Bill Riddell

Life Lessons

Today I present to you a handful of life lessons. Each one of these topics were destined to become a blog post in their own right, but most have sat as rough outlines for over 6 months on my computer.

Since I’m clearing house, rather than delete what was already there I have joined them together, added a bit of polish and here is the result.

I’m sure you will get something out of it and it will push me to create some more original posts for you to read, rather than stretch the contents below out for a month or so.

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Clearing House

I’m officially clearing house, not my personal belongings, but my backlog of draft posts.

I had well over 50 drafts in various stages of completion (from a few lines of notes, to dot pointed outlines and a few 600+ word drafts).

Basically it could have been as much as a years worth of blog posts. However something went horribly wrong!

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Outsiders and Tall Poppies

I am in the process of writing about a character who is somewhat of an outsider - someone who largely does not follow social conventions, the way we are expected to live our life.

It is fascinating to look at people and charecters who inhabit the fringes and extremes of socitey and the reactions they recive from others.

I would like to share three brief case studies of such people with you today, they have fascinated me and Im sure will capture your imagination as well.

While writing I couldn’t help but think of two outsider figures that I have enjoyed reading about and also reflecting upon what is largelly an Australian social phenomenon know as ‘tall poppy syndrome’ where we seek to criticise and topple the popular and succsesfull particuarlly after cheering their rise to the top.

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Destinations and Autographs

Travel and sport have always played a large part in my life. Some of my fondest memories as a child are of summer holidays spent playing or watching sport and travelling with my family.

As any self respecting sports fan is bound to do, during my youth I hunted down autographs from the star players that I revered whenever an opportunity arose.

Sorting through my library recently I found my old autograph book and postcards bundled together. Looking through them I was reminded of the thrill of the hunt for a star athletes  and realised the parallels with travel for me.

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Rethinking Success & Life Balance

Many people have unhealthy views of success and what it means to be successful - myself included.

There was a time when I believed the measure of success was a high income, big house and a great car  - but those views slowly changed.

Over the last few years I have realised that money, while useful, is not a true measure of success.

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Theory Overload

We seem to have built up a society that values theory over practical.

The majority of our formal education now seems to enforce this habit.

Society applauds researchers and writers who publish grand theories and hypothesise endlessly. Instead should we not be worshipping the practical people who they profile and research.

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Suicide - The Not So Easy Way Out

I wrote this post almost a year ago and seriouslly debated sharing it, this is an incredibly sensitive topic. Since then I have seen too many people whos lives have been torn apart by the loss of a loved one to suicide. I simply have to share this. It may offend some people, I’m sorry, but it may just save someones life and that is more important.

Some say suicide is the easy way out. In a sense it is. For the person who commits suicide they decide they have had enough of the cruel world and end the pain once and for all, case closed.

But sadly things do not end there. One persons hardship and suffering becomes the painful burden for many.

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An Emergency Review

Today I want to review the latest book by one of my favourite authors, Neil Strauss.

A former journalist for Rolling Stone and the New York Times, Strauss had previously mastered the art of the ghost written bio and has now produced two superb books that take you into a whole new world, where the author drags you by the hand into the most intriguing subcultures.

His first such book, The Game, unearthed the world of Pick-up Artists and men overcoming their fear of women - while today’s topic for discussion, Emergency, deals with people afraid of a major event causing social collapse.

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Forget the Fear & Get On With Life

In the past I have been a fearful person. I worried endlessly about what might happen and more often than not it prevented me from finding out for sure.

I am now slowly transitioning to someone who just trusts things will work out and goes for it, rather than being fearful and procrastinating. Sometimes I’m more successful at it than others, some progress is better than none.

Today I’m going to share what I have learnt along the way.

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More Than You Need to Know - More Than I Should Write

My regular readers will have noticed that I have a bit of an aversion to talking about myself. I always have.

I’d rather ask a million and one questions about you than reveal details about myself. Seriously - I have only 2 or 3 close friends who I freely share a personal details with and even though I’m very close to my parents there are things they don’t even know.

So this blog post is me metaphorically building a bridge and getting over my resistance to putting myself out there.

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