There are two ways to exert influence; through force or persuasion.
Nobody enjoys commands, so even if they comply, the result will be inferior.
Therefore, getting someone to want what you want is not only more preferable, but also pleasant.
I look at the video folder on my computer and see one lonely recording.
Despite promising myself that I’d start making videos to accompany my articles, there’s only a single rough edit to show for my underwhelming effort.
Starting a YouTube channel is just one of many projects I’ve planned and then abandoned over the years.
“Give me your passport,” demanded the leader of the rabble.
I glanced warily at the group of Bolivian Campesinos holding cheap rifles, blocking our path.
Then I looked at my recent Bolivian acquaintance, who nodded imperceptibly.
“I’m in pain,” she cried.
“No one’s helping, or even listening to me!”
I was assessing a patient with chronic pain, severely debilitated by her condition and struggling to even move…
Emotions surge like waves.
One minute you’re riding high, cresting euphoric stomach-lifting happiness, while the next moment you’re down in the depths, surrounded by claustrophobic walls of depression and unable to escape.
Such sensations are merely two sides of the same coin and universally interdependent, a yin and yang of necessity…
I didn’t plan on changing careers.
I mean granted, I disliked my job, inciting sinking evening anxiety.
But it wasn’t a mastermind transition.
I simply started tinkering with websites after work, learning how to create a blog for an impending European motorcycle tour (another story)…
I lie in bed, barely conscious, on that blissful edge of slumber, an interstitial zone where time slows and stillness reigns.
It would be easy to drift back into sleep, carried by dreams back into oblivion.
But I know I need to break the reverie and get up…
I was running desperately late, working as a private physiotherapist in an exclusive clinic.
A patient had come to see me with agonising low back pain and by the time they were well enough to walk out, I was hopelessly behind schedule.
Not only were my next patients incredibly angry, but I was majorly stressed.
“You can’t cross the border”, said the Chilean official.
“Why not?” I asked.
“Your motorcycle is stolen”, he said, a completely unfounded accusation.
He sat there like an immovable object, his stamp all we needed to pass through one of the most remote outposts in Chile and return to Buenos Aires…
I lay there awake, mind racing, desperately tired but unable to sleep.
The worst part?
I had to get up in just a few hours to commute across London for a job I hated.
My mind raced, flooded with anxiety about needing rest, but not being able to get it…