Attending A&E Last Night - Brings It All Back

 I dislike Hospitals quite a bit, I've never liked them and their smell, the haphazardness and herding cats feel to queuing and waiting - the waiting is the worst surely.

I had to take someone in last night and after 3 hours or more possibly more they finally got seen only as they were about to discharge themselves - having had a procedure, they were bleeding and needed to get checked.  Now it brought it all back as it will be 19 years next week since I found myself bleeding and commenced a long journey of Bladder Cancer and all the fall out from that, good, bad and indifferent.  We get there eventually but not how you thought and hey, I'm still here which is a good thing.

So yes the same sort of thing and I went into the A&E and it was packed and I'm sure it doesn't need to be - so much going on and some people were just packing up and going home after waiting so long that they probably felt better by then.  Miraculously from being another three or four hours he got seen straightway when he said he was going to discharge himself as if he'd waited this long following triage it couldn't be that worrying for them?  Seen straight away, I got him home gone 1:30 possibly later and got to bed at 2.

There's a lot of people didn't look like they needed to be in A&E but that's the way it works now.

The radical answer?  We all know the radical answer but no one has the balls to go do it, they just give it more money and boost the non jobs and say they've fixed it.

Anyway, 19 years, it was an awful time that week and in fact the few days afterwards then the wait then the operation in double quick time and you can read the rest at the beginning of this blog!  

Townies

 I used to be a Townie then we moved out of London when I was about 10 years old and generally I've lived on the edge of the countryside and now in it, which is great.

What's p1ssing me off is that all this demonizing of cars is a bit rich when you live, where we live, for example down a private unmade lane.  As you may know I tried to get busses but it doesn't work around here,  I have to walk half a mile (easily that) to a stop.  Anytime between 8 in the morning and about 6 at night all is good, the busses seem reasonably frequent and then today, a Sunday, no busses.  So what exactly are we meant to do?  It's a 45 minute walk to the nearest station and it's about 30 Degrees outside.  So all of this bollocks from the Townies about cycling or using public transport actually doesn't work in about 90% of the rest of the country.  

 I used to like getting home at midnight and seeing a bu that would take me somewhere near my house but now, I'd have to wait until 6 am I guess :-)  We need cars due to the distances and terrain, there aren't always footpaths to walk on along the main roads etc.  No services Sundays and Evenings - bonkers, I drove through town last night and it was dead, hardly anywhere was packed and barely any cars or people.  Oh well, that's my whinge for the day as I will now have to drive everywhere today as usual. It would be nice to get a bus into town, have a few beers or go to an event and get a bus out but it isn't going to happen ever and the townies will complain that we are driving around in our 4 wheel drives.  It would be fun to see them try and cycle down here where I live!  

Is It Me? If So, Is It Only Me?

 I am having some strange thoughts and my attitude to things around me is shifting.  I feel I would rather be anywhere else but where I am right now and I feel a disconnection with stuff going on as well as disbelief at what is happening in our society.

The recent Abortion changes, today's Assisted Dying (suicide) Bill and the horrendous Tax regime which works on taxing you more because the last time you did it, it made things worse!   The present Fabian , Marxist ideologues have learned nothing from their past, not one jot.  There's a disconnect between the people and these supposed servants of the people in as much as they don't service the people, perhaps the diametric opposite.  Then there's the increase in the State, more non jobs, more quangos more jobs for the boys, fat pension, and my personal favourite, that I have fought all my life against which is praise, reward and promotion for those who actively fought against the project (lets call it) you and everyone else failed in everything they did and rather than lose their jobs they were richly rewarded whilst we, who did the right thing, got shat upon!

Petronius Arbiter, a Roman courtier during the reign of Nero, wrote:

"We trained hard . . . but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization."

The NHS for example is constantly reorganized but is the same, it just gains more weight, becomes ever more sluggish and inefficient.  The same for all Public businesses.  If any were to compete in my world of the private business they would be bankrupt in a month or two.  They are all insolvent and no one cares.  Then you see these people are "Honoured" in the King's Appointments etc.  Sir this, Dame that and you know damn well that the vast majority of these people fail at every level and get richly rewarded for it.

So what's my point?  Well it's that I've got to the point of not caring what they do any more because, I can't beat them, I can't join them, they make me angry and annoyed and what for?  I'm too old to fight them now and not enough people are awake anyway.  I do think that there is a ground swell at least in terms of the political parties which may shake up the system (well at least until they get in power and taste the rich rewards for the power they wield but maybe not for the people they wield it for).

We seem to be "very British" about all of this. We tend to let it happen and I imagine there comes a breaking point but I have no idea how near that is.  I've fought my fights and to be honest, I now feel old, I found that where 20 years or more ago I'd relish the fight, would be self assured in my own stance and actions, my own abilities but now, with that awful threat of legal action (baseless as it was) it really has knocked me and reminded me how good people can go bad, how illogical and selfish they can be and how downright rude and despicable too.

So I've been spending a lot of "me time" recently, sitting in the garden, thinking and pondering but also trying to get back to just enjoying the surroundings and the birds and animals in the fields around me.  Enjoying the sun, the breeze and the endless rustles in and around our hedgerows.  I think that's where I am drawn to but of course, there's work and I wasn't expecting to be working right now, I was hoping to be retired.  The same old work related problems of course do not help.

So I am trying to switch away from this sordid war mongering, joy grabbing bunch of politicians who are woefully inadequately ready for government and distance myself and break away.  It's probably the wish to leave this present world and go to my new world that I want and yet I am dragged back to the old too often.  Added to that the depression and gloom associated with it, and the booze if I'm honest, and I struggle to pull myself from one place that I know is not good for me to a place where I can escape it all.  I am certain that these moods are top down problems and it isn't just me.  What I do hope it that I can open the door, get to the other side and not have to come back again which possibly accounts for my recent death thoughts too for it's the transition allegory of rebirth.  Anyway, that's what today looks like.  

The Long Metamorphosis

 It struck me that humanity has turned in the past 50 or so years.  Lots of things have conspired to bring us to this point where people are generally brought down by all this crazy impositions on our lives by people who we entrust to do the right thing and actually work for us!  Not vice versa, they are our servants but they've sort of tricked the gullible into a master servant arrangement.  They aren't very good at their jobs, they lie (all the time) and are snake oil salesmen frankly.

Then the people themselves turn on each other and the tension is ramped up as if over winding a main spring and trying to release it without the proper tool.  There's racial tension, there's money tension.  Soon there will be employment problems to add to it too.  All the time the state gets bigger, 4 million public servants, " public sector employment stands at 5.87 million people as of June 2023, representing approximately 17.9% of total employment. This includes jobs in central government, local government, and public corporations. The NHS is a significant component, employing around 2 million people." it costs around £1.1 Trillion and is up around 70% from Covid times.

Someone once told me that we ran the whole British Empire with 40,000 Civil Servants.  No AI, No Internet, Telegraph messages.  Impressive.  

This huge sector doesn't actually do anything to increase GDP (if we are to take any measure) and it takes around 160 days for each person in the UK to work just to cover these costs.

And they don't do a good job, the cult of "World Beating NHS" is long dead and tired only Politicians believe it and the public note that it takes longer to get anything done now even with all the extra staff and money thrown at it.  They don't have the courage to do anything and are in all probability in it for themselves and it doesn't affect them.

So I was wondering whether we will come to a pass here where we stop being nasty to each other, cruel, despicably behaved, fighting and war mongering, unpleasant to each other and will we finally rip apart our Chrysalis and pump up our beautiful wings and be at one with our planet and each other? A great awakening?  Perhaps we need more time, perhaps we aren't ready for it yet.  I think slowly the slumbering giant is waking up but perhaps not in my lifetime?  Maybe it's part of the eternal struggle but to be better than we are is surely a goal we should strive to reach.  Our evolution is probably too early on to achieve it as we are at the moment.  Wake up humanity, arise and be the best you can.  I suppose you all need to wake up and emerge together to make it happen.  

Calm But Still Not Right

 I find that the last few days have been calmer and I feel much better in myself.  However, I'm still not right and realise that I haven't been for years if I think about it.  Something isn't right and deep down in dungeons of my brain and deep inside my body I can feel it.

I really dislike going out anywhere and I would be quite happy to just be around the house and garden but that isn't going to happen and this "business" isn't going to run itself anytime soon and so that also drags at me.  I've just taken a short break from doing social media postings as I just can't think of anything to post - I imagine in a day or two that will change too.

I find people (not all) to be somewhat illogical or no longer feisty and full of character they don't seem to see what I see and they don't have the opinions that I do although they do parrot what they see and hear.  Back in the day we used to get a newspaper every day at one time and at weekends get two on Sunday.  A cup of coffee and a sit down to read cover to cover was something you did and yet still had time to do the massive garden we had, decorate the house and so on and I worked really hard too so coming home from work I'd have some food and then go and do two or three hours decorating work ready to be up at 6 again to go to work!  I can't do that now.  I can barely get the enthusiasm for anything.

Back to being informed - TV was for specific things and when it could be trusted to give you something like the facts and not their opinion was OK.  It was there for a little entertainment a bit of sport and so on.  The newspaper gave you the in-depth look at the world.  We both worked and we worked hard at work and play.

Today there is a stream of information available to you and that's OK but there doesn't appear to be the individual thought or analysis of that data..  There are lots of AI fakes, news but angled in the way that news outlet wants you to hear it and there is very little analysis or questioning going on.  I tend to have a low tolerance level for these things.  We have a government of naive, never run a business or a project types who have little grasp of the bigger picture.  They aren't even detail people and they certainly have no grasp on the need to encourage entrepreneurship.  The magic money tree has long since run out of money and the leanings toward more public sector and public expenditure without the money to pay for it from businesses being taxed so high they squeak is not the way to guide themselves out and "Go for growth" which they say they are doing.  Nasty socialist ideologies go down well with some people and if you rob Peter to pay Paul, you can always rely on Paul's vote.

The Keynesian socialist approach looks doomed already but no one seems to notice the economic data coming in and realise it isn't the bed of roses painted it's a forest of nettles and Venus fly traps.  Oh well.  That probably doesn't help my mood much either :-) 

P1ssing In The WInd

Sometimes it feels like that when you get absolutely no reaction from the stuff you are doing for other people.  I suppose I shouldn't be shocked about it, just resigned to it.  You publish something of interest and no body is interested, fair enough I suppose.  It just seems like a lot of effort to me that just goes to waste.

I'm going through hundreds of items for the App launch and it's just dragging now.  Well it's been dragging for 7 years but that's another story altogether I suppose.  Where are people's sense of urgency these days it's as if all the stuffing has been knocked out of the populace, everyone appears weary and tired and not bothered.  Perhaps that just me?

So how do we remedy this?  I have no idea but our Chancellor will read our fortune to us today and I'm not sure anyone has got a grasp of how deeply in the brown and smelly stuff this country is in?  The trouble is no one believes a word they say.  To anyone with half a brain, there looks to be something very wrong indeed with the way that they are approaching things and the socialist rule book is being opened at the part where it states that you can now tax your way out of the hole you've dug for yourself.  You cannot go for growth if you are stifling it and just because you have cheques in your cheque book doesn't actually mean you have money in the bank!

The collective sharp intake of breath will potentially be heard around the world.  

Like Many Things In Life You Move On Past It

 The more distance between the nastiness of a few months ago and today, the more I feel less stressed and move on to the next thing on my list of stuff to do.  I'd forgotten how much planning and actually doing these tasks took.  It takes up my day but I am not over doing it like I would have done in the past.  I'm just getting things lined up as infuriatingly I am waiting for the odd little bits of information to complete things.  Like links to websites so I can generate QR Codes and tested links.  Wording for the adverts, I've got all the words and like Eric Morecambe might have said "I've got all the right words but not necessarily in the right order!" 

Those little details will take time and so I am preparing everything ready to go and then I will spend a lot of time posting adverts, uploading directories, making videos and uploading and indexing them etc.  The late changes mean that the work I had already done needs to be redone as the layout has changed.  

I still have a concern that there'll be some sort of crazy stuff go on from this bloke.  The worry is that he's angry and irrational and is in denial I think about his own actions.  It's like me crashing my car and blaming the wall and not letting the facts get in the way of a great story "This wall came out of nowhere and stepped into the path of my car!" And, strangely, that is the sort of twisted logic I am dealing with here.  It's my fault that he lost his mind and threw all his toys out of the pram.  You cannot mitigate for the irrational and bizarre but there you go.

So, I am getting on with it for now and just having to navigate through all the work that is coming up in the next few months.  Hopefully I will be able to keep up with the workload.  

Second Guessing What Someone Else Is Going To Do

 There is only so much planning and risk management, identification and mitigation one can do.  I have this worry that I've not covered all the bases and that something else is going to crawl it's way out and deliver more grief.  Grief that I don't want nor deserve.

Worrying about it doesn't really assist either and I know that and my mind knows that but will it just stop and draw a line under it?  No, the little voice is giving it large and I really do need to switch it off now.  I can do no more, I have examined everything that I can and mitigated what I can.  I cannot mitigate the unmitigated!  Second guessing isn't going to cut it and so I just need to run on and counter whatever (if) might be thrown next.

But it is getting to the point that there isn't really that much that can be done about it really.  I'll just have to carry on and see what happens.  Everything else is covered I think.  

It Doesn't Take Much To Knock You Off Normal

 And by that I mean how I currently feel.  I am trying to get the business back on the straight and narrow and with all the threats and unpleasantness that has gone on, even though none of it is of my making, I feel the breathe of condemnation about the decisions I am making to keep the company going and to recover from the desertion and then subsequent attacks about how I run the business.  

It's in my mind really, that the attacks weren't really justified and weren't based on reality but it is still unerring double checking everything and wondering what someone else, who no longer has any connection to the business thinks about it!  It's nonsensical really.  Why should I care about what someone who has deserted the business, thrown their toys out of the pram and then accused me of (well) all sorts of stuff thinks.  

Such is the way my brain works that I actually need to play all these scenarios out and makes sure I've covered all the bases I can possibly think about.  It's tiresome and probably overkill but just in case I think I need to do that.  

I have to take certain actions if I am to launch and run the business and I don't care what he thinks - I actually don't think he thinks and just reacts and digs his hole deeper and deeper until there is no way out.  He doesn't really have a say in the business at all so what am I worried about?  Well you know what they say about cornered wild animals.  That is what I am worried about and it isn't logical or planned it's primeval.

Oh well, most things are thought through and so I hope that perhaps we can make progress and leave this nastiness behind us now.  

Visit A Brewery? What's Not To Like?

 Apart from I'm driving so no or very little beer for me.  It was too expensive to stay locally and so I am driving and wouldn't you know it, it's raining in June!  Oh well, we are indoors most of the time so hopefully it will be OK.

It's the Harveys Brewery in Lewes so it is a bit of a trek but better than last  year's outing to Amberley Museum which saw us stuck in traffic for hours both there and back :-)  As I used to work in the industry it will be like visiting an old friend and Harvey's beers are lovely.  I'll have to wait until we get home to have a beer except I don't have any in the house.  That's following a good few weeks of drinking beer most days which really isn't that good for me.  That's one of my biggest problems really, I'd have a beer every evening if I could but it is no good for your health and is "Liquid Bread" in terms of weight gain.   Tastes great though :-(

Anyway, a day out and a break which I seriously need.  The last few months have been really bad for me and I'm just getting out of the dumps that I was put in.  Looking forward to a break in proceedings that's for sure.

Getting Over It - Just What The Doctor Ordered

 If you know how I work and how I function, then it will come as no surprise to find that I am now in a position of true power and by that I mean, I now know what I need to do to get on with things and press on with getting the business back on an even keel after the stormy waters of the past 8 months and especially the last 3 months. 

The first attack was all in and pretty nasty I have to say and he may come back again for a bit more but he should be licking his wounds and wondering what the hell just happened to his strategy.  Me?  I've now gone though hell and back in my own head because I fully doubted myself and have had to break it all down and rebuild piece by piece what just happened, why it happened and what it means.  But here is the thing, it is a huge wall of noise but as it was so all encompassing but utterly disjointed at the same time, a pack of lies and half truths and a blunderbuss rather than a sniper's bullet.

Picking through all of the stuff from the accusatory and vexatious nature of it, to the shaking my head disbelief that someone I've known for close to 10 years could actually turn on me in such a horrific way.  The trouble is, it's business but not to him it isn't.  

Anyway, I have concluded that if they are going to go for another bite then it is going to have to be something technical and I have raised the drawbridge but offered to parlez but not heard back.  His threats to legal action will not be looked on kindly if he tries to take court action without first having attempted to settle this directly.  I have made that offer, to speak directly or through a mediator but herein lies the problem.  In all the accusations and bluster, the banging of shields and personal slurs, there's not one point of contention shown that either hasn't been answered or are the direct results of his own actions.

So here I am now, getting over this set back and with a strategy to move on and to put this in to the past.  It's like having a good friend just ignore you and then bad mouth you to everyone for no cause but their own inexplicable actions.  I think he is ill but he never wants to see or talk to me again so it kind of precludes me from even asking about him via people I know who know him.

It's a mess alright and one that I still look at blinking and wondering what on earth brought this on and why the volcanic eruption to it as well?

Now, Please, Can I Get On With My Life?

 I don't get why people want to interfere in what I do.  More so if they have extracted themselves and practically divorced themselves from me and burnt their boats, bridges, roads, paths and everything as they went.  They don't quite understand that after me being concerned over their well-being and then to have them launch the most horrendous ad hominem attack on me, I have now arrived at the position of:

"YOU ARE DEAD TO ME!"

I can think of no other way to put it after everything you put me through after years of what looks like them using me.  Yes, they could be ill I suppose, that's what I told myself but it still doesn't excuse unacceptable behaviour.

So yes, I fully expect to hear from this individual again and I will once again treat it with respect but robust responses.  If I never hear from him again, it will be too soon!  They've torched their way off and let's hope they stay there.

Gosh That Knocked Me Sideways

 The shock of the letter, the ferocity and vexatious nature of it, out of the blue has given me three months of stress and anxiety that I did not need, mild panic attacks and seriously doubting my sanity and myself.

Yesterday I felt a lot better and not so paralysed about it all and today I feel lighter and the weight has lifted somewhat.  I've done loads of research, tested theories and checked my working, my knowledge of commercial and contract law and finally, I have explored all the possible avenues I can think of for any comeback or further action towards me.  What was clear in the letter was that it was written in anger and in a revenge fuelled way.  Doing so opens emotional arguments and not fact based ones.  Facts take a back seat.

What is annoying to me is that it even got this far.  It should never have seen the light of day and it should have been stopped by those who purport to know better.  It was devised to give me maximum stress and doubt and it did that because that's what it is intentionally written to do.

 I like that I took those days off to think about it and to not think about it too.  The problem I have encountered is my drinking has gone through the roof and that stops tomorrow, I need to walk away from that stuff and whilst it is summer and a beer is nice, out there by the sunset seat and fire pit, it cannot be 4 to 6 cans of beer per night every night!  That's not sustainable either from my body's point of view nor financially.  It is so easy to do, to go at the end of the day and drown your sorrows and reflect on what's going on but this isn't the way.  

I now have a clear action plan to follow and have an idea in my head what I need to do, action plans are also written down, ready to implement.  The only worry is now will he come back for a second bite at the cherry?  There's little or no room for that and almost everything I can think of has been documented and mitigation is ready to be implemented.

Three months it's taken, goodness knows what this has done to me through all the stress and uncertainty and I imagine he will be going through the same now.  A good thing to do is to get all the anger out and I have some wild notes that I wrote at the time to get it out of my brain and on to paper which I can destroy shortly.  It clears your mind of the emotional stuff and focuses in on the facts, figures and reality of the situation.  It also reinforces your analysis of the contents and nonsensical parts of his argument, the distortion of facts, facts that have now been copied and returned to counter his untruths and finally, the coup de grâce written in his own hand which destroys all the arguments put forward.  

A good thing that I keep and reference this stuff and there are a few more items I have too should it ever come to it.  That letter should make the whole thing go away.  But on top of that, offering for talks and mediation as a way forward to defuse all of this provides a way forward, should they want it but if they aren't thinking straight still, perhaps not.

Anyway, the good news is that I am feeling that much better about things now and finally I am over the cycle you go through with this stuff (Kubler Ross) and whilst my INTJ brain is good for this stuff in a business sense, in a personal sense it doesn't function as well as it should.  I actually knew the answer straight away though but had to work through all the angles and scenarios to prove it to myself.

So, onward I hope and upward I'd like to think too.  

Progress - Actually Doing Some Work For A Change

 Quite pleased with the last few days as I have been cracking on with setting the business up and implementing some risk management strategies, some corporate  paperwork and getting on with the sales and marketing side of things.  

There's always plenty to do and I have been balancing out the work, breaking it into chunks and getting on with it.  AI is great for thinking or discussing things and most useful to assist in closing loop holes and assist in document formation and things like agendas - its all starting to get real.  After 7 bloody years it should do too.  How can you deliver something that late and not be severely embarrassed by it I just don't know.  

Anyway, that's where we are, I am actually doing things, taking breaks and not staring at my screen doing nothing so that's a start.

Flash Back Time Again

 I was sitting here working away and suddenly I was back to when I was 18 driving through Wandsworth going to college in my (not so) trusty 1963 Ford Cortina.  Those were the days, you could drive all around London, the City everywhere and park and at weekends I always used to drive up there to go to work then on to see my first serious girlfriend driving back on a Sunday night through the Blackwall tunnel as fast as my poor little car could go - which was all of 60 with a tail wind downhill! She lived in Chingford, I lived in Orpington, both our grand parents lived in the Chelsea area so we would go and see them too.

Lovely days now I look back on them and these little flashbacks are "interesting" as suddenly there I am in a situation I recall with people I haven't met in - well - fifty years or so.  I can picture them and hear them talk to me too.  Names drop out of my head and I wonder whatever happened to them?  

I don't hold on to many friends, I have a few people I still keep in touch with and a small handful of friends and even then those relationships aren't the same since I got divorced and went my own way.

Not to worry though eh?  I was also just reminding myself how many people I have met have treated me like a statue to their pigeon and generally shat on me from a great height.  Too many people treat you like that don't they?  I suppose if you are nice to people that's the reward you get. 

There's A Huge Lack Of Scientific Thinking These Days

I know that I've always stood out as being cold and calculating normally (95% of the time) applying logic and some sort of process to analysing what I see, developing ideas, working out different strategies and outcomes, that sort of thing.  

I know it infuriates some people I know as they tell me something I don't immediately react.  I am not great at seeing that someone wants some reassurance or comfort or that they are telling me something that I need to act human to!  So if I hear things I rarely react in a way other than gathering information mode and that really sets some people off.

It matter not what it is but let's take politics and the actions of the Chancellor and the way that they are trying to tax their way out of problems.  It doesn't take a rocket scientist to work it out, take the Laffer curve or industry data to get you started on working out what is going on.  The Laffer curve sort of says the more you tax the less return you will get and high net worth people who are able are leaving for other sunnier climes to avoid the crippling taxes foisted on them from people who don't understand how business works or indeed how increasing taxes and the like proves to de-incentivise people.  

The regime launched last October that punishes entrepreneurship, working, taking on employees and so on is bound to work its way through and figures recently for example the huge return of company vehicles to the leaseholder and the huge drop in new car and an sales should ring alarm bells surely?  These are huge increases in returns and decreases in sales and no one is adding 2+2 to work out why?  They say that we are doing well?  Really?  Highest energy prices in the world for some wet dream of zero CO2 to which as a country we probably generate 1% of the world's total.  The Steel works priced out by the huge costs of energy and the inability to source locally but that's OK we ship it in from around the world instead.

The incomprehensible attack on Farmers, Fishermen and the absolute base of our food and well being.  They don't get that either.  Why are they so blind to facts and figures?  Could it be that none of them know how to manage anything (it is it's rhetorical).  This ultra slow train crash government have no idea what they are doing.  Because they write it on paper or learned it from a book they think it's policy and it magically happens, no one has to work for it!   

I just stare on incredulously at them and wonder why they are so cretinous, so stupid and given all the information I can gather about them, so blind to cause and effect.  It's beyond belief, it really is.  I know it's not just the UK but we must take Gold Medal for stoopid! 

Not Said Much About Bladder Cancer Have I?

 If this blog proves anything it is that Bladder Cancer is (mainly) survivable if you catch it early enough and you change things to give yourself the very best chance.  That life goes on and is the same mixture of good, bad, downright ridiculous, humourous and all the ups and downs we suffer and enjoy in our chequered existence.

I have the occasional flash back and I still have remnants of the claustrophobia and general distrust of the modern medical profession.  Don't get me wrong they sorted me out and cut out the cancer and treated it and along the way I saw the very best and very worst of it all.  I found out I have this Vasovagal syncope which occurs when the part of the nervous system that regulates heart rate and blood pressure overreacts to a trigger.  Mine is if they try and clear a cannula or back pressure a catheter or try and put a cannula in.  No matter how often I say it, they don't listen and out I go!

It took close to 17 years start to finish and the ups and downs along the way have been just that, stuff that happens.  You get tired and worn out, you forget and overdo things.  You struggle with silly things, weight, supplements, diet, drinking (or at least I do) and many other things and for me, I tend to overdo things to extreme sometimes.  I go all in on a particular diet, a set regime and then I drop it and perhaps come back to it.  I'm human but also I'm a little bit obsessed with things when my INTJ brain sets to work.

I've got into silly ruts, gone high and gone low, been full of life and alive and gone to meet Black Dog.  Far too often I think the Black Dog has visited me.  It's something that I have struggled with all of my life, I over analyse, I don't live today often enough, I procrastinate, go into risk management mode and generally, I seem to be aimlessly wandering at the moment.

Not sure what it is although deep, deep down inside I think I do.  I worry too much even though I know I shouldn't and the older I get the more things trouble or annoy me. 

I'm alive, I'm a Cancer Survivor and I owe it to myself to be a little bit more grateful.  Not sure if I owe that to anyone else, perhaps my consultant who by prompt action and skilful intervention saved my life.  Maybe you do owe those who looked after you to live your best life.  

I need to reflect on this a little more - other people getting me down because of their faults (not mine) are dragging me down.  I shouldn't let them should I.

Well, That's A Lot Better Day

 Gosh, getting old takes away much of your confidence doesn't it?  The recent nonsense really did knock me sideways and it was taking up my days and making me anxious and doubting my own sanity.  These things feed doubt into your mind and all the confidence I had was punched out of me.  I wouldn't mind if it was me that set all this in motion or caused it.  Both actions taken were bolts out of the blue and pretty much unpredictable.

So now, I am pretty certain that the penny has dropped on their side and that they will soon realise that they have painted themselves into a corner.  Despite the awful way in which they have behaved, I left two openings for them to recover if they so wish.  I cannot make them do that, only they have the ability to do so.  I cannot imagine it will be easy having played all their cards at once and left themselves with little to room to manoeuvre.

All out attack is a strategy but it doesn't always work out how you think it will.  I recommend the book 'The Art Of War' by Sun Tzu - which has served me well over the years.  A 2,500 year old book it has some very useful lessons.  Some other lessons include (think it was Bonaparte) "Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake" I may have paraphrased that but it is also quite useful watching people digging themselves a deeper hole as they go about whatever they are doing to you at the time.

And so, a little peace and sanity have descended over me this weekend.  It's not that I have forgotten what I know about how people behave but more that it deeply affects me now.  I have ended up in this position (running a business) by default, by doing someone "a favour" if you like and as you know, being kind and nice to people gets you screwed over.  Happened all my life, probably happen again and I shouldn't be surprised I suppose.

The other lesson from a few years back was the greed and also self fulfilling prophecies that you come across in business, especially start ups.  Greed is where people can only see the £s and $s and the "riches" that the business promises but lose sight of the undeniable fact that you actually have to work for the money and work bloody hard it isn't just going to drop into your lap and if you don't pull your weight then you are going to be left behind with a broken dream and not understand why you failed (again).  The self fulfilling prophecy is often encountered too, where a previous experience is recounted and has been burnt into their minds and blow me down, if they don't make the same mistake as before almost masochistically and then complain that it happened again when it was entirely of their own making.

After A While, It All Clicks Into Place

I watch a YouTube channel presented by a Barrister and it's pretty interesting stuff.  I've had years of claims and counter claims experience and a few scars to show for it.  What's refreshing is that after some months of not being right and feeling pretty miserable I needed this wake up call to realise that it is the way some people go about things and not me.

Here's the video and it's worth a watch and a like and subscribe - there are some very interesting things and not just only in this video. I certainly enjoy Dan's candour and I like to watch what the "legal take" is on some of the things you hear.

So, this video suddenly re-enforced the opinion that the recent pretty awful letter was indeed just that, a nasty tactic to get me disturbed and worrying about something that has had me annoyed, worried, losing sleep, analysing, strategic planning and more.  I should know better having faced this sort of nonsense most of my working life but, now, I'm not working (well I am but that's another story) I should be retired but some people want their cake and eat it and want you to make them more cake so they can have that too.  All the while they are just being plain nasty.

I finally stopped worrying about this disgusting letter I received and made my mind up that it was, as I had suspected, a ruse.  It actually now makes no sense whatsoever, it doesn't actually say what it wants resolved and it doesn't stop short of being abusive and almost threatening.  So watching this video really did clear up all of that for me.  

What I do not understand though is why the very first letter is an all out assault and not something stating what needed to be resolved.  Such a powerfully arrogant, nasty and downright insulting letter actually paints them into a corner, there's no possibility of discussion or mediation it's his way of the highway and that's it, they are cornered.  Why play all cards at once, stick the "frighteners" on and leave no way out for either party?  It seems a bad call to me.  There's now no nice, clean and agreeable way forward.

Anyway, glad I came across this video at this time.  

 

Distraction As A Technique To Getting On With It

 I am still seething about the way I was treated and I still don't know if it is over.  I am hoping that it will be and that it disappears or if it does raise its ugly head again it will be in the form of a grovelling apology.

I've put myself full on into building up the business marketing strategy and having tested this morning I can see we are pretty much there now.  Some hard work to do with the launch but it will just have to be hard work won't it?  The next thing is to tackle my anxiety and this shaking which is annoying and a little concerning.  I'm sure it is stress related to what's going on but I just need to monitor it and keep an eye on it.  I dislike it as I can see my hands tremble and that's not good.

I've got to try and get back on top of all of this and I am hoping that the business will prove successful and if it does, then some of the worry can go away.  Work is proving the distraction I need but of course that's related to the whole shenanigans going on too.