Shine bright.

We’re all living in strange times right now. Some of the stuff we used to do every day are no longer possible. Not being able to catch up with family and friends in the way that you used to sucks. How much did you take for granted, how easy was it to go and watch your favourite sports team, whether it’s baseball, basketball, soccer, or any other sport you’d care to mention? Date night at a restaurant or the cinema has been off of the menu for a while. Life has changed, who would’ve thought we’d be wearing face masks or social distancing from each other? If you’ve been unlucky enough to contract coronavirus but lucky enough to come out of it the other side, you’ll have an appreciation of how lonely you can become when you’re stuck at home, especially if you’re single. It’s no wonder that subscriptions to sites like Netflix and Prime have gone through the roof, what else can you do when you’re not allowed to see anyone? How much terrible television can one person watch? Turns out a lot.

It’s easy to become anxious or stressed wondering when all of this will end, when you feel like everything is heading downhill at a rate of knots, overthinking is the worst, right? As everyday normal people, it’s no shame to admit that we struggle to deal with uncertainty because something’s thrown us for a loop. Apprehension, fear, nervousness, worry are all perfectly acceptable feelings to have right now, but perhaps you need to learn to be kinder to yourself, aren’t you doing the very best that you can? Striving for a sense of self can be more difficult than you think, experiencing a feeling of trying to run away from everything sometimes is understandable. It’s more than okay to know what it’s like to be afraid of your own mind, we all have anxiety about different things, we all have insecurities.

It doesn’t matter how old you are, what your creed, gender or nationality is, everyone experiences anxiety or stress at some point, and whilst this year is only just over halfway done, it can already take a flying fuck to itself.

Everyone needs a reset button though, don’t you want to try and fill up your little bubble with as much positivity as you can? FaceTime, Skype or Zoom calls with family and friends, every little helps. Isn’t it amusing to see how out of control some people’s hair gets when they can’t get to a hairdresser? You find and take the humour where you can.

It is tough but you need to do whatever you can to make things as easy for yourself as you can, don’t you? Take a breath, smile as much as possible, even if it’s just for yourself, right?

They say you can’t, but you can.

Some of us have an innate ability to deal with all of these challenges easier than others. That said, just because someone else can’t explain the feelings or articulate the words about their anxiety, it doesn’t make them any less valid. An actual hug might not happen for a while but you can have as many virtual ones as you need or want. You might think that some people don’t worry as much as you do and that someone else is stronger than you are. It’s bullshit, maybe that other person just thinks differently, you’ve got this. Isn’t it true that you can’t always control what goes on in your inside? You feel what you feel. Give yourself permission to fuck up now and again, nothing wrong with that. Things are difficult right now but they’ll change eventually, fingers crossed, and then it’ll be the little things that are more of a concern to you. Maybe if this shitshow teaches us anything, it’s that there is zero point sweating the small stuff, why worry about things that might never happen? Now and again, we’re all unsure of who we are and where we fit in the world, and whilst all of this isn’t helping, don’t we need to have faith in whatever is around the corner?

If you haven’t done so already, maybe today is the day where you reach out to someone who perhaps appears not to be handling things as well as you are, someone who might be struggling with their self confidence. Just be a friend, be there. Nothing wrong with offering a shoulder to cry on or to lend an ear for them to tell you anything that they need to.

You’ve got empathy, support and sympathy but never judgement. You’ll also learn, if you’ve not figured it out already that I’ve got your back, and that I’ll care about and defend you forever. Forever ever. I’m not going to blow steam up your ass though, you will be told if you mess up, harsh love is still love. Just know that someone cares and appreciates everything about you, especially right now.

Your innocence is your USP.

@TheSamMcLeod

Tired of beatings and battles.

All it takes sometimes is a single moment and your whole life can be turned upside down. It’s just one of those things, some of your days are good, some of your days are damn near excellent, whilst some days are a proverbial kick in the stones. One day can change your life, one day can make your life, one day can ruin your life. Whatever shit comes your way, you react in the best way that you can though, don’t you? Always in all ways. You find a person or place in this world that you know is worth fighting for and you get your game face on. Some days are a struggle, but isn’t the beauty of fighting that you can come out of the other side of something difficult in a better place?

In The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays, Albert Camus scribbled that ‘There is scarcely any passion without struggle.’ You need to focus on having a positive outlook of fighting through your struggles when life tosses you a curveball, don’t you? You have beliefs, friendships, values, fuck, a shit ton of different things that you care about, aren’t all of those things worth keeping in your head when something comes along and knocks you on your ass?

Undoubtedly it’s difficult, but sometimes you need to put on your big boy pants and suck things up. Sure, it’s not always easy and it’s okay just to let things be wrong for a minute. You’ll come back stronger and find that one thing that’s worth fighting for.

It’s more than alright to feel like you’re the one person in the world that’s the most alone, but that said, you need to at least let someone know that when you’re struggling with something, don’t you? The hardest things to speak about are the ones we can’t understand ourselves but we need to try. Opening up when you’re vulnerable is tough, but somebody cares that somebody knows.

Where there are roads in our lives, there are bound to be speed bumps too, but isn’t there a time for acceptance as well as a time for kicking the fuck out of something? Maybe life isn’t always about having a good day but about finding good moments. Perhaps every day becomes less difficult if you can learn to fight back against whatever you have going on. You love the people you love, you cry, you laugh, you fail, you succeed, you fall, but the most important thing is to get back up. When something’s difficult, you’ll do so much more to ensure you don’t lose the things you care about. We fight.

The harder the fight, the more glorious fuck you will come at the end of your battle, right? How much joy is there when you can flip a middle finger at something? Is it right that only the things that are really worth fighting for gives everything in your life it’s value?

Those quiet, little personal moments when you get bad news are vital. You suss out a plan, which details you choose to share with everyone that you care for, how you get over it, everything is a contest, head and and heart clashing as they often do.

Two days before Christmas and the news isn’t good, it’s as bad as it could be. Who wants to spend any time in hospital, far less a day where you should be surrounded by your family and friends? More than likely, it’s as bad for the staff as it is for a lot of the patients, healthcare professionals are wonderful, especially at this time of year. They’re pretty humbling people, kudos to all of them.

Words and intentions are good from the people that care about you, but when you’re down, you’re down. Kindness is a lovely thing, but isn’t it true that if you have to pull yourself back from the negative thoughts you’re having about everything you have going on that it’s easier said than done? We fight.

We made it to today, we’ll make it to tomorrow and hopefully the next day after that. We fight.

This is the biggest thing that I’ll ever have to face but there’s no other option, I fight. My little girl, family, friends, everything that I still have to achieve, I’ve got this. We’ve all got this, we just need to tell our minds to believe it.

Maybe if you have nothing to fight against, you have nothing to fight for. So, we fight our way in and we fight our way out.

Just pick yourself up, it’s time to go.

@TheSamMcLeod

This kind of day has no night.

Adversity sucks, it’ll break you or make you, but you can choose the way in which it manifests itself, even if you don’t realise it in that initial moment. So many of us are touched by adversity every single day, we fall down, some of us never get back up, whereas others go through tough times and discover things about ourselves that we never knew, and so we come out of the other side stronger. Just a mindset, right? It’s not always that easy though.

Maybe strength doesn’t come from the things that you think you can do to get past something, it happens from overcoming the things you think that you can’t do. Perhaps in times of adversity and change, we don’t realise that a figurative kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world to ever happen to us. Wouldn’t you take one if it meant that something amazing might happen to you after you get yourself together when your world has fallen apart? Stars are there all day, every day, but they can’t shine without darkness.

You can want to do everything yourself but it’s okay to lean on friends for advice, even if it’s just cliches and platitudes that you hear. Be brave, try and be calm, take a step back and look at everything closely, stay strong, push on with everything. All lovely sentiments but not necessarily inspiring. So you look elsewhere, let’s face it, you can find inspiration in a shit ton of different ways. Music, books, television, the medium doesn’t matter as long as it helps you move on.

Not moving mountains, but digging the ground that you’re on.

It’s easy to feel sorry for yourself when your life changes for the worse. Just maybe though, humility emerges at the exact point when your knees fall to the floor and we tell ourselves that some things need to change, starting with our attitude. It can be contagious, so you should want to make sure that your’s is worth catching.

Hospitals are never a good place to be in, unless someone is giving birth or getting better. When you spend 22 hours a day on your own, it’s easy for your mind to wander about what comes next and what your future holds, it’s difficult to get motivated. It’s okay to look at other people in your life though, and use them and their experiences to motivate you to try and help you.

The friend who’s just been at Yosemite and has posted the most beautiful pictures. Yosemite promptly gets added to the good list. A friend in Sydney who’s just had a baby, so the availability for babysitting duties has just been activated. The girl in Boston who keeps posting pictures of her adventures on the weekend, super jealous. The best friend who’s just had his first child after years of trying. He kept going, literally, and seeing his happiness in his baby girl puts things in a different context. The friend who has finally convinced the girl he’s liked for ages to go out with him. Is he punching? Fuck yes, but he didn’t give up. The other friend who decided to jack in his job and buy a motorcycle and ride across the States. How cool is that?

Sometimes, things come along unexpectedly that motivate you and are a lot less personal. 22 hours is a lot of time to fill, and although sleep happens fitfully, awake time still needs to be filled. Netflix, Amazon Prime, iPlayer, YouTube, all feature heavily.

A random show pops up on YouTube from Food Network as a recommendation, Guy’s Grocery Games, Kitchen Heroes. Just another food show, shouldn’t be anything overly exciting. Wrong. The owner of a restaurant in Richmond, Virginia who donates 100% of his profits to help alleviate hunger in his hometown. Humbling as fuck. The guy who used his restaurant in San Juan, Puerto Rico, to feed hundreds of people every day affected by Hurricane Maria in 2017. Astonishing kindness. The lady who opened a restaurant to everyone who can’t afford to pay for a meal but lets them contribute by helping out. The other lady who started a culinary internship for disadvantaged teens. How can it hurt to offer a helping hand?

Another recommendation follows straight after, The Brotherhood of Football. A story about a kid from Temecula, California, a promising young QB for Linfield Christian football who gets a bad injury and needs to get part of one of his legs amputated. There are tears but now, everything takes on a new perspective, life could be worse, people everywhere are going through much worse things than me.

You binge watch TV shows if you have some time on your hands, don’t you? Some can surprise you, you might not immediately a fan of what you think the content is, but until you watch it, you’ll never really know. Take Friday Night Lights, probably the second best television series of all time. We all know what the best is, don’t even @ me.

Things is, Friday Night Lights will make you feel all of the feelings. It doesn’t matter if you don’t know anything about American football, it isn’t just about the game; it’s about relationships that will drag the caring out of you.

Take Coach Eric and wife Tami, it’s almost a perfect ideal of love and friendship. Ups and downs, making sacrifices so they can both carry out their personal dreams, whilst treating each other as an equal. Perfect relationship goal right there.

Obviously there has to be a bad guy in the show but what if deep down inside he’s a really good guy, even though he doesn’t always let it become apparent? None of us always make the right decisions, but he wants to, so that has to be important, doesn’t it? It’s okay too when you’re emotionally unavailable, which can be part of the allure to someone. Layers and vulnerability, anyone else beginning to recognise themselves? Seeing someone become a better person, never a bad thing. It can motivate.

How about those days gone by when a flirtation turned into a crush which turned into a relationship? We’ve all been there. Want to go to bat for the underdog? You’re in luck. 76 episodes will basically rip your heart out, yet you still come back for more. Maybe it’s time to ask that person out?

Sure, football is a major part of the series, but at it’s heart it’s about people having a fighting chance at making their dreams come true. Not a bad thing to be thinking about when you’re hurting, when you’re struggling. You find your motivation where you can. It’s not for everyone, but the levels of inspiration might just make you think you can do anything if you set your heart and mind to it. Never a bad thing to put yourself out there but also not to be scared any more to wear your heart on your sleeve.

Like strands in a ball of yarn, life can get tangled. Just maybe though, something good this way comes.

Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose.

@TheSamMcLeod

@YouMeMusicLife

Dance in the light of a lesson learned.

Bad things happen to us, good things happen to us, just the way it is. The same is true about people who come into your life, some you keep around and some you’re quick to let go of. Trust your judgement, hopefully you have things going your way more often than not, and you keep around the good folk who deserve to be in your life as a friend.

Now and again, someone comes along though who turns into something more. Somebody new is on your radar, you’ve noticed it and you start giving them some attention. Trust rears it’s head again, you dip your toe in the water if you’re sure that there might be something between you both, and if you’re lucky, that trust is mutual and perhaps something beautiful is just beginning.

Does it matter how long that something lasts? One night between two consenting adults can be mindblowing. It might just be random circumstance that brings you together but if you’re both single and want the same thing for that one night, then why not? Sure, there’s going to be more nights and days together with someone if you really like each other. You took the chance, they did too, now you’re sharing something together. What happens though if you misjudged yourself, what happens now?

Maybe when someone makes you a promise, they cross their fingers, hoping that they won’t let you down and think that makes everything okay. Just because something isn’t a lie does not mean that it isn’t deceptive. Perhaps the greatest distance between two people in any relationship is a misunderstanding about what the future holds. Not much else for it, the time has come to say goodbye.

Out into the unknown.

Aren’t most relationships onesided? Sometimes you’re the fish and sometimes you’re the fisherman, but when something ends it can still sting. It doesn’t matter who did and said what, the hurt will be real for a while but you get by, you move on. That said, is it okay to care for an ex, obviously not romantically, but as a person? They gave you happiness at some point in your past, so why should you hate them? We’re all different, so it’s fine if they don’t wish you the same. Maybe you don’t care what they think about you because you don’t think about them at all any more, you’ve moved on and a day comes when you’re happy again.

As soon as an ex sees you smiling though, isn’t that the moment they decide that they want you back? It can be a fucker of an emotional hot potato if they decide to get in touch again, what do you do?

One day a message arrives saying ‘I miss you’ from the girl who could have been an almost forever, a maybe forever, but she was definitely something. Was is the operative word. It’s okay to take a few days to think about what to respond with, if at all, but it’s nice to be polite. I know what those eight characters mean though, it’s just that the next person she replaced me with didn’t work out. When looking back at your history with someone and you know that they don’t do anything for you any more, you’re probably doing something right for yourself. If someone did something bad enough to make you have them not be in your life, you back your trust the second time not to be stupid enough to let them in again. Fool me once and all that. Getting with an ex would be like taking your driving test when you already have your licence. Pointless, stupid, a waste of time and effort.

Messages continue to follow and it’s clear that she wants something more than I’m ever going to give. It’s probably a dick move to reply at all but the replies are completely vanilla, hopefully the hint gets taken. Just because someone hurt you once, it doesn’t mean that hurting them back unnecessarily will do you good or make you feel better. The best idea is to probably try and forget the person who forgot about you, even if they tell you ‘I love you because I need you.’ What a shit and selfish phrase. I need you because I love you sounds infinitely better, doesn’t it?

You’re my ex. Ask me as many questions as you want but I no longer owe you any answers. Don’t worry if I’m with anyone else now or not, all you need to know is that it won’t ever be you. Everyone deserves to move on and find someone that makes them happy, good luck with everything to you, to all of us. We’re not enemies, not friends, now we’re just strangers with some memories.

It’s time for moving on, there’s some things you can’t forget.

@TheSamMcLeod

@YouMeMusicLife

Laugh when you cry.

Does everything happen for a reason? We’ve all heard that bad things happen to bad people and good things happen to good people, but isn’t it complete nonsense? Everyone of us does good things in our lives, sometimes for ourselves, sometimes for others but now and again we fuck up. It turns out we can all be a dick. We hurt the people we care about, we hurt the people we don’t care about, and sometimes it’s not even on our radar. It’s just fallibility, the tendency to make mistakes or be wrong about something, a situation, it could be anything. Hopefully we all get the big things right though and if there are wrong decisions made, they’re for tiny matters that don’t affect anyone too much, us included.

Good things happening in your life are the best. A new relationship, meeting new and old friends, an exciting job opportunity, the chance to travel, it could be anything, couldn’t it? Ticking off bucket list things, your team winning the World Series, current champs, thank you very much. Seriously though, don’t we all try and work every day to make things better for every single person in our lives? Now and again though, maybe karma becomes a thing. You fucked up at some point in your past so the next little while for you isn’t going to be enjoyable.

Perhaps sometimes things have to go wrong in order for everything else to start to go right. When you appreciate that though, who knows what your future holds? You can’t just take a peek, you have to open your eyes all of the way if you want to find out what it is you’re made of and what lies ahead. Deniability can sometimes be your best friend and it’s a perspective that few of us ever get, it can be surprisingly energising.

Perceiving your hardest times might just be your inner self telling you that they’re a path to something better. Sure, we all want to take gigantic steps but aren’t baby steps okay in the beginning? It’s okay to break the rules when sometimes you hit a run of bad luck, who knows what comes next?

Give me some sort of sign.

Have I done bad things? I have but, in third grade, I didn’t cheat on my history exam. In fourth grade, I didn’t steal my uncle Max’s toupee and glue it on my face when I was Moses in my Hebrew School play. In fifth grade, I didn’t I knock my sister Edie down the stairs and blame it on the dog. I don’t even have a sister called Edie. When my mum sent me to the summer camp for fat kids and then they served lunch, I didn’t go nuts and I pig out before they kicked me out, I’m not fat. The worst thing I’ve never done is when I mixed a pot of fake puke at home and then I went to this movie theater, hid the puke in my jacket, climbed up to the balcony and then, I made a noise like this: hua-hua-hua-huaa, and then I dumped it over the side, all over the people in the audience. And then, this was horrible, all of the people started getting sick and throwing up all over each other. I’ve never felt so bad in my entire life. None of that ever happened but nice work if you got the reference.

Have I cheated on someone? Yes, more than just flirting or kissing, an absolutely dick move. Have I been involved with someone who I knew was in a relationship? Sadly, yes, I fucked up. Have I lied to someone? Yep. Have I lied to cover up for someone else? More times than I care to count. Did I tell a girl that I loved her when I didn’t really mean it? Regretfully so, not cool. There have been a shit ton of good things that I’ve done too but a wise woman once told me that self praise was no reward. Clever lady.

Life can make you question everything at times, am I doing something wrong, am I getting anything right? Self doubt, a shitter of a thing. Maybe it’s karma raising it’s head again, who ever really knows? You can probably run on the fumes of trying to tell yourself that you’re okay for as long as you want, but eventually things will hit you hard.

The thing is that sometimes the process of changing and growing up includes going through feeling like you’ve fallen far from where you used to be. To be candid, when you hit rock bottom, you can only climb up, right? It can be difficult to talk though especially if you want to sing.

When you have to stay in a hospital bed for 23 hours a day, you get to thinking about a multitude of things. Have I fucked up? Big time. Have I done some good? Damn straight to both. When you have to ponder what’s gone before, perhaps you let yourself get ready for what comes next. It’s when you go through hard times you realise that you can have moments when you’re proud of yourself, that you’re comfortable with at least some of the choices that you’ve made. It’s easy to be pessimistic when you’re struggling, but don’t you need to have hope that things will twist in your favour?

Things have been switched up and moved forward. Today could change everything but there is an acceptance that life comes with both wins and losses. Let’s hope for a W.

All that I want is to wake up fine.

@TheSamMcLeod

@YouMeMusicLife

These hands are meant to hold.

Different things motivate all of us. Achievement, advancement, personal or professional growth, maybe recognition or responsibility? It can be something simpler than any of those things. Eating healthier, getting fit, listening to your favourite music, playing or watching your favourite sports. Once you find something that makes you want to do it religiously, it becomes second nature, you’re motivating yourself every day, although you perhaps don’t grasp that fact in every single moment.

We’re all different people, so all of our motivations are different. When you witness the success of others, it’s easy to not even contemplate the setbacks and struggles that they’ve had to overcome to get to where they are now. Sure, the road to get to a place that you need to be is often paved with failure and a shit ton of pain. There’s going to be hard lessons that you’ll need to learn along the way, you’ll need to have difficult conversations with yourself now and again. Humility and understanding is key, don’t we all need to harness those moments of adversity to help us move forward?

It doesn’t matter who any of us are, we’ve all experienced hard times in our lives. We all have different tools that we need to not only think about what’s happened to us before, but also to try and help us shape what’s going to become part of our future. Aren’t we all resilient on some level? A bad place can become a good place if you’re motivated to get there. Take music. Listen to any song with an open mind and you might realise that some of the words apply to something that you have going on.

It’s not always that easy though, is it? Some days are more difficult than others, it’s tough to see how any of what you have to deal with right now is going to get any better, to make you better.

Another day and you’ve had your fill of sinking.

It’s late on a weekend afternoon and I’ve been in the new place for a few days. The broadband engineer is finally here, first world problems are about to be solved. He ladders down over a high wall into the garden next door where the pole is to connect the street to the telephone and internet lines. I leave him to it, what the fuck do I know about installing wifi? Anything to do with the brain, I’ve mostly got you covered. Anything practical? Forget it, I’m the equivalent of a three legged cat trying to bury a shit on an ice rink.

He shouts over for my assistance, probably not standard protocol, isn’t that what they’re paid for, but part of you always wants to help. Grease on the top of the wall from his boots is there but I don’t see it, I slip, and I tumble over 20 feet to the ground landing straight on my back. I black out briefly, but when my eyes reopen, it’s easily the worst pain I’ve ever experienced that envelops me. He helps me back into my apartment and an ambulance is called. He leaves, apologising profusely.

The ambulance arrives, air and gas is given and a paramedic attempts to take a blood sample. Bless, they’re obviously new at this, and blood goes everywhere, it’s like a crime scene in my apartment, but finally we get sorted and I’m on my way to the local hospital.

I can’t feel my legs and the pain is excruciating. Every bump on the road hurts but I know that I’m headed to where I need to be. Being the weekend, it’s busy, hours pass with me being told to lie on my back and not move. Morphine is overrated, the pain doesn’t lessen. The staff are fantastic though, always checking in until I can go for x-rays and then a CT scan. That’s one thing that was never on the bucket list.

A doctor finally comes round with the results and it’s not good, there are severe spinal vertebrae fractures. Surgery is ruled out because it might make things worse. I’m scared to ask the question that I need an answer to. A day when you’ve lost yourself completely could be a night when your life ends. Painkillers for the rest of my days and intense physiotherapy will mean that I’ll be able to walk again. Hopefully.

No lies, there are a lot of tears and a lot of self pity. I get moved to a ward with three other guys and their prognosis and stories are equally as bad as mine, if not worse.

The night passes and I can’t sleep. Sure, the pain is part of it but I need to figure out how to beat this. I need to be motivated. I listen to music, hit the shuffle button and let the songs take me where they need to.

It’s approaching 5am, no sleep has been had and a junior doctor pops her head around the curtain to check on me. Questions are asked, blood pressure is taken and the first thing she does is to ask me to take her hands and push them away from her. I tell her that I doubt I have the strength but then she says six words. ‘These hands are meant to hold.’ Those 24 letters resonate, I’ve heard those words somewhere before and I push as hard as I can. She smiles, does some more tests and leaves telling me to stay strong.

I realise where I heard them and what the song is. It’s my iPhone so I click on it. There’s my motivation right there. Six words from someone I’ve never met before will get me through this. Will it be tough? Sure as shit, but what’s the alternative, you have to keep moving and be positive when life kicks you in the stones. Time to man up, we can’t keep regretting things that didn’t go the way that we wanted, they’re not going to change the past. Go ahead as you waste your days with thinking? Zero point.

Friends ask if I’m alright. Stupid fucking question, but it’s okay to tell a tiny white lie and say yes, isn’t it? Sometimes you need to do things on your own, just keep on going no matter how hard things are. The answers won’t come straight away but if I’m motivated, they will in time.

The old guy in the next bed says to me, cliche as it sounds, ‘Your life is how you make it now, it’s up to you.’ He’s right. No matter how hard it seems just to keep on going, don’t you have to believe in yourself? We won’t all have the same problems but we need to find out what motivates us. Life can deal you a shit hand but don’t you want to beat the dealer?

It might seem like the world is against you, it’s easy to feel sorry for yourself, but you have to keep going. I’ve got this, I will walk again, I will run again. Whatever you have going on, you’ve got it too.

Even when your hope is gone, move along.

@TheSamMcLeod
@YouMeMusicLife