What did I learn in 2011?
I learnt that actions speak louder than words.
As well as doing media bits and pieces, like many other writing or radio or comedian or film making hopefuls, I had a day job. A day job that wasn’t writing or radio or whatever it was I really wanted to do.
Like most hopefuls, it was far from it.
I was wearing a suit on the 20th floor of a very nice building. I advised very rich people on how to become a little bit richer. Very boring and very unrewarding unless I hung in there for 15 long, suicidal years and became partner. Then, whilst I would be rich myself, I would still be working a very boring and unrewarding job.
Many other people at work spoke about leaving to start their own business, moving back to their country town, or backpacking through South America. After many months, the ‘one day I will’ chat continued around the office but not a single of my number crunching colleagues had made a move.
Even when I wasn’t at work, but in my social circles of the weekend, I heard lots of ‘I want to do this’ or ‘I want to work in this industry’ or ‘I think I might study that’ but many are in the same place they were last Christmas. Not always because of any other reason other than they simply didn’t do it. They didn’t apply for a job, they didn’t apply for the university course.
I don’t know where I first heard the saying ‘actions speak louder than words’ but that is probably what I learnt the most during 2011. So instead of just saying ‘I want to work in radio, I want an adventure’ I actually took on an adventure. That adventure is now my job, presenting the daily breakfast show on Phuket ‘s LIVE 89.5.
I didn’t want to just sit around and say ‘I don’t care about the money, I just want to do something I enjoy,’ I wanted to do it. And now after a few months in Thailand, I’m very happy about the decision I made.
So now I talk for a living, which I guess is somewhat ironic as my life lesson learnt in 2011 actual devalues the spoken word.
But as I sit here on the beach with my laptop, my favorite black Nikes, comfy torn jeans (not a suit) sipping on a beer watching the sun go down over the beautiful Thai ocean, I can certainly happily say that I’m happy letting my actions speak louder than my words.
