So, anyone who knows me will surely know that I haven’t had
the best history with money. I started
off in life ok; I was responsible from a young age and saved regularly into my
bank account, allowing me to buy the things I really REALLY wanted – The newest
PC game (in the days after my beloved Sega Master System went to the console
graveyard in the sky and before I got an Xbox), CD, video or book (I won’t lie,
mostly, books).
It didn’t stay that way.
Something about the freedom of money and being responsible for all of
when I arrived at university meant I went a little of the rails. Never far enough to require help from the
bank of Mum, but further than I ought to have gone to live a comfortable life.
When I graduated to the mythical ‘real world’ of employment
and living out of my childhood home, I got myself into a few sticky messes for
various sticky reasons – I ought to rephrase that, but I shan’t as it has
amused me. My terrible monitoring of
money and trying to keep everything in balance was seemingly just too difficult
for me to master.
Skip forward a few years and I was living alone and things
were even worse; this time, I actually couldn’t afford anything. I was pretty much broke all the time and I
hated it.
I mentioned previously that my Sister and partner gave me
somewhere to go; one of the greatest gifts one human being can ever give to
another is opening their home to another, one that I hope to reciprocate some
day (Fuck knows how!).
On moving in with
them, I was forced to change. Something
were more subtle but others were most certainly more ‘BAM!’
smack-you-in-the-face sort of changes.
My attitude towards money and paying my way out of the trench I dug for
myself is one of the more obvious examples.
As I was travelling home from work on the bus, I looked up from my book
and out of the window and the thoughts above washed over me in a steady wave. I began wondering to myself “How much have I changed?”
It’s a pretty ‘over arching’ question, I’ll grant you. The thought that immediately sprung to mind
is the dog. Now then, all dog lovers are
foreigners to the concept that, unlike them, not everyone has a place in their
heart for a dog. Others go further and
anything that isn’t human won’t get a paw over the threshold of their home. Those who go further still and anything registering
a heartbeat is a hindrance to their existence, we find dwelling in caves. I digress.
When I moved in here, I did not like dogs. At all. Not a tiny little bit. In fact, I’d go as far as to say I hated the
bastards. Not one specific breed. All of them.
Hounds of hell. They ought to be
cast into the lakes of sulphur to live with Satan and Cerberus and not even that
would have been sufficient. I really was
not a dog person… However, I knew that my Sister and partner owned a dog, which
I had met, and didn’t hate him that much
before I came here.
When I think about how I have changed over the last six
months, it isn’t my progression towards being debt free that I think of most readily. I have to confess it’s my attitudes towards
the dog. Daft as it might sound to
consider it a profound change, I would avoid contact with him as much as I possibly
could on my arrival. But time passed and
I got used to him, to a point where, now, should I find myself alone in the
house of an evening, I would actually prefer he was there to keep me company.
People talk about how a leopard never changes their
spots. I have come to the distinct
conclusion that statement is total hogwash.
I’m making a sweeping statement, I know.
And of course, we are dealing with metaphorical leopards who are
actually humans. I am now imagining
zebra stripes on a leopard… I’m digressing again. People are able to change, but only when
willing or forced. Not that I am of an
overly scientific mind, but the reason we rose to being the dominant life form
on the planet wasn’t because we stuck to what we knew, never changed and never
did anything different. By our nature,
we evolve and change and grow as people.
There are of course those more resistant than others – the leopard who
will only ever wear the get-up he was born in and nothing else will do. The rest of us get the chance to change the
things we don’t really like about our world, our environment and ultimately ourselves.
Congruent with this theme, it’s time for my costume change –
I’m sick of my work uniform and need something to slouch in.
Cute Leopard!
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