Life Is Short

It appears that everything always comes together. Once I hear one thing, then I keep hearing it. Just like when I got my job in the Innovation Team, I kept hearing the word innovation constantly – that example is quite similar to the topic I chose to write about.

                Just recently it’s really coming to light that life really is short. It’s been a year and a half since I left education, a year into my full time job and less than a month until I’m 18. This is a big shock for me as every day seemed to drag and time would move so slowly for me. I used to count down the time until I could get back into bed again and even that felt more like five days, not five hours. Now I complain more about there not being enough hours in the day and everything is passing me by so quickly. That in its self was enough to give me a kick up the arse to start making the most of the time I have on this earth.

                Though there was a few other things that made me change my mind set. I’m making the most of things, keeping myself happy and making sure the things I do are for my own benefit, no one else’s. And these changes were made from the words of a few people. First of being my mum. She’s in the south of France currently, and if you knew her well enough then you’d know that this isn’t out of the ordinary. I make a joke to her that England is more like a holiday seen as she’s never in her home country. She enjoys her holidays and so she should with the stressful job that she has. When she told me she was leaving for two weeks, we got into conversation and one thing she said stuck with me most

                ‘You don’t live long and you only live once, it’s best to make the most of it because you’ll never know when your chances are up’

                Hearing this on a Tuesday morning at 8am set me going through the whole day.  What IF I was to be put on my deathbed tomorrow, would I be happy to have the ‘life flashing before my eyes’ moment? Would I be happy with what I saw? And it got me thinking, I have spent a lot of my time doing things that I thought other people wanted me to do or doing things purposely to make other people smile. It’s all well and good wanting to do the right thing for others, but I then realised how little time I actually spent putting myself first and doing things that made me happy. That had to change.

                The next person that spoke within the same week (two days later in fact) on the same subject was one of the Board of Directors to the company I work for. We’ve just taken on a group of 17 apprentices and they had a one to one session with this guy to ask him questions, learn about the company and to learn how he had climbed the ranks as he started in the same position as the apprentices all those years ago. The last question that someone asked was

‘Would you change anything?’

And I have to tell you that his response was the most inspiring thing I’ve heard in those four walls.

                ‘Well son, there’s three parts to that answer. The first, I’m a man of no regrets. I don’t believe in them. Everything I’ve done has made me the man I am and got me here today. The second, if I HAD to change anything it would be to make more time for the things I loved. I wanted to be a pilot…and it took me until a few years ago to finally put my foot forward and take lessons and now I can fly solo. I wish I would have done that sooner, but I still ended up doing it anyway. And the last, I’ve only ever done the things that made me happy. Life is too short to be miserable, and that’s where your regrets come from – being miserable. The best advice I can give you, if anything, is to make sure you’re happy. If you’re happy then you’ve succeeded’.

Short Arse

Lately it’s been quite apparent that I’ve not been feeling too great. I’ve not had the effort / energy to do anything that I wanted to do (including keeping this blog updated) and even started feeling crap about things that have never bothered me before. For example…my height.

                From the bi-line of my blog, ‘the world from a 5ft1 point of view’…you can see how short I am. I had my last growth spurt when I was in primary school, so around 11 or 12. I’ve not grown since. Kind of grew at one point, I was once 5 foot 2. And then I shrunk. Both times I’ve been measured by a doctor and I lost an inch between visits. Even the doctor was confused on this.

                Being so small makes things a little…I wouldn’t say difficult…but more of an inconvenience. At work, most of my colleagues are a good foot taller than me, so this means I can’t reach the coffee cups, or the milk if they put it in the top fridge, or to look in the meeting room books… I’ve gone around the whole office and accommodated it to my height. I’ve moved the printer screen down ; I’ve moved the mugs to somewhere I can reach ; I’ve put the extra tea bags in the bottom cupboard instead of on top of the fridge. I’m probably driving all the tall people insane. I even have my own special chair. True story…I had to have a new chair ordered for me because my legs are too short and it would have affected my posture…with a foot stool…cause I can’t reach the floor. TINY LEGS!

                After having a giggle about how absurd it is that I have a special chair for my tiny legs, I have started to look in the mirror and resent how short my legs are. That I can’t go to the shop and buy a pair of pants of leggings without having to get them altered before I wear them…or in the same way…my arms are short to the point that ‘3/4 length sleeves’ are still too long for my arms. In a fashion way, it really is a pain in the backside. But also with weight and body shape. I know full well that if I was a half a foot taller…I’d be a few dress sizes less. That my body fat would be distributed differently and I would appear slimmer. It really has put a downer on me being happy with my body, and I don’t actually know how or what brought this on.

                So I thought that it’s about time I snapped out of it. so for a start, I thought….why not find short role models. And to my surprise there’s quite a few. Just for those people who are interested too…I’ll put some names out there:

Scarlett Johansson – this is one of the most beautiful women, in my opinion, that there is. And she is just under 5’3.

Christina Aguilera is at a height of 5’2

And some of the beautiful women that are the same height as me include the likes of Hayden Panettiere, Hilary Duff, Eva Longoria, Jessica Simpson and the Olsen Twins.

                I don’t know why, but looking at these women and knowing they’re the same height as I am (or around the same height) started to make me a feel a little bit better about how short I am. Possibly because there is some of the most beautiful, talented bunch of ladies that are named to be the under 5’5. Is this part of the whole ‘media and body image’ issue again? Am I subconsciously wanting to be taller just because that’s what I see on tv? I don’t know. I did get turned down for a modeling job not long ago for being too short – even though it was an ad for short women… (too short for a short ad….how does that work?) they told me I needed to be at least five foot five to be considered. Well then. That might have been the start of this irrational body hate towards myself. All I know is that it’s silly and I need to start embracing my short legs.