Category: Blog

I missed my first weekly blog post last week. I prioritised other things, as we were spending our first week in Denmark and prepping the move from hotel room to house. This week we’re in our home, some boxes are unpacked though lots unopened and ready to unbox. It feels good to be in though! The hardest part now over.

We’ve been in our house 3 days now and have already been greeted by many of the neighbours. Yesterday evening we even got flowers and at times it’s reminded me of Cheers, that TV series based in a bar where everyone knows everyone. That’s our neighbourhood.

I love this blog yet the post specifically on friendship hasn’t been my experience so far. It’s obviously early days, but even in a restaurant last week when my wife went to the toilet, the man at the table next to me started chatting. He admired how we were with our kids, acknowledging it was hard sometimes. We had an interesting conversation about living in Denmark, and after 20 minutes we left for home and never did get his name. It was a nice casual chat with a friendly stranger.

On our first day in the house a neighbour came around to introduce himself. He has a young family and already yesterday my wife and 2 sons spent some of the afternoon at their house with his kids and their amazing zip line (yep, they have a zip line in the garden!)

Another neighbour offered to drive us to the shops for groceries as they noticed we don’t have a car. Another called by to offer their tools if we needed some for putting up curtains etc. and another to help with choosing kindergarten for our oldest son. We felt lucky to live in the neighbourhood we did in the uk, where neighbours were just as nice and helpful, yet here it’s a definite upgrade.

One of the last things a teary neighbour in the UK said to us as we left, was that she thinks we’ll always have nice neighbours as we’re nice people. It was a touching moment as I’d just been telling her what a nice neighbour she’d been. Perhaps she’s right? I like to think we’re nice people (we certainly try to be) and maybe being nice brings out the nice in others?

While meditating with headspace recently, it asked me to choose someone in my life I don’t like (it was relationship meditation). After many minutes I still didn’t have anyone. It’s not that there aren’t difficult people in my life, it’s that I don’t have anyone I dislike.

Since realising this I’ve been hugely grateful. Even where I work it’s been the same recently, where previous jobs have put me with people very difficult to like, my last UK role in Brighton surrounded me with nice people.

I’m hopeful my new role in Copenhagen is full of nice people too, just like our new neighbourhood is. Perhaps if not, then me being nice whatever the situation will bring out the nice in them? I’ll keep you posted.

“You can have freedom without responsibility , but not for long. The first thing an irresponsible person will do with freedom is give it away.” – The Stoic Emperor – Twitter

I’m writing this as I whizz through the British country side on a train headed to London. It’s delayed and so whizz might be stretching it a bit, perhaps trundling is more apt? Either way I feel a complaint coming on as I’m not going to get to my hotel till late in the evening. Maybe I’ll use Twitter in an attempt to publicly shame? Or Facebook so it remains on their company page…or perhaps a DM via email will suffice in order to get a more personal response? I stop myself from thinking for a moment and listen to the passengers around me.

It’s standing room only since we stopped to pick up people at Milton Keynes, and despite me being in first class for peace and quiet, I have people’s bums in my face and the loud chatter of moans throughout the carriage. Those around me have been crammed in due to multiple train cancellations, with some families travelling for many hours on what was supposed to be a much shorter journey. Tensions are high and arguments erupt throughout the carriage like fireworks going off one after the other. I decide to offer my seat to the person standing near me, she seems particularly stressed and has two young children with her, but she declines, thanking me for the kind gesture.

So I stay in my seat, deciding to shake away my complaining mood, sip my tea, resume my writing and feel grateful I’m at least comfortable.

I’m feeling more philosophical recently, it’s my way of dealing with stress. With this feeling I’ve been turning to stoicism. In the last 4/5 months I’ve found the change in roles from Microsoft to Unity has brought unanticipated stress into my life. The kind where I commute long hours to the office, slowly losing connection and time with my family. It’s time for change and that change is Denmark, where family is king and my commute is an hour a day at most (there and back).

What is Stoicism? The Oxford living dictionary describes stoicism as “…the endurance of pain or hardship without the display of feelings and without complaint.” I’m actually ok at enduring pain or hardship without the display of feelings, it’s the without complaint part I’ve been failing at more recently.

This has all been rather timely, as this week my wife Mandie asked me if I was interested in living a life without complaint. Mandie is curious at how it could make our lives and our children’s lives more fulfilling, I’m all for it. She isn’t one to complain much, though I do complain now and then. Only when it’s warranted of course, the question is, is it ever warranted?

In the last few weeks we’ve had to put a lot of reliance on others (travel companies, removals, utility providers, public transport, banks, postal service etc.) all of whom we needed to deliver on their customer promise. Unfortunately that’s not always been the case and it’s in my reaction to these occurrences I’ve realised I have work to do.

In my chosen profession (software quality) I’m focused on preparing for everything and anything that’s bad, could go wrong, or is wrong, and then preventing / correcting if possible. This means I have a tendency to highlight potential problems in my day to day to life and not just work. What I’m realising is that this isn’t always needed. So I’m exploring ways to not lose my ability to see problems before they strike, yet also live a somewhat care free existence, only highlighting the truly important issues to those around me (like things that could go wrong with a move to a different country). A life of what some might call real freedom.

So how does stoicism fit into this? The stoic philosophy asserts that virtue (such as wisdom) is happiness and judgment, which should be based on behaviour rather than words. Stoics believe we don’t control and cannot rely on external events, only ourselves and our responses. This then leads us to true freedom, though only when we remain responsible and take accountability for our lives.

This is very related to a life of no complaint. In Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor E. Frankl discovered those more likely to survive the POW camps of WWII were the ones who never gave up hope, the ones who chose their response to the atrocities bestowed upon them.

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.

Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
― Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning

So, I’m revisiting a famous book – A Complaint Free World, I’m teaching myself the deeper aspects of stoicism through the writings of Seneca and Marcus Aurelius, and most of all I’m working hard at improving myself. None of us are perfect and it’s in times of trouble we see our true self. I need to make that true self a better version of me, and one I and everyone else can enjoy all the time, not just in times of trouble.

This is a post of an article I found while clearing out my house. It’s a true story I wrote for Wanderlust magazine in 1998 after returning from Nigeria. It’s a little rough around the edges though seems in spirit with my usual blog posts so sharing here, enjoy!

———————————————————————————————

I was standing under a tree in the middle of a scrapyard in Nigeria. Well actually it was a motor park but scrapyard is a pretty accurate description. I wanted to travel from Makurdi to Kaduna and needed transport.

As I looked on amongst all the hustle and bustle, I managed to spot two vehicles with signs on saying Kaduna, so I set off towards them, this was not as easy as it may sound. I had to get past a mob of children selling things, numerous chances of getting pick pocketed, and the constant tugging on my clothes that came with both.

The drivers of each of the cars beckoned me their way, competing for my custom by trying to take my backpack and ushering me into their vehicle, it was quite the tug of war. The deciding factor for any journey I had taken in the last few months was the condition of the vehicle and this time was no different. Clinging onto my bag I assessed my options, neither taxi would be considered road worthy in the UK (where my MK II VW Golf sat in a barn on a farm in a Herefordshire, awaiting my return). I chose the better of the two, a standard 5 seater saloon, my choice came down to visibility, the better of the two had less cracks on the drivers side of the windscreen.

I then stood by my chosen chariot, waiting for it to fill up with other passengers. In Nigeria you pay for a space in a taxi, then it can take minutes or hours to fill up. When I say fill up, a 5 seater is often used as a 6 or 7 seater depending on the size of the occupants, so it really does get full.

It took an hour waiting for 6 others to choose the same taxi, we then squeezed in, me half perched on the handbrake, sharing the front seat with a smaller guy who seemed to think this was normal (it was). It definitely wasn’t going to be the most comfortable journey I’d taken in recent times.

We sped off, hitting the open road and quickly reaching what felt like 90mph (an estimate as none of the dials on the dashboard were working). I’m not embarrassed to admit I was a little frightened and holding onto anything that would stay in place.

Every now and then we’d come across a Police road block. This is where police asked for bribes, and in order for us to continue taxis would normally pass money out of the window as they passed through. However, with me as a passenger it was always different..It was assumed I was rich and so each time we hit a road block (5 in all) I was beckoned from the vehicle, interrogated and my bag searched. It was a lottery regarding how I was treated, sometimes with friendly jollity, sometimes told to put my hands on the car and a gun pointed at me while my wallet was taken and money stolen. Such is the life of a travelling volunteer in the most corrupt country in the world. The road blocks were supposed to be in place to catch criminals on the move, the police used them to increase their almost non existent salaries.

During the journey I talked with the person next to me, he talked of his dream to travel to America and enjoy the freedom of capitalism. Our conversation reminded me to keep my views in check, as whatever I thought of capitalism and my lack of freedom, it was actually a freedom and one of choices I enjoyed, unlike what was available to my new friend next to me.

At one point on our journey he was working hard at converting me from my agnostic attitude towards Christianity, when we heard some disturbing noises coming from somewhere at the front of the car. There was a loud crunch and I was thrown into his lap with my head smashing into the windscreen. The glass shattered, firing small blocks of it throughout the vehicle. Strangely no one screamed, and all I heard were murmurs coming from the back seat. The driver and passengers were worried I was hurt, though it turned out I was fine, just a small bump. The windscreen had given up easily due to the numerous cracks it had.

As we clambered out of the taxi one by one we could see the driver looking at the near side front wheel, where there was no longer a wheel. It had disappeared into a bush nearby, fallen off as we were racing down the sandy road to what looked like nowhere.

We were in the middle of the bush, on a bumpy track miles from the nearest town, in sweltering heat with little water and food. We needed that fourth wheel on pretty desperately.

There was a jack in the boot and I agreed to jack up the car while the driver and my new friend collected the wheel. The wheel was put back on and we quickly realised there were no longer any nuts to hold it in place. The driver shrugged and told us to wait while he went for help.

As I stared in disbelief at him walking away, I looked around at the rest of the passengers, hoping we could talk alternative solutions. They were settling in with blankets and making shade with their umbrellas, it was evident this wasn’t an unusual event.

As I continued to look at the driver walking further away, I began to think hard. I’m not great at quick thinking, though I was fresh out of an engineering education and job. One where I’d spent years learning how to problem solve with what was available to me (physically and mentally).

I ran after the driver, waving my arms like a lunatic. He stopped and I explained the idea I’d thought of. He smiled a big smile and hugged me so hard and unexpectedly I had the wind knocked out of me. What was my idea? Simple really, take a nut from each of the remaining wheels and tighten all the wheels on with just 3 nuts each, who needs 4? 3 was going to hold them enough for us to make it to the next town.

So that’s what we did, and you know what? It worked! The mood for the rest of our journey was one of exited conversation, laughing and the feeling we had been saved from a slow, boring demise in the middle of the desert.

At Kaduna, feeling a sense of comradeship, we said our farewells. I jumped on the back of a motor bike taxi (125cc Honda) with no helmet and my backpack on the handlebars out front with the driver. We weaved in and out of chaotic traffic, people and livestock and it was at that moment I realised I was living my dream. One filled with adventure, volunteering my time to help others and taking risks I wasn’t able to back home.

If you’re at a place where you can see your life ahead of you already mapped out, a life you haven’t planned and purposefully put in place, then maybe it’s time for you to leave your comfort zone and find adventure too?

More recently I’ve had the opportunity to turn left, turn right or keep moving straight on. I’ve made a few life changing choices that have led me to experience unfamiliar emotions, places and people. On reflection can all of this really be random and do we as people have control of our lives?

For many the belief in a masterplan is necessary thinking, otherwise life is just a random sequence of events and choices. The masterplan can also be akin to a safety net and like serving a God, serving a masterplan can relinquish a level of responsibility in life, after all “it was meant to be”.

I go big on making choices in my life, yet what intrigues me now more than ever is whether these choices really do control my experiences and destinations. Do we really have a choice in who we meet, love and the places we visit and live?

For me this question gets more interesting when I think of the times in my life where I had little or no choice. As a baby left alone in a playpen or cot throughout the day and night, as a toddler told I could been seen and shouldn’t be heard and as an impressionable youngster emotionally wrecked till I couldn’t face being around people anymore. I either couldn’t make a choice or didn’t realise I had any available. Was the Marcus fate train on its tracks and I the passenger being taken to all the various stops of its choosing? Did fate cement my foundational experiences and shape me for my life to come?

Perhaps it’s my choice to make a choice or is fate the reason I now have a choice? Do the choices I make all lead to the place or people fate intended anyway? What really is fate and are the choices I’ve made simply controlling the journey to where fate has already determined I’m going?

In the last 6 months I’ve become more open to fate and the idea of a masterplan. I’m not serving it, I’m still making choices yet it seems more and more credible that fate is part of my life and balancing choice with fate helps my happy existence. We can’t choose our genes though we can choose how to live with them.

So, although we own our own story, has fate put the framework for our story in place well in advance? Maybe.. either way balancing total control and going where life takes you is probably the path to happiness and it’s one I’m learning to get better at each day.