Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost

(warning long post alert) 

Inspired by the above quote, it got me thinking. In this thoroughly modern age it has become increasingly difficult to escape the relentless probing questions that your parents, grandparents, teachers, dentists and random shopkeepers are asking you about your life and your life choices. Whether it's the lady in the Post Office who has known you since you were a baby asking when you're off to university, or your grandma asking why you aren't married yet, it seems that someone out there is ready to cast judgement on what you are doing. It's an inescapable reality that I've found myself confronting on a regular basis and the pressure of which can become quite overwhelming. 

I first experienced this and fully understood the pressure and weight of these kinds of questions when I was 9/10 years old and faced with the enormous decision of which high school I wanted to attend. There was a lot available from comprehensive to private and I was in the catchment area for pretty much all of them. All I really knew was that I liked the idea of going to a girls grammar/private school because I thought that was where the most successful girls would be... and they had nice uniforms...and I was quite obsessed with being Hermione Granger...and they often had swimming pools.  

The main issues here were a) I wasn't an A grade student b) I wasn't stinking rich c) I wasn't Hermione Granger (that part burnt the most). The other sad thing about all of this was that at the tender age of 9 years old, I was already completely aware of and concerned about being generically 'successful'. I applied to a mixture of schools (including comprehensives) but it still didn't stop me feeling absolutely gut wrenchingly awful when I didn't pass the exams for the 'posher' schools and I had to kiss goodbye to the dream of being 'someone important'...AT 11 YEARS OLD. I wasn't legally old enough to vote, drive or drink or allowed to go to shopping by myself - I was a minor. Yet despite this, I had garnered enough information from Junior school teachers, PTA mums, and fellow classmates, that to be more successful I needed to be at the top of the class and go to a grammar school. I was pretty much forced to start thinking about what I wanted to do as an adult, when I hadn't even hit puberty and still watched cartoons. 

My mum believed that as long as I was happy I'd 'do well' and in the end she was right. I got 12 GCSE's A*-B and that was all from a bog standard London comprehensive -sans excessive pressure. Unfortunately for me though, the judgement didn't end there and in came the next round of "lets give our opinion even though you didn't ask for it" this time from my teachers: 

What are you going to do at Sixth Form? 

Are you going to College? 

Are you doing A Levels? 

Ohhh, you are thinking of doing a BTEC wouldn't it be better to do A Levels? Etc etc etc. 

I knew that my strengths at the time were in creative or technological fields and armed with that decision I had to decide: Which industry will see me become more 'successful'? Which has better career prospects? What courses would get me into a good university? Do they do creative courses at Oxford? (lol, they don't). If you're looking for a visual representation of my brain at this point, just think of a pressure cooker boiling up and waiting to explode with confusion. My headmaster drilled into us the importance of being academic and even went as far as to show us a pie chart of how university students earn more than school leavers. There was really no room for deviation in his eyes and this stressed me out. I didn't at this point want to be a lawyer and even though I was a hard working student, I really didn't want to lose my creative side. 

I was really nifty with computers but I loved videography and music. Neighbours would jump on this topic to add their 2 cents "ohh you don't want to do media, there is a shed load of kids with media degrees, do maths or a science"... "Haha I want fries with that".  I knew for a fact that choosing maths or science, when I didn't get A* at GCSE, combined with a hugely differing standard of teachers, was probably a recipe for disaster. So I did a combination of creative, academic and technological A Levels. 

You can see where i'm going next with this so i'll cut it down to: Eat Sleep Worry About University Choices Repeat. 

It only occurred to me recently that so many of my decisions were being swayed by people who either didn't know me well enough to comment, or only thought success could be judged on your yearly salary and job title. I was 'losing' myself trying to keep people happy that were going to judge me regardless, and to try and compete with others around me who had a totally different skill set to me. Of course being an Investment Banker would get me some majorly decent P's and I could go for regular cheeky Nandos with the Banker ladz, but that wasn't what I wanted back then.  

So here I am now, older and wiser? I'm not sure. All I do know is that I am no longer lost despite the fact that i'm definitely wandering. 2015 has seen my life become a KFC combo box meal of tits up, just keep swimming and ahh finally you are back on track.  The difference is, this year i've learnt that I CAN cope with this tumultuous question mark on my life by force field rejecting some of that external pressure.  Chalk it up to experience, have a little cry or laugh it off, these experience are all here to teach something and i've certainly learned a lot. 

So, in a bid to triumph through adversity, i've taught myself how to de-stress, to accept opinions but also to go with my gut even if it doesn't seem right to everyone else.  In the last year i've learnt how to be resilient to assholes and resourceful with money. In the last few months in particular I've developed a much clearer understanding of what I want to do and surprise surprise, I didn't even need to go to university to do it. I still have the burning desire to be successful but i'm not going to beat myself up if I don't get onto that path instantly like I would've done as a misguided and 'lost' teenager.  Good things take time and sometimes a whole lot of wandering and mistakes first. 

Not all those who wander are lost. Maybe they've already found themselves. 

Dear Fat People, A Response to Nicole Arbleugh

Just a few weeks ago hardly anyone had heard of Nicole Arbour and now she has sent a wave of mixed emotions across the internet and upped her subscriber count greatly. Some applaud her apparent 'brutal' honesty and others question her motives of supposedly trying to inspire overweight people into losing a few pounds. I personally do not think there were any compassionate motives with this as there is an enormous difference between tough love and mockery. You can't pull all of the 'yo mama so fat' jokes out of the hat and expect everyone to want to be your friend. You can't outright laugh at someone so brazenly and then genuinely think that people; inspired by your tenacity to the cause, will start going to the gym!

This is not the first example I've seen of digs made about weight regardless of the spectrum. Slim men have their masculinity questioned when they don't have a 6 pack #DoYouEvenLiftBro style. Overweight people are filmed on the treadmill for purely malicious purposes. Many times i've questioned why I even follow Gym Memes on Facebook, because of the odd things that come through causing a judgemental stir that i'm not necessarily comfortable with. The labels fat shaming and skinny shaming get thrown about whenever a debate of this nature comes into the limelight. Being overweight in our society is bloody hard and I've never even experienced it. I feel for those who are judged for their 'excess' weight, because everyone questions and scrutinises their life choices, as though they are instantly better human beings for being a size 10 rather than a 18. 

The fact of the matter is, we are all built differently and think differently too. We process failure and success, heartache and joy uniquely. It is not fair to assume and generalise everyone over a size 16 is a lazy, gluttonous 'drain on society'.  What do you know about the intricacies of that person's life and what they maybe are going through other than assumptions.  Without meaning to be callous, would you mock a girl with Anorexia? No. 

For me the issue is a bit deeper than what's been discussed by others who have approached this topic and this eediyat of a woman's video. If obesity is a problem why are we not doing more to encourage change for health and support those who are having difficulties, instead of throwing them in virtual stocks and pelting them with tomatoes.  Why does society apparently only feel sympathy and compassion to people suffering with eating disorders at the skinnier end of the spectrum? Yup that is a sweeping statement I know, but hear me out:

When parents or doctors find out that their child is battling Anorexia, their immediate response is to rally around to support and nurture that child. They are afraid and confused. Now replicate that situation but with a child who is a size 16 at 14 years old.  Maybe quite unbeknownst to the parents, their child is struggling with chronic depression further fuelled by the likes of the 'Nicole Arbours' of the world or a binge eating disorder. They may even shrug it off because 'my child eats a lot and is a growing girl/boy'. The support network is not as noticeably there in my opinion. The child in question then recedes deeper into themselves because no one is noticing anything but the initial visible difference, and everyone is criticising them at school and on the internet. Surely an eating disorder is serious whichever form it takes and we should be trying to support those who are going through Anorexia AND binge eating disorders equally! 

Another thing people seem overwhelmed by is the fact that some of their fellow humans enjoy being the weight they are and like food! They enjoy being slim or they enjoy having a larger frame. If everyone wasn't so freaking critical, a lot of the people who get judged for yoyo dieting probably wouldn't be yoyo dieting in the first place!! They've been shamed into thinking their bodies are wrong for whatever reason and so do things to fit the norm they've been told to adjust themselves to. We get one life. Who are we to judge a size 4 or a size 24? 

We all know a skinny person who eats like a horse and doesn't gain weight. They too are judged, told to eat a burger and made to feel ashamed for the way their body processes things. This in itself is a big problem but comments of this nature appear to stem from jealously rather than socially orchestrated hatred or disgust. Maybe; just maybe,  if we invested more time in creating a support network for those who are struggling with their weight at both ends of the scale, we would have a society more equipped to manage these situations with care rather than social outrage. Also, if we tried to have a bit of self censorship before making sweeping assumptions about people we don't know, maybe the world would be a less catty place. 

To sum up my response to this video in one sentence all I will say is this: Go Home Nicole Arbleugh You're Drunk because if you haven't got anything nice to say don't say it at all!