Published on 12, July, 2020
I spent so much time playing video games, browsing the internet and watching TV and videos and DVDs. Hey, those of you sniggering! I did grow up in the nineties.
There's nothing wrong with any of them, in an of them themselves, but the issue with all of them is you can easily become addicted to them and I did. I wish I would have read more books and learned more things instead of spending so much time having fun.
Now I'm 37 I would have rather have spent my time learning the guitar or learning things from books, that information or skill would be very useful at this stage. The memories of fun I had with the games, the TV and the internet are almost like vapour that has vanished to nothing. They almost mean nothing anymore but I can still remember facts I learned years ago that serve me in good stead today and the little bits I did manage to learn on the guitar mean I can play better than someone who hasn't learned at all.
I also regret that I ate so unhealthily. I don't blame myself for the activities or the eating. I believe at lot of it was peer pressure, ignorance and lax parenting. I don't blame my parents either, both had come from poverty and were despite being quite intelligent like many parents at the time not at all aware of Autism or the challenges that would be posed by modern technology.
The eating I regret because I didn't develop my body as much as I could have. I ate too many processed foods like cheap sausages, Billy Bear luncheon meat, biscutis and cream crackers and hardly touched vegetables or whole cuts of meat or fish or legumes or wholegrains. Most men are taller than me, I didn't have the best fuel for building muscle and developing growth.
It's useless to feel bitter about it though. I only hope others can learn from my mistakes.
You can learn skills at any age. There's even been middle-aged and elderly people who started lifting weights and enjoy doing that as a hobby. I guess you're up for changing something about your life. If you are still alive, then you could still do something about your situation. I mean, yes you might have made decisions that don't add much to your future, but other people have done that as well. They might be scrolling through social media and not paying any attention to how often they are ignoring everything. But you finally are paying attention to yourself. Learn a skill, change your diet, you can do it.
I have changed quite a lot. I'm not sure how able to I am to learn the guitar but I'm going to start trying to from today using a magazine I bought. I'm going to try to learn how to read and play along with tab.I had contacted a teacher who lives nearby that my social worker knows and recommended but he was fully booked. He said he might be able to reararnge one of his students' appointment time to fit me in, however he hasn't contacted me back yet and I felt it might be pushy to get back in touch myself.
At the moment I eat a keto diet. I have lots of vegetables, avoid sugar and eat whole meats like beef and lamb. I'm in exceptionally good shape appearence-wise but still have physical problems brought on, probably, by eating junk food to excess when I was younger.
I'm not sure keto is that healthy for me so am considering any day now switching onto a low carb diet instead which would allow me up to around 100 grams of carbohydrates a day. I would probably have wild rice, about 50 grams of it per meal, for two meals a day, the other meal I would keep largely free of carbs.
Over the past week I read and finished Resurrection, a novel by Tolstoy that is one of the best things I've ever experienced. I find it easier though to read books or research online than to do practical things, that is where I want to focus my attention and energy now.
I maintain, though, the message to younger people that in your youth you have a uniquely fresh opportunity to maximise your potential, this is before bad habits can wreak lifelong health impacts or set in place habits that are harder to break as you age.
Yeah it would be good to learn the basic tabs, and to coordinate your fingers into the right positions, until you understand the pattern. I tried playing the ukulele as a kid, but learning the tabs were too difficult at the time, and I didn't understand enough about what I was doing to see the bigger picture.
I learned the basics of playing the piano from a college friend, but the sound of piano doesn't really resonate with me. I'm still trying to look for an instrument that I don't mind listening to and practicing.
Your diet sounds very good and healthy. I've cut out a few things from my diet that were generally not making me feel well. I enjoy food, but I lose track of time, and prioritize other things, and it's just a bad habit that I'm always trying to improve on.
I think back to why maximizing on potential for a young person is so difficult, and I think it's just hard to handle the social aspects of it. It's hard to work on something to be the best at it, only to find that others disapprove of it, are angry at you for showing off, or are are envious or jealous of your success, and they'll try to to pull you down to prevent you from continuing, or harm you because they think you're trying to slight them somehow by being good at something. It's hard to take the negativity that comes from people like this. And it's often intimidated me to show how much I know, considering I've been abused by people like this.
But then if people do not do what they're good at, no progress will be made for humanity, no amazing innovations, music, or anything will be made, all held back by people. But hopefully progress continues to be made for humanity, and people don't get held back from maximizing on their potential in life.
TheCatWoman said:I didn't go to uni until I was 42.
Same here, I went to Uni at 45. Once, I went early in the class, we had a one off seminar with a guest tutor, and the tutor came, saw me, left and after few he came back. He said he thought I was another tutor and he messed up the rooms. Yeah... well, not the Box Fresh student you would expect, but I did it, and it was absolutely a rewarding experience on so many levels.
37 and thinking you are old, is what you will regret when you get 50 in 5 years. And no, I am not bad adding numbers, life has a bizarre way to alter time and speed things up until its too late for you to do anything about it.
If you think 37 is old and you figured out how crap this life is. Prepare yourself for 50. You have no idea whats coming. I was told this when I was 30. The man was right.
Thats the thing with youth, its wasted on the young!
Seriously though, you're not to old to do new things, at 37 you're still young and have years ahead of you, good years. I didn't go to uni until I was 42.
There were probably lots of reasons why you wern't in the right place to be doing things like learning guitar, don't beat yourself up.