Changing the Habits of a Life Time

If we don't change, we don't grow. If we don't grow, we aren't really living.

-Gail Sheehy

Change is hard, especially when you’re trying to change yourself. And it can feel almost impossible if you’re changing habits you’ve had all your life.

I, like most people, made myself a new year’s resolution that I was going to change my view on life and the direction my life was going in. It’s the 4th March when I’m writing this and so far I haven’t actually changed anything at all. A clear indication of this is that I haven’t updated this blog. When I wrote the first entry on the 11^th December I made a promise to myself that I would write more and update the blog at least once a week. So far I’ve written two posts since December 2013.

The thing is that it’s very easy to break a promise to yourself and that is why my life has not changed. But I guess what many people may not know about changing yourself, especially when procrastination, laziness, low self-esteem and doubt remain at the heart of you, is that it is very, very difficult to change these bad habits.

But today is a new day and I am determined to make positive changes in my life and at least attempt to make my life better for myself and those around me. And more importantly, I need to learn that they will be times I’ll fail, but I will get back up again and continue on forward.

So here are my new year’s resolutions (that I will be starting in March because everyone needs a break before big changes :)

1.      Update this blog at least once a week!
2.        Enjoy a healthier, active lifestyle (because I AM LAZY!)
3.      Try to do some of the things on my 30 things to do before I turn 30 list. 

What makes you feel glamorous?

Glamour is the power to rearrange people's emotions, which, in effect, is the power to control one's environment.

- Arthur Miller 

As in life what works for one does not always work for the other. Recently I read how in the current economic climate more and more of us are finding pleasures in the simpler things in life, such as a nice cup of coffee at your favourite coffee shop spending an hour chatting with a friend. But while in the past, in the glorious pre-recession days, we all spent more on the little bits that made us feel that bit more glamorous; in these more money gripping times we’ve all started to learn and buy the key items that makes us feel glamorous.

Typing into Google the word glamorous brings up a mirage of different websites all offering their own personal icons, ideas of glamour, as well as the different ways to make you feel more alluring. Having a quick browse through the ‘how to’ websites I’m surprised at how complex some of the advice is. While some of the tips have been noted I can’t help but wonder if glamour is something that needs to be learnt or if you discover it yourself? Maybe discovering what makes you feel glamorous is the same as finding your own style, it kind of just happens on its own. But, as many famous fashionista’s have said in the past style doesn’t come naturally to all.

Many years ago when I was young and I was watching mum get ready for one of the very, very few nights she went out with her friends I asked her why she always wore Chanel Coco Mademoiselle on very special occasions. I always remember her struggling to answer my question and finally settled on telling me it was because it made her feel better. Years later I now understand what she meant and that when she told the little me it made her feel better what she meant was that the classic French perfume made her feel sophisticated.

Now when I refer to an object making you feel that bit more glamorous I’m simply saying something that always makes you feel ‘better’, more of a confident person who feels that bit more special than you did before. Mine are extremely simple but help me in ways that I can’t really explain; red nail polish and black gel eyeliner. Only recently someone remarked that I didn’t have any nail polish on and only a few weeks ago when I wore a purple colour someone asked if I’d ran out of red. I can’t describe to you why wearing nail polish, in particular a blood red or deep burgundy colour, pleases me so much or why it makes me more confident, it just does. Just like Coco Mademoiselle works wonders for my mum. While something drastic must have happened for me not to wear nail polish I don’t often wear eyeliner, but when I do I just feel that bit more mature, confident, (dare I say it!) sexy. A subtle, thin cat flick that frames my eyes perfectly can do wonders for more self-esteem and can make even the dullest day feel a bit more thrilling.

Maybe this might appear silly to some of you, while others of you may be nodding your head in agreement to this and have their own touches that make them feel that bit more special on particularly difficult or boring days. Perhaps you have your titbit of glamour without realising it, perhaps a certain pair of black sling backs like one of my friends, or an expensive coat like one of my other friends (who has promised to leave it to me in her will). Whatever it is I really do hope you all have one thing or a few things because in these difficult days it’s nice to have an ‘old reliable’ that will help brighten your day.

My Second Life

“On a deux vies et la deuxième commence le jour ou l'on se rend compte qu'on n'en a qu'une.”
―Confucius, Sur Le Destin

Hello,

Is that the way you introduce yourself when you start a blog? Well it’s the only way I know how to start one and since this is my first blog and my first post any reader should expect mistakes. I suppose the politest thing to do is to introduce myself, my name is Amy-Alison. I’m in my mid-twenties and I live in this little country called England, Yorkshire to be a little bit more specific (that’s nowhere near London if you’re from somewhere more exotic than the British Isles so I don’t sound like Keira Knightley or Kate Moss).

I suppose I should really explain why I’ve started this blog, although I will be honest I’m not completely sure myself why I’ve started to write my thoughts, feelings and ideas on the internet in the hope of connecting with other likeminded people via the cybersphere.

“If you wish to be a writer, write.”
—Epictetus

I’ve wanted to be a writer for a very, very long time but have never had the courage to even begin to take the steps to make this dream a reality. This blog is the beginning of this dream and the realisation that I need to do something about this came about quite suddenly not that many months ago. I’d started another new job and when one of my new colleagues asked me why I had taken this job I replied ‘because I can’t really do my dream job’. This honesty may have been a little too forward for my second day but I hadn’t managed to filter the truth and up until that moment I didn’t realise that this was the truth either, but the subconscious never lies. 

I’ve read books since before I was born when my mum used to tell me that I’d start kicking if she watched television but would settle if she read Jane Austen aloud. I read 1984 at 11 and became paranoid soon after (an unfortunate quality that has stuck with me throughout my life...thanks Mr Orwell); I read Pride and Prejudice at 14 and yearned for Mr Darcy rather than Luke in my science class who ogled at my breasts for the entire forty-five minute lesson (what a charmer). I had an interest in writing for as long as I remember, my dad pointed this out to me the other day reminding me of the stories I used to write when we first got the house computer at 11. Only in the last few years have I realised that this is the thing that makes me happy and makes me excited every single day of my life.

“We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.”
 —Ernest Hemingway

Despite my love of writing and literature since I was very young, and my recent epiphany that I only ever want to be a writer, it has taken me a long time to put anything in motion. The main reason behind my late development, and I have definitely developed late since most writers know from an early age that they want to be writers, is low confidence. While Mr Fitzgerald, Ms Austen and Mr J. D. Salinger knew they were born to be writers from a tender early age, some of us, me in particular, have known what they have wanted to do also but have never had the stomach to follow it through. I’ve been publicly complaining about wanting to be a writer for over a year (although privately this yearning has lasted for nearly five years) and when the Boyfriend told me to go for it, but when I replied that I wasn’t good enough my boyfriend simply quoted Mr Hemingway and suddenly I didn’t feel as intimidated anymore.

And lastly, the reason I wanted to at least make a start on fulfilling my dream is because I’m a mid-twenties woman in one of the most confusing times to be a woman and a twenty year old. I feel as if I come from a generation that has had the most freedom we’ve had in a very long time yet are restricted by society’s views, the economy and by us. I don’t live in a major city, in fact like a lot of women in the world I live in a small town/village where being slightly different is considered odd and frowned upon.

Now that may sound stupid to some of you but I live in a village where a large majority of the women my age are unemployed, drinks a considerable amount each night, lives only for the weekend, reads gossip magazines, loves Katie Price (Jordan!), everything is fake (tan, nails, eyelashes, hair colour) and their main past time is watching television. I will say right now that I don’t have anything against these women and I truly believe in my mum’s favourite phases ‘each to their own’ and if it doesn’t hurt me then I don’t care how other people choose to spend their lives. Moreover, I don’t mean to generalise but it has been my experiences over the last twenty plus years of living in this town. I am the opposite of everything listed above, although I like a little bit of the fakeness every now and then, but I definitely fell out of place when I walk in my local town and have been mocked quite a bit for not following the latest reality programmes, being in a semi permanent tangoed colour, reading books, listening to music that you won’t find in a nightclub and for not getting plastered every night. I know there are a lot of women out there that are more like me than them and I just want to write about life in England at the moment if you aren’t part of the above category and the challenges and peaks of being a woman in your twenties today. I read a lot of articles written by thirty year old writers in magazine telling me about the struggles I face and while they may have more life experience over me they aren’t my generation. It’s us, me, which face these problems so I feel it’s only right that I write about what we face.

 “We all have two lives. The second one starts when we realize that we only have one”
―Confucius

This realisation hit me recently when I read this quote, we don’t get a second chance and if I’m not going to follow my dream now then when will I. 

Today begins my second life.