Hi all, Joel here, I just wanted to wish you all a merry Christmas and a happy new year.
This has been an interesting year for me… Been changing my mind about where I want to live every few months; had a political protest where I donated a month of my salary to charity; had my largest ever pay check; learnt a lot about myself; became more in touch with my feminine side; got closer to my best friend.
I’ve sort of settled on Bristol as the next place to live in my life. This has bounced between London and Portsmouth in the past, but I have decided that I need something new and can’t afford London anyway, and it is so big it is not really a sustainable place to live. London is designed to try to screw you out of money. I don’t know a Londoner who hasn’t been caught by the scam that is the ANPR network. Google maps doesn’t know about the network of taxi and bus only lanes. It’s designed to catch you out! So even I have been caught out by this, this year.
Things are going fairly well financially. I got a new used car this year. RIP to the OLW (scrapped for charity) and hello NiKU. Already had my first RTC in it, no damage to me but like £6k damage to the other person. Kinda sucks. Just want the insurance companies to stop calling me every now and again and deal with it like we pay them to. But ah well.
In terms of self discovery I have I have had 8 weeks of counselling because I needed help with some stuff. Ended up quitting because I felt like I had run out of stuff to talk about. I want to start a podcast as a result of these sessions. But i need to plan that in advance.
At work I have been working on lots of Target Setting related stuff. I feel I have upped the company’s value a fair amount. I just need to get better at teaching people how to use my products, particularly the product footprint calculator. Target setting has gone well though!
In terms of faith. I am currently distant spiritually. I am struggling a bit with a lot of the hypocrisy at churches. But when you call anyone out they point you in the direction of Matthew 7:1-5. So it is impossible to really get through to them.
Having realised I connect and relate very well with autistic people and people with ADHD, I have considered seeing if i can get a diagnosis for one of these. However, in my opinion these “disorders” are the worlds way of saying “you don’t fit in” which is ridiculous. My autistic and ADHD friends are the most interesting people I have met.
I have been to free parties this year. These included a drum circle event. It just involved loads of people getting in the flow with each other. The culture is incredible! The rich don’t realise that the rest of us just want to live freely. Is that too much to ask?
My protest I did this year was a success. I donated my November basic salary to a 3 charities (info here: www.denytaxdonate.org). This was to protest government spending, giving money to themselves and their mates in exchange for a donation to the Tories. Definitely syphoning our taxes.
There are other self discoveries I have had this year, but I don’t feel comfortable discussing these at the moment. There is so much I would love to say.
But anyway, Merry Christmas everyone and happy new year!
