TWO HEADED BOY

I learn more about myself the older I get.

Obvious, right? It is until you realize that usually you are only willing to accept learning about yourself in the most positive fashion. It is so much harder to accept the flaws you don't know you have than the positives that you knew you do.

For a while now I've been masking lots of things (read: mistakes) in my life by going out to bars, being with friends, meeting women, listening to music and being lazy. There are infinitely more intricate ways I have been dodging what I needed to do, but I have simply been unwilling to face the music.

It gets to the point where you no longer realize you are avoiding anything.

Today, at 25 years old, I woke up on a couch in Los Angeles contemplating life. Life was the first thing that my conscious processed as I awoke. Not water, more sleep or food. Life. More so, what I have been doing with mine.

While I have accomplished so much these last three years, it has not been without compromise or sacrifice. There was a crescendo of accomplishment and mistakes recently where everything became unsustainable. I knew I could no longer live on shaky foundations and keep pushing on with my day to day-- but I just ignored the problems that were so obvious to me.

I am extremely fortunate to have experienced everything I have, and I know there is a long way to go before I am satisfied with my accomplishments. However, I have come to realize one of my biggest problems is that I simply do not accept failure in a healthy way.

While that may sound strangely positive (it can be), it can become one of the most toxic traits any human can posses. You lost your job? Play video games! You broke up with your girlfriend? Drink whiskey!

Be careful. They say everything is good in moderation, but there are few people in life who can control the things we regard as recreation from becoming excess.

Hopefully penning this slightly cryptic set of words will not only spur myself, but at least one other to straighten out what needs to be fixed in their own lives.

Earlier this year, I took some photos of Penrith AFC as they played South Shields Founded in 1894, are members of the Ebac Northern League Division One (step nine on the English league pyramid).