Time to dispel some myths.
This morning I listened to an excerpt from an interview with the recently deceased British comedian Bobby Ball on the radio, in which he describes how he came to adopt a Christian faith. I’m not very familiar, if at all, with Bobby and his comedy but his Christian conversion story deeply resonated with me.
In the interview Bobby explained how a priest from his local town who’d been a fan of his comedy had come to see him before one of his stand-up shows and asked to talk with him in his dressing room, slightly taken aback that a priest of all people would want to talk to him, Bobby…
Redefining success can help us to cope with failure.
Caregivers need to stop belittling their role and take pride in what they do.
"I'm just a Caregiver at the moment but…"
I was talking to an old university friend I hadn’t seen for several years when I spoke this familiar sentence. I then gave my friend a half-hearted excuse for my current occupation and a vague description of a “proper career” that I would be pursuing once I was finished doing this “caring thing”
I’ve been my older sister’s full-time Caregiver for nearly three years now (she has a Learning Disability, Epilepsy, and a whole host of mental health issues) and in that time, whenever someone asks me what I do for work I always find myself uttering the above sentence along with some kind of half-hearted excuse for my current job. …
Mixed Martial Arts
Slow-motion highlights reveal that not even Khabib was immune to Justin Gaethje’s infamous leg kicks.
In the wake of Justin Gaethje's recent defeat at UFC 254 to the newly crowned pound for pound number one, and Lightweight Champion, Khabib Nurmagomedov, the UFC YouTube channel released their customary episode of the “Fight Motion” video series which provides highlights of their marquee bouts through the lens of slow-motion video footage.
I always look forward to watching installments of the Fight Motion series, perhaps even more than the live events themselves — the slow-motion footage provides you with a level of detail the live events just can’t match, revealing things that are impossible to notice in the fast-paced action of a live fight. …
Humour
Hey, you! I’m a triathlete, read about how great I am!
I’ve got to let you all know something super important at the outset:
I got up at 3:45 am this morning and swam 7 miles.
I biked to the swimming pool, taking an extra-long route (like 20 miles extra long) and I biked back home.
By 6:30 am I had cycled 40 miles and swam 7.
But that wasn’t enough. I got straight off the bike, dried the sweat from my chiseled body ( you-could-grate-cheese-on-my-six-pack chiseled) and then I did a causal 16-mile run…no biggy.
Are you feeling like a lazy piece of crap yet? You should be.
I bet you were still in bed. …
I continually struggle with doubts about my Christian life, this is how I overcome them.
When I was in my late teens and beginning my university studies, I had big aspirations for my life. I wanted to be a successful novelist or screenwriter on most days, on other days I wanted to be an esteemed lecturer with a ‘Ph.D’ and ‘Dr.’ attached to my name.
Whatever it was that I ended up doing with my life, I wanted it to be something that made me into a person that other people talked about, admired, and even envied.
I just wanted to be a success in the most typical sense of the word, the guy who ‘wins at life’. …
Coffee farmers aren’t being paid enough but we can help them.
On the last Friday of every month, my monthly bank statement pops up in my email inbox. If you’re like me and don’t like to be reminded of all the pointless purchases you made in the previous four weeks you probably give your monthly bank statement a superficial glance — ensuring the balance is correct and nothing looks suspicious — but then there’s that odd month when, for whatever reason, you look a little closer and you cringe at what you see.
The most common object of my bank-statement induced shame? It’s always the amount of money that I’ve spent on takeout coffee; Starbucks, Costa Coffee, Cafe Nero, etc. …
How you can help to end discrimination against people with Intellectual Disabilities.
Author’s Note: I cite various British sources in this article that use the term ‘Learning Disability’ to refer to an ‘Intellectual Disability’. This is standard practice in Britain. In all such instances, the British use of the term shouldn’t be confused with the American definition of a Learning Disability — an umbrella term used to refer to a variety of learning deficits (e.g. Dyslexia, Dyscalculia, and Dysgraphia)
Earlier today I attended a church service with my sister, Maria, for the first time since this pandemic began. Maria has an Intellectual Disability and, as her Caregiver, I help her to attend social events such as the Church service this morning because without someone else’s assistance she wouldn’t be able to — both for practical reasons (e.g. …
Even if you’re a Christian like me.
During this current pandemic there have been a few things that have helped me keep my sanity; listening to podcasts, watching too many TV series on Netflix, and spending extra time with my family have been some of my go-to comfort blankets whilst the world has been turned upside down.
But aside from these fairly typical home comforts, there is also something slightly less ordinary which has provided me with the perfect form of escapism from anything related to COVID-19 — watching mixed martial arts (MMA), specifically the ‘UFC’ (Ultimate Fighting Championships).
During this pandemic, the UFC seems to have been the only sporting organization confident that it would be able to host events despite COVID-19 related restrictions, going as far as to find a privately owned island in the Middle East to host events. …
The Netflix series will help you realize you’re not alone in your struggles.
A little while ago I wrote about my experiences of feeling like an outsider. It was a relatively easy article to write because, sadly, I’m fairly well acquainted with the nuances of feeling like you live on the fringes of society. However, it was one of those articles that was hard to hit the publish button on, mostly because I was skeptical about how relatable it would be to other people. …
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