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So after being on a bit of a downer yesterday with my “don’t know what to believe in” mood, I got a massive dose of perspective last night.

Leaving work, I decided to ride the long way home to put a smile back on my face. The whole way home I was riding into a head wind which is fairly normal for the ride home. Usually I get about half way home and want to give up, but for some reason yesterday I just powered through the whole ride. While I was tired, I think I was enjoying the challenge for a change.

The problems of my day had been solved, or at least I’d been distracted by the awesome ride home.

My mum also rides to and from work, and we are currently living with her. After having tea with my fiancee, it was dark outside and it had just turned 7 o’clock, although not normal, mum still wasn’t home from work. I went out the front to look down the street to see if she was coming, and as soon as I opened the door she arrived. I threw a smart remark at her as I usually do – she works far too hard and always ends up riding home in the dark, without decent enough lighting (despite me giving her the appropriate lights last year). She didn’t respond like she usually does though. She was hurt.

Sure enough, she had clipped a gutter on the way home that she didn’t see and went over the handlebars, cutting her lip and chin. Obviously in shock, she didn’t realise it was a major injury and rode the rest of the way home.

After being hand balled by the medical system for a while she had the wound cleaned and it was obvious that the cut had gone right through to her jaw. For someone that had such a serious cut, she was coping really well. I was fine at first but after a while felt really tense, like I did when my fiancee was very sick earlier on in the year. My chest was tight and I just thought about the possibilities of what could happen here. My fiancee, some months later is fine, and I’m yet to find out what will happen with mum. Now that I have a clearer head it’s obvious that she will be fine, but she’ll be nursing a fairly serious cut for a while.

At around 10:30pm, I went home to pick up some clothes for her as she was staying the night. Half way home I came across a major car crash. By the looks of it, a car had ran a red light and t-boned another car at speed. Flashing lights everywhere, the bit that struck me as scary was the fact that a police officer was holding a small child. Not a good sign!

It was enough to make me think, “why do I worry?”. I’m not the sort of person that is just going to ignore untruths or corruption, but I can’t let this stuff stop me from living my life.

Last night put me in check. The game of life can be over well and truly before you know it, so we need to enjoy our lives while we can.

So I was just on a car forum that I regularly talk on to kill my days at work. People were talking about “cheating” in a relationship and what they consider to be ok and not ok. I told a comical story from a few years back where I ended up in a less than ideal situation with a girl from a party that I was at. I didn’t do anything that I considered as “wrong”, although probably pushing the boundaries a bit, and my girlfriend didn’t see it as an issue either. The point that I was trying to make, was that everyone has differing opinions, and what works for some won’t work for all.

I think the biggest mistake that some people make is pretending to be someone who they aren’t, just to make a relationship work. If you are your true self 100% of the time, there’s nothing to lose. Your partner knows what you are like, who you really are, and what to expect. This in my opinion is how quality relationships are formed.

Anyway, I copped a barrage of abuse. Closed minded sheep that are set in their ways. The comical thing was that the majority of them posting abuse at me had never had a decent long term relationship. By the sounds of it, most don’t communicate when in a relationship and try to conform to the rules that society set for their relationship, only to end up failing each time they try.

The point that I then brought up was whether or not they would dump someone for cheating, or try and work things out. Literally all except one of them said they’d dump the other person.

Now I hate talking about this crap, but it is interesting. I think it’s a perfect example of people getting hung up on small things in their life, rather than just living it an experiencing it for the journey. I’m not suggesting that people let their partner walk all over them, but I just believe that people are too quick to break things off nowadays. Fact of the matter is, life won’t always go your way.

I was talking to my fiancee the other day, relaxing down by the river on a Sunday afternoon. After talking about her niece and nephew, she said “imagine if we couldn’t have kids”. In the past I’d have thought that she would be devastated, but after asking her what she would do she just said “that’s life, you’ve gotta move on”. For sure, I’d be disappointed for a bit too, but it’s not as though my life would be over. I think some people place too much emphasis on too few things. To me, life is a journey. Ups and downs, good times and bad, but ultimately every time there is a good or bad occurrence, it just opens a new door.

I get annoyed or unhappy from time to time like everyone does, but I really think you can make a conscious decision to “look on the bright side of life”.

When we talked about the possibility of not having children, I realised that although at first we’d be disappointed, it would mean a life of togetherness. Most parents I speak to say that the time before they had kids was the best time in their relationship. I could handle living my whole life like that!

Being a kid, life is just fun. You roll with the punches and keep on going. You don’t hesitate, because nothing can stop you. If you fail, you just get up and try again. As we get older, we lose this carelessness. We get hung up on the small things and let life beat us down and stop us from living the life that we really want.

If you take a step back and think about life, it’s amazing. Embrace it for what it is and enjoy as much of it as you can. It’s the best journey you’ll ever experience.

It’s amazing what it takes to make different people happy. The other day I was saying how some people like to buy things and that makes them happy. I’ve met people that just “need to be rich” to be happy. Then others just need simpler things to make them happy.

I had a really bad start to the week as far as my happiness is concerned. I’m usually a pretty cheerful person, but after a less than ideal weekend as far as my diet and excercise goes, I was down in the dumps. I don’t really get depressed as such and wouldn’t consider it an “issue”, I think I’m just quite hard on myself. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday I had no energy and just wanted to sleep. Even this morning when I woke up I just wanted to keep on sleeping and chuck a sickie. I hadn’t gone for a ride for quite some time, taking the soft option to get to work, either by car or public transport, and I haven’t had a fruit smoothie since Saturday (I’m no good at eating fruit, so having a smoothie is my way of getting a decent intake of fruit every day).

After being disappointed at myself for slacking off, I forced myself to ride this morning. I got up, had a glass of water, made my smoothie, had some toast, and packed my bag ready to go. Up until walking out the door I felt drained, yet as soon as I started pedalling my energy levels picked up.

I’m convinced that excercise actually generates energy in our bodies. It certainly does for me. I find that if I just go to work by car or bus, sit at my desk all day, go home, eat and lie down on the sofa again, I just feel like life is just one big waste. I have no energy to get motivated and go and do something. Watching another episode of The Sopranos seems like a better option than going and riding my pump track.

It doesn’t take much to snap out of it though. Today I rode to work, I’m full of beans, and keen to ride home. When I get home, I’ll swap bikes, and go for a cross country loop up to my fiancee’s parents’ house for dinner.

I’ve come to the conclusion that three things make me happy in this world.

1. My fiancee, obviously. When we have the time to spend together she just makes me smile and smile and smile. I couldn’t have met a more like-minded person that is so much fun to chill out with.
2. Riding bikes. When I’m on a bike I’m just stoked to be living. The most random things make me happy while riding. You come across all sorts of stuff that you don’t see when you’re in a car confined to the roads. You come to appreciate all sorts of things too… Nice weather, council workers sweeping the glass off the track, quality puncture proof tyres!
3. Outdoors. Obviously ties in with riding, but even just walking outside and looking up at the sky is enough to put a smile on my face. I love the rain. I love the sunshine. As painful as it is riding in the cold during winter, I wouldn’t have it any other way. My favourite place in the world is The Great Otway National Park. Not that I’m well travelled, but it is beautiful there. My second favourite is Mt Lofty Botanic Gardens. No electronics, no advertising, nothing really. Just the outdoors, and it is beautiful.

I’m glad that I know this. Not many people know what makes them happy. I just need to keep the ball rolling now to stay motivated.

It’s very easy to make me happy, but I find it hard to stay motivated. Without that motivation, I end up unhappy.

I’m the most complex, simple person I know. I’m cool with that though.

I was talking to a friend last Friday via email. Things were winding up for the weekend and we obviously both had time to talk.

Specifically, I mentioned having an argument with my future mother-in-law about weddings, and how my personal opinion of them is that they are a blatant waste of money, and the stress of the whole thing just erodes the actual meaning of the day. In the end, I believe that they have very little to do with the marriage, or the love that two people have for eachother, but moreso about the image that either the couple, or their parents want to portray to their friends and family. They want to be seen as the people with the really nice wedding, that “must have cost a LOT”, just in the same way that they need a nice flashy car, or a McMansion by the beach.

My ranting continued for quite sometime, as it usually does, and ended up going into the financial side of a wedding.

…fact is that the average cost of a wedding in Australia is $28,700 (or was 4 years ago.. it has probably gone up since then). The average household income is “$91,300″. In reality though, the median household income is more like $50,000 before tax. But lets say it’s $91,300. That’s $63910 after tax, assuming they are both being taxed at 30%, which they probably are.. both earning around $45k or something.

A LOT of living expenses are coming out of that figure. Chances are they’re still renting, driving two Australian made cars with poor consumption and require servicing frequently, which also drains their wallet. It doesn’t leave a whole lot of money. Most Gen Y’ers can’t save for a deposit for a house.. the government is giving them free money to get into debt which is a whole other topic which I shouldn’t get into now.

But the thing is, they just don’t have the dollars to pay for a wedding.

Now what I realised when I was explaining all this, was that there is a black and white difference between the facts, and an opinion.

When I have these “arguments” (or disagreements, or so forth), I usually end up very frustrated. I make a point of providing facts, and then afterwards explaining my opinion, which is derived from those facts. Unfortunately when I usually have these conversations though, the person I’m talking to isn’t interested in facts, only their opinion, and they have nothing to back their opinion up.

I’m happy to be told that I’m wrong, but if you’re going to do it, please have a reason why.

I don’t like to push my views on people, but from reading another blog on the internet, I have come to the conclusion that if you know something that can help others, tell them. It’s not always easy, in fact it’s very hard to be in the minority (being educated), but given a reversed role, I’d like someone to tell me if I was about to make a bad decision, or if I could do something to better my life.

The truth is in the facts.

I’ve realised that the facts are what I need to tell people, not so much my opinion. I try and drop them in everywhere now. (The rate of increase in the number of dwellings in Australia exceeded the rate of growth in the number of people in Australia by 41%. The rate of increase in the number of empty houses was 2.7 times the rate of population growth. *)

Facts are provided everywhere, and once you have verified they are in fact correct, you can make your opinion. Finance, diet, so on and so forth. There are facts, and they are all relevant for you to hold a view on the topic.

If I said to you..

“I think the healthiest way to live is to be a raw vegan, so you should be one.”

Who am I to tell you what to do?

But what if I said..

“Did you know that casein in milk has been proven to be a major cause of osteoporosis and other bone diseases in humans?”

You could then form an opinion from that fact. That opinion could be to believe it, and an action from that opinion may be to stop drinking milk.

Conspiracy theories are a perfect example of where facts can hold some vital information, but where the opinion of some presenters/producers/etc can take over and effectively turn a lot of people away from the original message that they wanted to send. Often there are facts that “the people” should know, but waking up one day and telling “the people” that “Obama is 21st century Hitler” is hardly going to go down well with the majority of people.

Stick with the facts. By all means let others know your opinion, but make sure they know it is your opinion.