to continue receiving the emailed updates I sent out about new blog posts. From the total number of subscribers, only about 25% replied to my invitation to continue subscribing.

From the 1st of May, I'm going to start deleting people who aren't opening my emails. It's a good way of keeping my mailing list active and up to date, with all the subscribers being involved in what I'm doing.

If you're not opening the emails, then there's no point being subscribed. Right? So I'll help you out by removing you from the list. If you ever want to get the emails again, you can always resubscribe at a later date.

Who's the writer? Karol Gajda. I like his style.

Enjoying the sights of Melbourne

This past week has been q

The journey is getting better

I've been out and about today, enjoying some of the sights of the Melbourne CBD. You can see the photos here - Alan's Eyes Photography. Make sure you LIKE that page to keep up to date with my photos in the future. I love taking and sharing photos of my journey. Often daily!

I took this photo at Centre Place, Melbourne

I was out meeting someone this morning who might be a new client for my web design, and who might also be able to get me some new work as a business analyst in the future. It'll be interesting to see how that develops.

After the meeting, Fanfan and I went for a walk around the CBD, seeing some of the sights, enjoying a coffee, and taking photos before going back home again.

All the services have been connected, including the internet (thank the Gods!), and the furniture was delivered yesterday morning. It was great to sleep on our actual bed last night instead of the camping beds we've been using the previous 3 nights. Ow, my poor back!

I've got two website proposals to do and send out tomorrow. And with the internet connected at home, I'll start doing some real web design work again. Woohoo!

I feel like things are getting back to some semblance of normality, even if it's in a new city now. It's starting to feel like home already.

It really is time to declutter our life

When Fanfan and I were trying to work out what to take with us to Melbourne and what to dump or sell, there was still so much stuff that we couldn't make a decision on in the short time we had available, so we just took it with us. Now that we're here in Melbourne, we're going to be selling more stuff or throwing it away. We really need to become minimalists.

No, this isn't our place. It's just a photo I found.

There's a lot of stuff that we both carry around with us because of the memories that they're associated with. We treasure the memories, so we treasure the associated 'stuff'. But the association doesn't need to be physical.

All those things that are simply sentimental will be thrown away or sold - but we'll take photos of them first! That way all the 'stuff' will be stored electronically, on our phones and in the 'cloud', and we won't need to physically carry them around with us any more.

I've got a million printed photos from my past (back in the days before digital cameras and digital photos) that I've kept in photo albums or just in a couple of plastic bags full of photos. I'll be taking photos of all my photos and then throwing them all away.

Books are another tedious thing to carry around. I've thrown away most of my books over the years, ever since the Kindle came out and I could buy the digital versions and keep them available electronically. It's going to be time for Fanfan to start doing the same. She can keep the books she really wants, and throw out the ones she doesn't. And from those that are kept, slowly buy the electronic versions and throw out the physical copy, so that the only ones that remain are the ones that she can't do without, and which don't have electronic versions (yet).

Clothes. There's more clothes than we know what to do with. And because I've lost a lot of weight over the past few years, most of my clothes no longer fit me. I could do with new clothes that are couple sizes smaller. And then there's Fanfan's clothes. Being a girly-girl, she loves having dresses and shirts she doesn't actually wear, along with a dozen pair of shoes. Maybe more.

It all has to change. This move has shown us we simply have too much stuff for two people who move around a lot, so we have to get serious about becoming 'minimalists'.

Minimalism is also known as 'simple living':

Simple living encompasses a number of different voluntary practices to simplify one's lifestyle. These may include reducing one's possessions or increasing self-sufficiency, for example. Simple living may be characterized by individuals being satisfied with what they need rather than want. - wikipedia

Do any of you practice 'simple living', or minimalism? Do you have any tips or recommendations for me? Maybe you'd like to share your own story of what led you to becoming minimalist in your own life?

When the journey goes bad

I wanted to promote what I'm doing with The Journey Files, and I'll be doing this promotion on a weekly basis. Each week I'm doing a new article sent directly to subscribers that provides updates, insights, observations and information which just might help you with your own life journey. If you're subscribing to it, that is.

My next article being sent out in a few hours is called When the journey goes bad. This is the first paragraph from it:

Yesterday I wrote a blog post called It's been a nightmare! I wrote about the trials and tribulations I've experienced with the move to Melbourne since my last post to The Journey Files a week ago. I'm not gong to go into it all over again, but I wanted to talk more about how to deal with the stress when things go bad.

If you want to read it, and other articles that I write, I encourage you to subscribe. It's on a 'pay what you want' basis, and your paid subscription will be helping to support my writing.

More information on The Journey Files and how you can subscribe is here. Thank you for your support!

It's been a nightmare!

The nightmare began before I even got to Melbourne.



First it was the movers who let me know the day after they picked up the furniture that they had underquoted me and it was my responsibility to pay the difference. They would hold the furniture until I paid their new invoice. Or, "If you want to see your furniture again, you better pay our demands." We had originally paid them $600 to move the furniture, in accordance with their quote - but after they had our furniture they wanted $1600 more.

After quite a terse phone call to them that was essentially 'WHAT THE HELL!', it was clear this was their usual style of business and they weren't interested in deviating from their position. I had no choice if I wanted to see my furniture alive again.

The drive to Melbourne was uneventful, although it rained all the way down. A constant downpour that began when I left Canberra, went with me on the 8 hour drive to Melbourne, and didn't stop until the day after I arrived in Melbourne. An omen of things to come?

Upon arriving at the new house (an apartment, actually) the first thing I noticed was that it was somewhat different to what I had applied for.

Our new home was not the home I expected it to be.

I'd been in a rush, looking at a lot of places in one day in a short amount of time. This apartment had maybe 20-25 people walking through it. It was crowded. I had difficulty seeing all of it, so I spoke to the property manager. "Does this have ducted heading and cooling?" She said yes. "And two bathrooms?" Yes. "And a laundry?" Yes. What I managed to see of the property was great. I was happy with it. I left, heading off to the next place. When applying for it, I reviewed the details and photos. I was reminded of what I'd seen, and was happy with the application.

But now, upon having a good look around, it was obvious the property manager had been confused, probably stressed from having to deal with so many questions.

There was only one bathroom and one separate toilet - not two bathrooms. There was no ducted heating or cooling throughout the apartment as I thought, there was only one reverse-cycle airconditioner at the front end of the apartment. And the laundry? A fucking cupboard in the hallway.

My heart sank. This was not the home I thought it was.

And then I went to turn on the light switch in the bathroom. It didn't work. More light switches, and I discovered that there was no power. The property manager hadn't done what I had asked them to do - make sure the main power switch was turned off - so the power company was unable to connect the power for my new account with them because the power switch was still on, which meant it couldn't be reset and reconnected. The property manager apologised, and said they would review their procedures. That wouldn't help me though.

Lucky for me I had a friend I could stay with overnight. The power company said I needed to be at the property from 7:30am until 5pm so that an electrician could come out and make sure the power could be connected. And no, they don't do phone calls. If I wasn't there, they said, then it was likely the power wouldn't be connected.

So I went back to the property at 7am the next morning, and waited. And waited. There was no power, so I sat here and twiddled my thumbs, intermittently using my phone as a hotspot for my laptop.

By 4pm I called for an update. They said the electrician was probably busy and I'd have to wait until 9pm. WHAT?! "If you're not there when he arrives, it won't be connected." And what if he doesn't show up, I asked? "Oh, he will. But if he doesn't, then you'll have to come back tomorrow and wait again." So I waited until 9pm.

He didn't show up.

Fourteen hours I sat in this apartment with no power.

I went back to my friend's place for another emergency overnight stay. Thankfully he and his wife were very understanding and supportive.

I went back again the next morning - yesterday morning - prepared for another long stay in a house with no power. I got there at 7am and the power was on.

The. Power. Was. On.

And it was turned on without me needing to be here, and between 9pm and 7am.

This kind of shit just makes me want to fucking yell at people.

But anyway, with the power now on I was able to connect the modem to the phone line so that I could use the internet that I had been assured was connected two days prior.

Except it wasn't connected. No dial tone, no ADSL signal for the internet.

I called the telephone / internet provider (Telstra), who proceeded to assure me that it was working fine as far as they were concerned, their diagnostic tests confirmed it, and the connection had been completed.

"And yet here I am with no internet and no dial tone for the phone. So I'd say you're wrong," I said to them.

They're looking into it. They'll get back to me soon, hopefully early next week. A specialist is investigating.

I went out to dinner tonight with Fanfan. We got back home, and the swipe card didn't work to get into the apartment. It was the only way to get into the apartment. There's no key for the door, so there's no spare key we can leave lying around. And the card wasn't working.

At this point I looked at Fanfan and I said, very quietly, "I'm really, really angry. Everything about this move to Melbourne has been fucked. Nothing has gone smoothly or to plan. Everything has just been fucked. I've NEVER encountered anything like this in my life EVER." And I've moved around to a lot of different places, cities and even countries in my life. This has been the worst experience of them all.

And then the swipe card worked and the door opened. We went inside and had a cup of tea. And now I'm writing this to you.

It's got to get better, right?

Journeys can be so frustrating at times.

Today I'm cafe hopping around Canberra

This past week has been really hectic, but thankfully all that is over. All the hard work has been completed, and today I'm sitting in cafes. Different cafes, because I'll be catching up with one or two friends here and there, but I think I'll be coming back to this cafe I'm in right now, as I'm writing this. It has free wifi!



It's been one of my favourite cafes over the past few years, because it's a good cafe, and very convenient while I've been working at nearby locations.

But anyway, back to the hectic move...

Fanfan (my wife) has been awesome. She's done most of the packing, while I've done all the organising of the move. I know how stressful it's been for her, but she's been calm and happy and purposeful all through the stress of it all.

And having her manage all the packing while I've sat around on the computer has been really awesome. I can't do all the packing myself - if it was up to me, I'd organise for the movers to do the packing. An extra cost, but for me and my disability, one that I'd have to pay if it was just me.

But it's not must me any more. I have a wonderful, loving, supportive wife who completely understands my limitations. And so she does all the work that would probably put me in hospital if I were to do it, while I do all the organising of finding and securing a new house, managing the utility connections, organising the movers, and paying all the bills. I do the 'big stuff', as she calls it, while she does the little stuff.

It's great being part of a 'team'. We work together according to our individual strengths and weaknesses, and I love it. Her too. :)

I'll just pause here while I head off to another cafe.

Six hours later... I'm over today. But at least the final tenancy inspection is over with. All I need to do now is look forward to an 8 hour drive tomorrow, ending with another tenancy inspection at the new house in Melbourne....

You know what? I'll be glad when this week is over.

The top 5 searches that bring people here

Search engines are probably the most popular resource on the internet. Any question that a person has, or a problem they have in their life, the search engine is the tool of choice to help them find the answers they're seeking.

I saw this morning in my blog stats that the top 5 search queries bringing people to this site were the following:

1. what is a zeta male


2. zeta male


3. my journey through life


4. worry about things that might happen


5. how to know if you're indigo

Maybe I should do more articles on being a zeta male? Definitely more on life journeys and indigo adults...

There are people out there looking for answers, and for help. They're looking for clues and solutions to the problems they have in their lives. And they find their way here, because they're looking for answers related to the things that I write about.

It pains me that I don't have enough to help them with, because I'm still seeking answers myself.

But I hope people will hang around, and that they'll sign up for my updates and connect with me, so that we can journey together through our individual and unique lives, and maybe even share with each other the answers that we find along the way.

The Journey Files now uses PayPal too!

One of the things I was aware of when I set up The Journey Files with the system that gathers 'pay what you want' subscriptions was that it only worked with credit cards, and didn't allow PayPal integration. At the time I decided that was good enough.

But thanks to Cranky Jim in the comments section, I was encouraged to add PayPal support as well.

So I spent an hour or two looking for a solution that would allow interested people to 'pay what they want' with PayPal, and have their email address automagically added to the Mailchimp mailing list.

I eventually found a solution that I created, implemented, and tested. It worked! The test allowed a friend of mine to subscribe and be automatically added to the mailing list.

So Cranky Jim, now you can sign up using PayPal. Thanks for the support, and the encouragement to integrate other solutions into the same system, to increase the opportunities for more people to subscribe. I'll buy you a beer or something when we catch up in Melbourne!

Now to set up similar integration to automagically unsubscribe a person from the mailing list when they cancel their subscription....

Update:

I found that the integration adds ALL those  who use PayPal to pay me for anything, and it doesn't differentiate between the different payment methods or reasons, and there's no way around that. So I've had to disable the integration and will just add people manually when they use PayPal. I'm ok with that.

How to add a photo of yourself to your comments

So after playing around with the commenting system the other night, which I discussed in I have a new commenting system, I left it for a couple days. You know how it is - you spend lots of hours on a problem to find a solution to it, and when you finally implement a solution that works, you just want to walk away from it for a while and move on to something else.

But I was commenting tonight with good ol' Cranky Jim when I realised something was missing. A photo of myself.

It looked a bit bland and boring with no photos, just like Cranky Jim's. So I went about adding one, and after doing it, thought you might like to know how to do the same.

If you look at this image of the comments, you can see that my photo is there, but that's because I resolved that issue (I love finding problems and implementing solutions!).



By the way - you don't have to add a photo of yourself, but it would be great if you did. I love seeing the faces behind the words of those who join me in discussions here.

How to add an image to your comments

(Click on the images to expand them.)

1. Go to gravatar.com - that's the service provider for images integrated with Wordpress blogs.


2. Create a new account (unless you already have one)



Otherwise you can log in with your current account details or a Wordpress.com account if you already have one.

3. Create your new account details - make sure you use an email address that is normally associated with the comments you make on blogs! That's the most important part of this exercise.



Once you've submitted an email address, a username and a password, you'll then have to activate your new account. Make sure you do!



Doing this also gives you your very own brand new Wordpress.com account, just in case you ever want to start blogging one day.

4. Sign into your new Gravatar account

Use your new username and password to sign in and then you'll reach your profile screen where you can manage your Gravatars. Yours will look like this, but with your own email address:



 

5. Click on the link to add a new image

Find the image wherever you have it stored, or take an image with your webcam.



 

If you're selecting a file from your computer (the most common method):



Click on Next.

You'll be able to crop your image to your preferred dimensions.



 

Your image will look much better than mine.

Click on Crop and Finish when you're ready.

Now you'll need to choose a rating for your image, just in case it's not meant for innocent young eyes like mine.



 

6. You're finished!

Finally, you've finished the process. It's not that involved, really, and shouldn't take you more than a few minutes or so. Very easy.

Your image is now associated with your email address, and every time you leave a comment on a WordPress blog or any blog that uses Gravatars (most do), your image will be right next to your comment. Woohoo!

7. "What if I comment with more than one email address?"

That's fine, you can actually add other email addresses to your profile, and even other images.



 

When you have multiple email addresses and multiple images added, you select an email address and then select an image, and that image is thereafter associated with that email address. It allows you to use different email addresses and images on different sites, for different reasons - all from the one Gravatar account.

I hope you've found this helpful!

I'm excited to announce....

My premium content mailing list is now available! I've called it The Journey Files, and I've got this promotion for it in my blog sidebar:

PAY WHAT YOU WANT!

The Journey Files are weekly updates, insights, observations or information which have helped me improve or enhance the experiences of my life's journey. Maybe they'll help you with yours too. I'm writing these articles for subscribers ONLY - they will never be made available on this blog.

I invite you to subscribe to receive your weekly emailed article. You pay only what you want to pay - $1 or $100 (per month). I don't mind! I'll just be grateful for your support.

Click here for more information and to subscribe

It would honour me if you helped support my writing and signed up for a paid subscription. If you pay $1 or $100, I won't mind! The choice is yours, and I'll be grateful for whatever you choose.

You don't understand 'Pay What You Want'

I was doing a bit more research tonight into 'Pay What You Want' (I talked about it over here in It's time to step outside the wire) and I found your website where you created a course that you were offering with the 'pay what you want' model. I was interested, so I read some more.

You were pricing 3 different elements of the course - $97, $147 and $297. You promoted the 'pay what you want' method for a reasonable amount of your promotion page, but then you finished with words to the effect of:

"I will always reserve the right to turn down your offer to pay what you want if it doesn't match what I consider its value."

At that point I laughed. You lost me. You don't want people to 'pay what they want' at all! You want people to pay what YOU want. It looked like all you were doing is trying to cash in on the 'pay what you want' interest out there.



Allowing people to pay what THEY want allows more people to access your product or service than would normally be able to. If you're selling something worth $500, for example, you're only going to get reasonably wealthy people buying it. But if you allow people to pay what they want (what they can afford or even choose to pay), even if it's just $1, you actually end up with the potential to increase your income.

You encourage people to pay you for the value that you're creating or providing.

Not only that, you increase your exposure to more people by allowing more people to buy what you're offering, especially those that might not normally have been able to afford it.

This results in more clients or customers appreciating what you're doing. More people talking about you. More people promoting you. More money being made by you.

And if you offer something of value, then you encourage them to buy more from you, to pay you more next time, and to reward you for the value you're giving them.

But when you disguise a fixed price as 'pay what you want', you make me laugh. You obviously don't get it as you remain fixated on your fixed price. It makes me feel that you don't trust the model well enough to just let go and let people pay you what they think you're worth.

And that's likely part of your problem - what you're worth. You don't see your own worth.

Maybe you don't think you're worth very much at all, so you're afraid they'll confirm that. Be holding on to some form of 'fixed price' control, you feel like you're controlling the value others might see in you, because you don't see that value yourself.

And yes, in talking to you, I'm talking to myself. I'm seeing in you what I need to see, so that I can see the value in it for myself.

I thought last night about offering web hosting services to a business client when I was creating a proposal for them, but I ended up offering three package deals they could choose from. They ended up choosing the cheapest of the packages. It was still a win, but...

What would have happened if I offered my services without a price, and instead offered it to them via the 'pay what you want' model? They may have paid even less than what I originally wanted.

But they may have paid more.

If a potential client or buyer sees value in what you're offering, they might just pay you more than you thought they would.

But you have to be providing value for them to see it themselves and pay you accordingly.

I think so few people in this world today provide anything of value any more, that if something comes along that forces them to actually provide value, they fear it. They don't want to do the extra hard work to provide the real value in their work, when they can rely on fixed prices as an attempt to justify the value.

"Look, see? My work is priced at $500 - that's its value!"

I really like the idea of saying, "Pay me what you feel it's worth to you." Because that encourages me to work harder.

I've enjoyed working as an IT contractor this past 7 years, because it's paid me high amounts of money in exchange for high expectations from the clients for quality of work and exceptional performance. I've had to earn the high income. I've had to prove my value, every single day, or I'd get fired. My contract would be terminated. I had to avoid that from happening!

It was hard work, but I loved that approach. I loved the inspiration and incentive to do the best that I could.

And I can see that Pay What You Want is another element of that, to inspire and encourage me to do the best that I can, in order to encourage my clients or customers (or subscribers) to pay me MORE of what they want, because of the value I'm giving them.

We all end up happier as a result. Win-win. And that's why I intend doing things with Pay What You Want.

I'm going to be revising my proposal to the business client, who has already accepted the fixed price contract. But I'm going to offer it to them again with the new conditions, that they can pay me what they want. They know what I originally wanted (which they accepted), but I'll offer them the opportunity to get it cheaper.

In regards to hours spent working for them to provide them with services, paying me a cheaper rate may encourage them to give me more hours of work than they would at the previous rate. I could end up earning more as a result. (For example, $80 an hour x 10 hours is $800. But $60 an hour x 20 hours is $1200...)

It's all about the value of what you're providing. Fixed prices creates stagnation, while uncertainty creates inspiration, hard work and growth. I love that.

I have a new commenting system

I  have a new commenting system set up now because DISQUS has been a mighty pain in the ass. I've noticed some significant problems with it recently, which I haven't been able to resolve, and I've also had some users let me know they've had problems with it too.

So after today, I've gotten rid of it.

I was noticing two main problems. I don't know if there were any others, but these are the problems that were of concern to me.

1. Failing to load

When viewing a page, the Disqus comments at the bottom of the page just wouldn't load. There would be either nothing there, or it would convert back to an unformatted text-only version of current comments, with no functionality to leave any more comments. This was an intermittent problem usually resolved by refreshing the page. But most visitors aren't going to know they should refresh the page....

2. Comments from one page showing up on another

There was some kind of mismatch of identification occurring between some of the posts - and they weren't even similarly named! Comments from one post were showing up on another post, as if they were that posts's comments - but they weren't.When I looked into the database to try and find it, the database was showing the correct comments for the correct page, but Disqus was still mismatching them.

It was a huge mess that I couldn't fix.

I was probably to blame for this problem occurring in the first place. It's all my fault. In the past I've migrated this blog from WordPress to Ghost and then back to WordPress again, and I've migrated the Disqus system along with it. When coming back to WordPress I had to manually reconstruct the blog posts. I checked and tested Disqus at the time, to make sure it was still working properly, and it seemed to be. But it's just gotten worse over the past couple of weeks.

So I'm over it. It's out.

I'm now using the commenting system built into the Jetpack by WordPress plugin. It allows various forms of login functionality using different social media profiles, while maintaining the comments in my standard blog database.

Instructions

So here's some instructions for how to use it. I know some of you will need these instructions! But it's pretty simple, so you shouldn't have any problems.

At the bottom of a post you'll see this:



When you click inside the box that says 'Enter your comment here...' it expands to this:



You'll notice a number of various options at this point. You can simply insert your comment, followed by your email address and your name (to help me know who you are!) and that's all you need to do.

Oh, you also need to make sure you click on Post Comment when you've finished writing your comment....

Alternatively, you can sign in with any of the other options represented by the small icons - Wordpress.com users, Twitter users, Facebook users, and Google+ users.

Once you've signed in with your chosen account, it should remember it every time you come back to this site and want to comment again. (Unless you delete your browser cookies or use a different browser, in which case you'll have to sign in again.)

I apologise for any inconvenience

I'm sorry that I'm causing this complication in your daily routine. I know it's a hassle to have to log into your accounts again just to create a new comment, when you've already done so in the past. I appreciate your patience, and I hope you can forgive me.

I also hope that this resolves any further issues with the commenting system, and it continues operating as normal in future.

UPDATE

Some further investigation into the database discovered two posts affected by a crossover. The comments on 'post A' were showing on 'post B', and post B's comments were showing on post A.... I fixed them manually, by modifying the code in the database.

I don't know how many other posts are affected this way, but if you find any posts where the comments don't seem to match the post content, PLEASE let me know and I'll be able to investigate and fix it.

But I'm still not going back to Disqus.

I have some great friends

One of the things that's become clear to me now that I'm leaving Canberra and heading off to Melbourne is how close my friends are. Some of them have expressed their sadness that I'm going. One of my friends told me that I'm the only real friend he has in Canberra, and when he found out I was leaving, he cried.

I cried too. I'm touched by the quality of friends I have in my life. I'm sad that I'm moving on. Most of these friends have been close to me for over 17 years now. Some of them are reasonably new, and yet the quality of our friendships are the same - deep, authentic, and heartwarming.

They honour me with their feelings, and with the connections they wish to maintain with me. I'm privileged to have such wonderful friends in my life. For as long as I've known them, they've always been there for me, and I think they always will be.



They're all good people, who I've been happy to continue being friends with. Every single one of them. They've made an effort to be part of my life, just like I've made an effort to be part of theirs.

I'm going to miss them when I go to Melbourne, but I know from experience that the internet can maintain strong friendships, and sometimes even enhance them.

One of my good friends today was only an acquaintance when I moved to New Zealand in 2000, but via a mailing list I created to keep in touch with my friends, he and I became much closer through the emails we shared with each other. When I came back to Australia in 2007 we had become very good friends by then. All because of email, and our communications with it.

So to try and do what experience has shown me actually works, I set up a Facebook group last weekend, and added all my close friends to it. Those who are on Facebook, at least. Using the group, I'll share with them various updates and stories that I want to share with them, and hopefully they'll share their own updates and stories, and together we'll maintain our friendships despite the distance between us.

That's the plan, at least. Time will tell if it works or not.

I have some great friends. I'm thankful for that.

David, Ken, Garrie, Damien, James, Ella, David, Peter, Andrew, Nick, Stephen. I can't make all of you first in the list, but you're all first in my life. Thank you for your friendships. Make sure you keep in touch. You'll always have my love, and my gratitude.

Let's build The Journey Network

Many years ago, back when blogging became popular, bloggers created blogging networks and blog rolls, where they promoted their favourite blogs on their own blog and helped build a community of like-minded blogs and bloggers.

Many of us have forgotten that over the years. I know I have. It's a mistake. We're not islands, and we should never think we are.

We need to be part of a supportive and like-minded community that encourages and inspires us to write, to grow, to share, and to be part of something bigger than ourselves. It's how we can become better writers, and better people.

So I want to get back into that practice, to build a network of like-minded blogs.



If you have a blog that's about YOUR journey, in whatever form, then contact me to have your blog added to the network.

I'll review it and if I think it's suitable, I'll add it. And you should add mine. And we'll build a network of blogs, bloggers and their followers. We'll share content. We'll share readers. We'll all journey together!

Here's the topics that your theme might be about that will fit into this network:

• Personal growth


• Spiritual growth


• Developing as a writer


• Travel blogging

If you're not sure if your blog fits the theme or not, get in touch with me and we'll talk about it.

I'm going to call it The Journey Network, and once I have at least one blog that wants to join this network, I'll create a dedicated page for it, accessible via the top menu.

I'll also add a special RSS feed to the sidebar, to show recent posts from all members of the network.

One of the requirements for being part of the network is to do the same, to have a dedicated network page that lists all members, and an RSS feed to share recent posts from the network.

It's going to take a bit of work, but we used to do this years ago. And building a strong and enjoyable community is going to take work. But I think it's going to be worth it.

So get in touch if you'd like to be part of The Journey Network.

It's time to step outside the wire

I'm going to be taking the plunge over the next few days and will be establishing a premium mailing list with weekly updates planned to "help you make better choices to create a better life for yourself".

I was reading a blog post this morning that really inspired me. It was a guest post by Tom Morkes on Jeff Goins' blog and called What war taught me about writing.

Tom was comparing being a writer to being in the army. Interesting comparison, but what was inspirational were these particular quotes:

"But unless you write – unless you publish – those who need your work are left without your contribution to the world.

In a very real way, the people depending on your work need you to be vulnerable and exposed on a daily basis. Your job, as a writer, is to go outside the wire and publish your work."

---

"Take risks daily: write and publish stuff that matters for the people who matter."

---

"Three simple but powerful lessons:

1. Go outside the wire and publish your work.
2. Take risks daily with your writing.
3. Remember why you do what you do."

After reading the article I was inspired to 'go outside the wire'. Like a soldier risking their life every day they step outside the wire, the least I could do was step up my writing and put myself out there where I'm vulnerable.

One thing led to another and I found that Tom Morkes is also a heavy proponent of the Pay What You Want method of receiving payment for services or products.



I've seen this model in use before, and I've seen others using similar models for their eBooks and downloadable courses, as well as subscription models for premium articles.

I decided to 'go outside the wire' and start my own premium mailing list for substantially better material than what I'm currently doing.

I know what I'm capable of, because I've been there before. With my Thinking Wisely website in 2012 I was doing articles that were designed to help people make better choices. It worked out very well, but the articles were being published for free, and I was pushing an article a day.

I learned from that experience, and what I learned is that writing quality articles of that nature every single day is incredibly difficult, to the point that I burnt out after about 4 months of it. But in that time I'd written over 100 articles.

This time around I'm going to be writing one article per week, and spend my time during that week making sure the article is of exceptional quality.

It's going to be called Join The Journey (if you have any ideas of your own about what it could be called, please add them to the comments below), and invite people to join me in this journey we share, to support me with their subscription, and to receive premium content that's never going to be available on my blog - at a price that anyone can afford.

The subscription will be offered at a minimum of $1 per month. Cheap! It should allow anyone and everyone to sign up for it. Subscribers can pay more if they want to, and it's my hope that they do, but it will be worthwhile for me to just get people subscribing, even if it's for $1 a month.

The onus will be on me to create the best writing I can, to justify the money people are spending on me, and to also provide an incentive for people to increase the value of their subscription in exchange for the high quality material I'll be producing.

I need to 'go outside the wire', or 'step outside my comfort zones' if I'm going to achieve the successes that I want to achieve. If want to be a paid writer then I have to start being a paid writer. This is a good start.

I hope you'll join me in my journey when I start offering the premium subscription within the next few days.

I've achieved a big weight loss goal

Back in 2008 I was 103kg (226lbs). It's the most I've ever weighed in my life. I didn't realise I'd let myself get fat until some friends at the time talked about how concerned they were for my health. I felt a bit indignant at the time, but I decided it might be a good idea to start losing weight.



Interestingly, in 2005, I weighed 86kg (I mentioned it in a blog post back then), so it had taken me 3 years to put on 17kg - almost 6 kg a year. Easy to do when you're not being aware.

I'm currently at 86kg again, but my goal with my weight loss desires was to reach 85kg. On Saturday (two days ago) I weighed myself and I'd reached 85kg. Yay!

I fluctuate up and down, sometimes by up to 2kg on a daily basis, depending on what I've eaten. It's weird, but the fluctuations have been steadily going downwards over the years.

This has also been without exercise. I've managed to lose 16-17kg in 4-5 years without any exercise whatsover. And no fancy diets either.

My secret? Just eat less than what I used to. And be more aware of what I'm eating and drinking. And be thankful for Fanfan's help along the way over the past couple of years.

[Tweet "Behind every great man is a great woman"]

Having a great woman supporting you is fantastic inspiration and motivation to keep on doing the right thing. I'm thankful for the support she's given me.

I just realised that I gained most of my weight during 2005 - 2008, which was coincidentally when I was in a relationship that was far more of a struggle than it was worthwhile. It obviously had a significant side effect with my weight. Signs of depression maybe?

But anyway, it's great that my weight is getting better for me now. I'm really happy about that.

So now that I've reached 85kg (I know, it's 86kg today, but I know it'll continue going downwards), my next goal is 80kg (176lbs). And then?

And then I'll start working on my fitness. Since I'll be carrying a lot less weight it'll be that much easier for me to do exercise.

I never had a deadline for my weight loss. I just had a desire, and I carried through on that desire. I've ended up losing about 3kg a year as a result. I think it'll be good to set a deadline for the next 5kg.

My deadline to be 80kg is Christmas this year. And then I'll enjoy Christmas Dinner!

Let the countdown begin.

I invite you to join The Tribe of Men

I woke up this morning inspired to do something relating to 'tribes'. My interest in tribes, and my blog post about it yesterday, as well as a conversation I was having online with a woman that supported my anti-feminist and masculist points of view resulted in me deciding to do something that brought it all together.

So I created a new community on Google Plus and called it The Tribe of Men.



You're invited to join it if any of the following is aligned with your beliefs and values:

MEN - do you feel as if 'being a man' is a relic of a bygone era and something to be ashamed of or even punished for? Are you seeing human rights for minorities and women's rights for women, but a significant lack of men's rights, when you believe there should just be human rights for everyone? Do you see a system turning a blind eye to men's issues in favor of women's issues (particularly in relation to laws and attitudes around domestic violence) and believe that's wrong? Do you believe in equality, but are frustrated because you don't see it and you want to?

WOMEN - do you feel it's wrong for non-feminist women to stay silent as they watch feminism increasingly criminalize masculinity? Do you believe more women should stand up and add their voice to those men who are calling for equal rights because you see the pendulum has swung too far towards feminist demands? Are you wanting to encourage men to be the men they were born to be and ignore feminist attempts to discourage their masculinity?

Join this community and add your voice! All men and women are welcome to join this tribe of men.

This community is for men to feel comfortable being men, to share what's important to them, and to be supported. It's for ALL PEOPLE who believe both men and women should stand together to strive for equal rights, not just women's rights. It's for those who believe that men being masculine and women being feminine is the way things are meant to be, and are essential for the healthy development of relationships, families and their children, and the continuation of a strong and cohesive society.

We need to be embrace our differences and our individual and unique strengths, while supporting each other. We need each other, and our children need need us to work together with love and support. We don't need to find ways to be better than each other, but we do need to find ways to support each other.

Join this community if you share these beliefs and values. Share this community with your friends who share the same values. Help it grow. Help it be of value to those men who need it, and those women who value men, and those people who truly value equality.

(Make sure you avoid anger. It doesn't help. Anger and hate-filled words can be used against you or this community. By all means, share frustration if you feel it, but don't make statements that can be used against you or your fellow community members. Try to keep it constructive and positive.)

Do you know your tribe?

One of the things that's been of interest to me over the past few years has been the concept of 'tribe'. Tribes aren't new, dating back thousands of years. But 'modern tribes' have been redefined by Seth Godin as:

“A tribe is a group of people connected to one another, connected to a leader, and connected to an idea. For millions of years, human beings have been part of one tribe or another. A group needs only two things to be a tribe: a shared interest and a way to communicate.”

In that context, the connections we have in social media are our 'tribes', and the different circles of people we have are the different tribes that we're part of.

I was reading an article the other day about tribes: How Finding Your Tribe Can Be The Key To Finding Your Ideal Career. I was quite interested in the idea of looking at my friends and seeing the common pattern of interests between them and me, and seeing how we form a 'tribe' based on those shared interests.

Different friends share different interests, and are often in different circles as a result. My interests are quite broad, and so is my range of friends. I'm not sure if I can call them tribes though, because there's no defined and purposeful leadership in any of them, and that's an important element.

It's something that interests me, but I know I'm not a leader. I don't have the interest or desire to lead others. It feels like something I absolutely want to avoid. Too many complications.

But I do enjoy the idea of empowering others to communicate.



 

I enjoy getting others talking and sharing their thoughts and feelings on what interests them. I enjoy getting people participating in conversations. I enjoy encouraging people to expand their horizons and step outside their comfort zones.

But I don't actually want to be a leader. Maybe someone else can lead, who is inspired by what I write and promote. That would be cool.

Interestingly, in an online game called Eve Online, that I've been playing since 2006, I've always chosen the leadership path. I run my own corporation and my own alliance of member corporations. It's what feels best for me. I'm acting as a leader in an online game, just not in real life. I lead my tribe in a virtual reality, but I have no such leadership aspirations in reality.

What's your tribe? Do you have one or many, or none?