Life is easy...

... until you let emotions get involved.

If you're reading this, I guess you chose to given I decided against sharing it like I usually do.

So I've had a pretty weird week to reflect on. I caught up with a couple of people I haven't seen in a long time, had a pretty significant achievement to note which I'll go into at a later date. It's been rounded off with one of my favourite films; Hitch. Naturally sooner or later I ended up thinking about far too much and it culminated in a plethora of thoughts that I'll express here.

When I was younger, a good friend of mine introduced me to a community, a philosophy and a structure relating to social interaction and how we develop friendships, relationships and whatever else we want from those around us, or indeed those we want around us.

At first, it was a revelation. Like anything with a multitude of levels, I took an interest in it and put the theories into practice. In honesty, I achieved more than I could have ever have expected and thought I'd found a place in which I was incredibly happy - my social circles grew, I was far more confident than I ever considered I could be and the only thing I wasn't content with, was my job.

Nine months down the line, I've found myself in a career that I'm passionate about with opportunities to progress moreso than I ever had previously. This week I was presented with the chance to step up to a consultant role in Chelmsford. It's my first real challenge, which will allow me to demonstrate my abilities and become a real reflection on what I've learnt and how to apply myself to my own desk. I'm incredibly confident, slightly anxious and beyond excited to get started at the earliest opportunity - there's work to be done and rewards to be had at the end of it.

So, with the job in line, being the only thing I wasn't entirely satisfied with, you could safely assume I'm on tip top form without a care in the world...

Unfortunately, circumstances change. With relevance to the title, on paper, everything is going well. Beneath the surface however; everything I studied, learnt, analysed and developed kind of fell apart. My social circles are still as they have been, I still meet new people on a regular basis, still have the same close friends I've always considered as such, but emotions certainly got in the way.

I've always been a firm believer in following your heart over your head. When it goes well, there's no better feeling; the euphoria is almost indescribable and despite the lows being almost unbearable at the worst of times; you struggle through them because you know coming out the other side is better than you've ever experienced before. Sometimes your head is frustrating to the point of telling you that everything isn't as it should be; or not quite what you want. Suddenly things aren't as simple as they should be because what you feel is clouding what you think. Perhaps however, it should be considered the other way round.

Back to Hitch, and a quote or two I want to end on..

"Because thats what people do... they leap and hope to God they can fly! Because otherwise, we just drop like a rock... wondering the whole way down..."why in the hell did I jump?" But here I am..."

Perhaps more relevantly?

"When you're wondering what to say or how you look, just remember, she's already out with you. That means she said yes when she could have said no. That means she made a plan when she could have just blown you off. So that means it's no longer your job to make her like you. It's your job not to mess it up."

Identifying your mistakes is the first step to rectifying them. How to do that exactly? Well, I'm working on it.