I’m Trying to Get My Life in Gear But I Keep Releasing the Clutch Too Quickly and Stalling.

June 25, 2017July 31, 2017 ~ Joanne Sarginson ~ 8 Comments

I turn 23 in a couple of weeks and, although I physically resemble an adult, I often feel much younger on the inside.

As a result, I am always looking around for things to confirm my status as an official grown-up in the hope that I will eventually be able to convince my inner self that I actually I am one.

In his iconic song ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’, Bob Dylan asks the question ‘How many roads must a man walk down before you can call him a man?’

Whilst I do not know the exact answer to Bob’s question and have no ambitions of becoming a man, I imagine that the whole process of becoming an adult would be a lot quicker if you just drove there instead.

So, last year, I decided to learn how to drive.

Driving lessons are quite expensive so I decided to try and accelerate the learning process by asking my mum to help me practice in between them.

I thought that my mum would be a good candidate for the job because she had previously taught me to ride a bike as a child.

However, for some reason, she seemed reluctant to resume her role as instructor.

7_LI (2) — (N.B. – My mum did make me wear a helmet, I just forgot to draw it. I thought I’d mention that just in case any of you were concerned for my safety – although I think my decision to ride down a steep hill with complete faith in my legs’ ability to act as an effective breaking system proves that no amount of protective gear would have prevented me from being a danger to myself…)

My mum is a very cautious driver with a high regard for motoring safety.

As a result, the prospect of giving me complete control of a moving vehicle made her incredibly anxious.

In an attempt to ease her nerves, I decided to demonstrate my ability to control the car by driving at 10 mph around a suburban cul-de-sac.

However, by the way my mum was reacting, I may as well have been trying to set a world speed record on the salt flats of Utah.

When I first started driving with my mum, I was initially quite calm.

I had taken nine driving lessons with a qualified instructor and was confident in my ability to control the car.

I didn’t think there was anything to worry about.

However, my mum’s anxiety was so high in relation to mine that it began to diffuse along a concentration gradient until the panic was evenly spread between us and we were both infused with the same sense of impending doom.

In order to diffuse some of the tension, I decided to put some calming music on but its effect was limited by the sounds of my mum having a panic attack over the soundtrack at regular intervals.

In the end, it was a bit like an episode James Corden’s Carpool Karaoke except, instead of a celebrity singing their iconic hits, there was just my mum periodically shouting ‘easy on the clutch’ and ‘mirror, signal, manoeuvre’ over the Relax and Unwind playlist on Spotify.

Driving can be a stressful experience all round.

In everyday life, the majority of people tend to be quite considerate and respectful towards other people.

However, when driving, our tolerance for others drastically decreases.

Any sense of social convention rapidly disintegrates, something which is magnified by the fact that the car itself provides a physical barrier behind which the driver is able to conceal their identity.

This allows drivers to feel comfortable expressing what would otherwise be a socially inappropriate level of rage with the same sense of anonymity as an internet troll.

Many people try to make the experience of driving less stressful by investing in a Sat Nav to help them navigate.

Like most technology, a Sat Nav is the best thing ever until it stops working properly, at which point it immediately becomes the worst thing in existence.

Normally, a Sat Nav will give you precise directions to help you get to your destination in the fastest time possible.

However, occasionally the GPS system will malfunction and it will start instructing you to complete manoeuvres that the physical set up of the road renders impossible.

When this happens, it is easy to become frustrated.

In contrast, the Sat Nav’s voice remains completely calm and serene, blissfully ignorant of your own increasing levels of irritation.

If you enjoyed this post, feel free to check out some of my other posts. I often have profound thoughts on important, life-affirming subjects such as dogs, social awkwardness and scary animals that freak me out.

For more drawings, you can also follow me on Instagram.

How To Stop Procrastinating and Start Getting Things Done: An Unofficial Guide That REALLY DOES WORK!

May 18, 2017May 22, 2018 ~ Joanne Sarginson ~ 22 Comments

Modern life can be quite complicated and, like most people, I often have a lot of things that I need to get done on a daily basis.

Sometimes, however, I find it hard to motivate myself to get things done in a productive and efficient manner.

Even completing simple everyday tasks can be a struggle.

Instead of addressing a task properly, I often come up with temporary solutions that allow me to extend the amount of time that I can remain in denial about the task’s existence.

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However, what initially began as a small manageable task eventually transforms into a monumental obstacle and the pressure of directly engaging with it can be overwhelming.

Recently, I have been asking around for advice on how to be more consistently productive.

One of my friends told me that I should try reading a self-help book which suggested that they cared about my wellbeing but considered the challenge of transforming me into a functioning human being so huge and intimidating that they were reluctant to become directly involved.

i_LI Nevertheless, a few days later, I went to a bookshop and sought out the self-help section.

The first book that caught my eye looked like this.

I hadn’t been feeling particularly worried when I had first entered the bookshop but looking at the book immediately made me worried about whether I was the sort of person who should be worried about whether I was living or not.

I picked up the book, turned it over and read the blurb.

11_LI In the back of my mind, I knew that the blurb was referring to common issues that many people experience on a regular basis.

However, because it was doing so within the guise of individuality, I felt that it was speaking directly to me.

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In addition, the prospect of overcoming anxiety, low self-esteem and lack of motivation appealed to me.

It was as if I was a protagonist from a book or movie on a mission to overcome great evil…

Except I was fighting against the most underwhelming antagonist in existence – my own epic laziness.

44_LI (2) I reasoned that spending £8.99 on a book that felt it necessary to boldly assert the fact that it ‘really does work’ was a totally logical idea.

I thought that maybe one day I could help other people to help themselves by writing my own self-help book about how somebody else’s self-help book had helped me to help myself.

‘Stop Worrying and Start Living’ presented several strategies to help me stop procrastinating and start getting things done.

Reading about how I was going to get things done in the future made me feel very productive.

As a result, I was less bothered by the fact that I had things that I needed to get done.

By the time I had finished the book, I was felt thoroughly prepared to start living my life to the fullest.

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However, it was getting quite late.

So I decided that it was probably best to seize the day another day.

I guess what we can learn from this is that a significant part of self-improvement is learning the art of self-control.

It is important to limit the amount of time that we spend doing instantly gratifying activities and invest the more satisfying, longer-term benefits of sustained hard work.

On that note, if you enjoyed this post, here are some more posts that may provide you with fleeting sense of satisfaction:

Interview Advice – Just Be Yourself… As Long You’re Being A More Organised, Eloquent, Functioning Version Of Yourself That Is Better Than Your Actual Self In Pretty Much Every Single Way…

How To Deal With Everyday Problems – An Unofficial Guide.

Mice and Other More Legitimately Scary Animals That I Am Afraid Of.

For more drawings, you can also follow me on Instagram.

Interview Advice – Just Be Yourself… As Long You’re Being A More Organised, Eloquent, Functioning Version Of Yourself That Is Better Than Your Actual Self In Pretty Much Every Single Way…

April 9, 2017May 21, 2017 ~ Joanne Sarginson ~ 21 Comments

Growing up and entering the real world can be a confusing and overwhelming process.

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A big part of becoming a fully-functioning adult is finding a job, which would be fine if it weren’t for the fact that finding a job can be quite hard.

Sometimes, looking for a job can feel like searching for a needle in a haystack and, when you finally locate the needle, another slightly more qualified person comes along with a big massive magnet.

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Other times, it can feel like trying to find Wally in a ‘Where’s Wally?’ book.

But you’re up against a guy who already has contacts in the business.

h_LI (2)

I have been looking for a graduate job for a while now and am therefore quite familiar with the application process.

A lot of job applications begin with a CV.

A CV is a summary of professional and academic achievements but it might be better described as a Verification of Awesomeness.

Sometimes, the pressure of living up to the sheer magnificence of your on-paper personality in an interview can be overwhelming.

When I first started doing interviews, I used to get quite nervous, something that manifested itself in a somewhat debilitating tendency to panic and say the first thing that came into my head.

Occasionally, I would find myself on the verge of an existential breakdown.

I would practice questions for hours before an interview.

Only to completely lose my grasp of the English language once the interview actually commenced.

Recently, I have been actively trying to improve my interview technique, something that has enabled me to answer a wide range of questions more effectively.

However, I still encounter questions that completely throw me.

Due to the increasingly saturated nature of the graduate job market, the hiring process is more complex than it has been in the past.

Modern technology has enabled the traditional face-to-face interview to mutate and evolve into various different subspecies.

As a candidate, you have to be highly flexible and ready to make a good first impression in any of these mediums.

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In addition, many companies now implement a multi-stage application process in order to gradually whittle down the high numbers of applications that they receive.

In order to access their suitability for the job, applicants have to face several tasks which is a bit like competing in the Triwizard Tournament but with less mortal peril and more collaborative group-based assessments.

Due to the competitive nature of the graduate job market, it is important to remain resilient in the face of rejection.

Over the past few months, I have developed some coping mechanisms which have really helped me deal with some of the setbacks that I have encountered.

Despite this, it is sometimes quite difficult to remain positive.

l_LI

How To Deal With Everyday Problems – An Unofficial Guide

March 2, 2017April 9, 2017 ~ Joanne Sarginson ~ 12 Comments

Life is full of problems.

A few weeks ago, I was cooking dinner when I encountered a problem.

My Uncle Ben’s rice packet was too tall to fit inside the microwave.

The problematic size of my Uncle Ben’s rice packet in relation to the size of my microwave was very upsetting for me.

This was completely irrational because the inconvenience that it caused me was relatively small.

However, small everyday problems can often be extremely frustrating and I think this is because, on some level, they reflect larger ongoing issues in our lives.

However, the immediate frustration that we experience when we encounter one of these problems means that we become so emotionally involved with the situation that we neglect to think clearly about exactly why it is frustrating us.

As a result, our approach to the problem becomes more reactive as opposed to perceptive.

In order to prevent everyday problems from becoming irrationally overwhelming, it is important to keep them in perspective.

A good way of putting a problem into perspective is to try and visualise it within the context of the sheer magnitude of time and space.

However, because humans are naturally introspective, it is easy for us to become immersed in our own issues as opposed to considering the wider picture.

As a result, our perspective of what is actually important can become distorted.

Although my Uncle Ben’s rice packet was relatively large in comparison to my microwave, when related to the entire history of Planet Earth it is actually very small.

In fact, when compared to the vast expanse of the universe, my entire life is basically irrelevant.

However, this did not stop the inconvenient size of my Uncle Ben’s rice packet being a significant issue in my insignificant existence.

I am aware of the fact that the dinosaurs were around for 160 million years and modern man has only been present on Earth for 200,000 years and I have only been alive for 22 of those years but I was trying to ram my Uncle Ben’s rice packet into the microwave for 30 seconds and that bothers me.

In addition, whilst I was relating my problem to time and space, my brain began making associations between the two, meaning that the image of my Uncle Ben’s rice packet became integrated into my vision of dinosaur times.

When solving a problem, it is important to adopt a proactive, solution-focused approach.

However, this can be quite hard to do if you do not have a lot of confidence in your ability to come up with effective solutions to problems.

If you are unable to come up with an effective solution to a problem, it can be frustrating.

It is often tempting to complain order to release some of this tension.

Complaining is a completely illogical way to deal with a problem because it exhausts energy levels that could otherwise have been used to take productive action against it.

However, this is why complaining is so great.

Complaining allows you to engage with a problem whilst simultaneously procrastinating from actually attempting to solve it.

In addition, complaining often involves interacting with other people which enables you to make them aware of the problem’s existence in the hope that they will solve it for you.

If you are unable to solve your problem or find someone else to fix it for you, it is tempting to bury the problem under a mass of hardcore denial.

However, denying the existence of the problem all together can be a problem in itself as the problem often consequently resurfaces in an even more powerful state than when you initially buried it.

3 Books That I Loved As A Child But Now Find Logically Problematic As An Adult.

March 2, 2016March 3, 2016 ~ Joanne Sarginson ~ 19 Comments

One of the great appeals of reading fiction is the idea of escapism.

Books provide us with the opportunity to transcend our everyday lives.

As a child, I had a very intense and vivid imagination.

When reading a book, I would often become so immersed in the story that I would begin to confuse the fictional world with reality.

When reading, I would enter into a self-enclosed sphere of imagination in which my immediate surroundings momentarily ceased to exist.

The material world no longer featured as part of my own personal reality and, as a result, the things that my body required in order to function properly became completely irrelevant.

reading, books, joanne sarginson

However, as I have grown older, my ability to become completely absorbed in a fictional novel has been somewhat compromised.

I come from a scientific family – my granddad was an engineer, my parents are doctors, one of my brothers is studying marine biology at university and the other one received a prize in Year 2 for ‘The Best Model of a Volcano’.

Therefore, although I like to consider myself a creative and imaginative person, there is a part of my brain that is inclined towards thinking in an analytical and logical manner.

As I have progressed out of childhood and through the teenage phase, I have noticed the logical side of my brain begin to exert increasing levels of dominance over the imaginative side.

I have seen this transition manifest itself most noticeably in the way that I now perceive the books that I used to find so captivating as a child.

1. The Very Hungry Caterpillar

The Very Hungry Caterpillar tells the story of (SPOILER ALERT) a caterpillar that is very hungry.

At the end of the book, the caterpillar metamorphoses into a butterfly.

Before completing this transition, he eats his way through increasing quantities of brightly coloured food items.

By the story’s climax, the caterpillar has consumed over 20 items of food, including an ice cream cone, a cupcake and a slice of Swiss cheese.

This was fascinating to me as a child.

However, as I have grown older and my knowledge of the anatomy of insects has developed, it has become harder for me to get invested in narratives such as The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

2. We’re Going on a Bear Hunt

We’re Going on a Bear Hunt details the story of a family who spontaneously decide to go out into the wilderness and search for a bear.

The structure of the book is similar to that of The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

Before locating a bear, the family is forced to traverse various obstacles in the landscape.

As child, I found the wide range of obstacles that the family encountered so completely captivating that I failed to think about the fact that they were actively looking for a bear.

As I have grown up, I have spent some time watching David Attenborough documentaries and other educational films such as The Revenant.

I have therefore acquired a greater awareness of the physical threat that bears can present to humans.

As a result, I have developed a few issues with the basic principle of We’re Going on a Bear Hunt.

3. Harry Potter

Quidditch was always my favourite part of Harry Potter.

Whilst I found all of Harry’s magical adventures fascinating, I was particularly enthralled by the concept of Quidditch.

However, I recently dipped my head back into The Philosopher’s Stone and, whilst reading, I became slightly alarmed at the rate at which Harry Potter learns to fly a broomstick.

Within the space of a one hour Broom Skills lesson, he progresses from barely knowing how to hold the broomstick to driving it at high velocity.

I am aware that Harry is special and Hogwarts is magical but this accelerated rate of learning still seems quite dangerous to me.

I also found myself slightly concerned with Madame Hooch’s conduct within Harry’s first flying lesson, particularly the point at which she leaves a group of 11-year-old children unsupervised with a load of flying equipment that is capable of reaching speeds in excess of 100 mph in order to take Neville Longbottom to the hospital wing.

It occurred to me that Hogwarts should probably run an INSET day before the start of term in order to properly educate its staff in Health and Safety procedures.

Then again, the fact that there was a massive three-headed dog, a massive poisonous snake and a massive ‘whomping’ tree on the premises at various points during Harry’s time at the Hogwarts suggests that Health and Safety potentially wasn’t a prioritised matter on the agenda at any of the school’s board of governors meetings.

If I were a teacher at Hogwarts, I imagine that my flying lessons would be a little less exhilarating than Madame Hooch’s.

In fact, I’m pretty sure that I would be Hogwarts’ most hated teacher.

Although I am no longer able to use fictional books as a form of complete and utter escapism, I often use them to inform my real life.

It is comforting to know that, no matter how crazy or fantastical a book is, the struggles of its characters are always partially drawn from the author’s real life experiences.

If I am going through something difficult, sympathising with a character can make me feel less alone.

Or alternatively, if I am facing a difficult decision, observing how characters deal with their issues can sometimes give me an idea of how to move forward.

Books like The Very Hungry Caterpillar, We’re Going On A Bear Hunt and Harry Potter, for example, have provided me with some valuable advice on how to deal with my current quarter life identity crisis.