that I think that this is the coolest thing ever!
Hope it’ll be real some day!
“There’s no substitute for experience”
“Don’t confuse age with experience”
For me there has always been a simple answer to this question: No.
It turns out that I may be wrong! Read on…
I was recently reading about how you can break perfectionism into three different types, and here they are:
- Internal perfectionist: you have very high standards for yourself
- External perfectionist: you have very high standards for other people
- Social perfectionist: You perceive other people to have high expectations of you (regardless of what they think).
With this breakdown it becomes quite clear that I suffer from Social perfectionism. The idea that other people expect me to be a better person that I am is probably incredibly egotistical, but there you are. Now some people would quite rightly say that striving for perfection is no bad thing. But of course there are problems with setting the unreachable goal. There is the stress of never being good enough. There is the very real problem that having standards sitting at the level of perfection can actually result in complete paralysis. The unwillingness to do anything because it won’t be good enough. The planning and planning and planning of something without ever getting to the execution stage, because lets face it even the plan needs to be perfect.
In my case it can lead to a lack of participation, feeling a non-existent social pressure to be perfect will of course manifest in social situations. So performing, trying something daring or new (I’m thinking of Capoeira moves here) is out of the question because I’ll likely fail – at least the first few times, and in front of a load of people no less!!
So with this realization I feel I need to start a new resolution (never wait until new years for this kind of thing, it may be too far away!).
That resolution is simply this: Dare to fail.
If you leave them for too long they rot.
Think about it.
Well I went to the British museum at the weekend, the first time I’ve been. Of course I took my camera and took a few pictures. I wasn’t really feeling it though, I felt a bit un-inspired. However before I went to bed last night I had a quick flick through the pictures I did take (still on the camera). And you know what, they were actually not too bad. They’re going to be blurry there’s no doubt about that, it was pretty dark in there. But the composition was actually pleasing.
Hopefully this will be the start of re-ignited enthusiasm for photography.
The postman did not know how right he was.
I was picking up a package that had not been delivered on the 21st of December (no-one was in). The postman thought I was luck because it was supposed to be returned to the sender on Tuesday, but the Christmas backlog meant that it was still in Guildford. I happened to know that this was just the beginning of the luck.
The package contained an iPod Touch, which I had won by accident.
You see what had happened was that I’d put down my deposit for the first stage of my traveling. At the time I did not know that this would enter me into a competition. I’ve already relayed the surprise I experienced when I got the phone call informing me that I’d won the iPod Touch.
Of course the luck goes deeper than that:
I’m going traveling this year, a trip that should be an experience of a life-time. I have great friends and a supportive family, in fact there aren’t many parts of my life that aren’t flipping amazing.
Yesterday my airline tickets arrived. It’s definately happening now!
My plans have roughly solidified (assuming everything I want to do is still available), it goes, China, Hong Hong, New Zealand, Fiji, Australia and home.
Not really a round the world trip but certainly an extensive trip!
Now I’m spending my time trying to budget for everything – I think I’m going to have to be pretty stingy over the next few months!
So after a bit of frantic money moving and bank hopping yesterday, I’ve paid for my flights. I’ll be leaving on the 1st August 2008, ready to start training on the 4th. At the end of the martial arts academy I’ll be spending a week in Hong Kong before flying on to New Zealand, arriving on the 2nd of November.
Then with luck I’ll be going to Fiji around February, although I’ve yet to book this part (something for next year methinks!).
All of this means that I’ll be back in the UK around April 2009, which makes for a ‘career break’ of roughly eight to nine months!
It’s all pretty exciting, even though my iPod Touch still hasn’t arrived…
I spent last night leafing through an atlas, simply thinking ‘Ooo I could go there’. I expect this travel malarky can be addictive, in fact my housemate Anna made the bold statement that if I went travelling I wouldn’t come back…. Not likely but still 🙂
I’ve been on the phone to real gap and to a travel agent, the flight from here to china, then from china to New Zealand, then from New Zealand will cost in the region of £1500. If you ask me that is pretty damn good! It also means that if I save like crazy next year that I can probably go somewhere else too!
I’ve been tempted by Hawaii, this would make it a proper round the world trip – as in fly off in one direction and get back from the other direction. However there may be some problem with that idea as it seems that the program I was looking at may not be continuing… More when I know.
But that has given me the chance to look at Fiji instead. It’s expensive, just over £2000 for six weeks, without flights. Then again it does look amazingly appealing. Plus I’d end up with a SCUBA diving qualification!
It’s all very well saying ‘I’m going to go travelling’ but it takes quite a bit more for something to actually happen. With no idea where to start I turned to Google (bear in mind that at this stage it was still only a vague thought). I was surprised to find that there are actually quite a few companies out there dealing exclusively with gap years and career breaks. One that I liked for no particular reason (it may well just have been the first one I looked at) was realgap. But they had so much choice, and I had no particular plan on where I wanted to go or what I wanted to do.
So I employed a simple technique: Snap decisions.
I had a little look around the site for something that would catch my eye.
The first thing was martial arts training in China, that sounded pretty cool, if slightly scary. The next thing that stood out was the work program in New Zealand.
I started talking to some local friends about my plans (increasing the level of social commitment). Then I talked to my parents, who were very encouraging and supportive about the idea.
Then realgap updated their website with a travel story, someone had recorded their experiences at the martial arts centre. Immediately it seemed less scary, they had a great time and it suddenly looked like I’d be a fool not to go for it.
So just over a week ago on Saturday, I bit the bullet, and put down a deposit for three months of martial arts training in China.
On the following Monday I received a call from real gap:
“I have some disappointing news for you…” Damn I thought, there are no spaces for when I want to go “…you’ve won an iPod touch”.
This came as a bit of a shock, and certainly wasn’t the kind of bad news that I was expecting. I kept my wits about me though and broke my shocked silence early.
“Oh!” I said assertively, then with slightly more enthusiasm “Wow, cool”.
We confirmed some details and hung up.
Now I’m not entirely sure where I stand on the whole fate/karma type stuff, but I certainly have a general leaning towards good things happen when you’re on the right track. So I can take this good fortune as some kind of blessing on the whole trip 🙂
So here I am, I still don’t know if my place at the academy has been confirmed as any post about it will go to Guildford and I’m in Plymouth. My ipod touch still hasn’t arrived and I’m quite skint.
So to be honest it still feels a bit unreal, and until I’m sure that I’ve officially got a place it’ll stay like that.
randomtask 