So last month I began a whole new decade of adventures. I reflected on what I had learnt in the past two decades, explaining the importance of being authentic. Of course I learnt more than just this, but this was a huge life lesson that needed sharing. But there is always more to learn about life, so today I'm bringing you a list of things I would like to learn before I'm 30:

That it's ok to ask for help

I am rubbish at asking for help. In fact, I'm so bad that it was my answer when asked what my weakness was at an interview recently (you can guess who won't be getting that internship!). It's mainly due to embarrassment, especially when I don't know the person that well, which leads me onto my next point...

One day I'll have decent answers for interviews 😂

People aren't scary

The idea of chatting to new people is blooming scary. Its the main fear I have about having a job in the future, and the idea of networking events especially scare me for this reason. I'm fine if the other person starts up the conversation; I have something to say to begin with; or they are super chatty, but any sign of awkwardness and: "Dear Mr Ground, please swallow me up at the next available opportunity, thank you :)."

I call this look, the OCD glove - free with every bottle of hand soap

That you can't control everything...

One of the worst parts about these sort of social situations is that you don't know what's going to happen. A fear of the unknown and a love for my safety bubble, among other reasons, has led to me developing mild OCD in an attempt to control said unknowns. 18 hours of Therapy and I'm not much closer to getting better (I mean I no longer have a 2 minute long hand washing routine, but I'm far off fully recovery), but hopefully 10 years will be enough time for me to remove this irrational mindset.

Stop interrupting people!

I have a really bad accidental habit: I presume how someone will finish their sentence and butt in.
Apart from this being an issue at formal occasions (see said interview), I do this loads when chatting to friends, and I'm surprised they don't get annoyed and leave me haha. It's mainly an enthusiasm thing, but its just rude and I need to be stopped 🙈

To manage my time better

Procrastination is the thief of time, making me the Queen of Thieves. My understanding of how long a minute is is completely skewed - in June land, you can do your teeth, fill a water bottle, apply some lippy, put on your coat and shoes and chat to your housemates in the space of 2 minutes. My initial lack of time management was purposeful cause I didn't want to arrive early, be the first there and have to have an awkward conversation with the one other person there, but now it's accidental and all I want in life is to be able leisurely climb the hill to uni - one day!




So there are just a few of the things I would like to learn in the next 10 years, though I'm sure they'll be many surprises along the way. What do you want to learn in the next decade of your life?

June xx

(p.s. for all the jokes I made about my disastrous interviews, I've somehow got the job! Just goes to show that there's always hope 😊)

BE UNAPOLOGETICALLY YOU!

Ah, 12 year old me before her year of 'hell'... Such innocence. Such unknowing. Such wonky teeth...

...me.

The things I would tell my insecure self from 6 years ago (like don't use a warm toned shadow on your brows!)

Changing yourself to fit in will gain you nothing. Being authentically yourself will gain you everything.

The truth is, is that we all do it. Heck one Birdy song too many and there I was browsing the feed of the-one-that-got-away.

But let me tell you something:

Stalking their Facebook feed will get you nowhere

It won't get you closer to them (unless you accidentally like a pic from 2009, have to awkwardly explain it over messenger and three hours later you're still chatting and- oh actually give that one a go and get back to me. I'm joking (only partly)...)

The point is, over my many years of action-less love-life (heck 10 year old was closer to marriage than I am now 😂), I've come to notice a wonderful pattern:

You can stalk them online all you want, but you'll get nowhere if you don't talk to them.

I know, I know! The one thing that you don't want to hear. That for relationships to even begin, you actually have to say something to them, instead of just staring at them across the classroom. Life isn't the movies, and you can't always rely on the other person to come chat to you. You can't just hope they think you look as cute as you think they look and will make the first move all the time. Have you ever thought about how, apart from being lucky in puberty, the popular girls at school always got the guy because they were confident and actually spoke to them?!  I know, hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Go on- say 'hi'!

The worst thing that can happen is that you have an awkward 2 minute conversation, meaning you obviously don't click and you can move on with your life. One more not-meant-to-be checked off your list. Millions more to get through! (seriously, there are millions of people on this earth, one let down is simply one step closer to your meant to be 😉 )

When I look back at all the people I've liked over my teen years, the real reason none of them ever stood a chance at becoming relationships was because I did not speak to them. Yes there was the fact that I was ridiculously uncool, but the right person would have seen through all of that had we got to know each other properly. I mean, the reason I had a BF aged 10, despite my weirdness, was cause it was pre-awkward stage and I was fine chatting to people of the opposite sex, whilst now I can't put two words together around the hot guy in my lecture and oh, guess what, I'm the singlest pringle! Not that any of the boys at Secondary School were the right person. Gosh, I had such a habit of falling for the bad guy *sighs in exasperation and rolls her eyes, shaking her head in amusement*

via GIPHY

Brace yourselves, this is about to get a bit deep and confusing...

Something I've seen a lot of over the years, and experienced myself, is the concept of needing to have a significant other. That my life will some how be fulfilled when I am going out with someone and that currently, I cannot live a full life in singledom. That I was a failure for being uno and needed to fix it. I felt down because I wasn't dating someone.  This got me in a rut that I struggled to get out of, and sometimes still fall back into: the need for a crush. The need to have someone to lust after constantly. When one went down the drain I would look for the next one, constantly searching, assessing the 'crush-potential' of every man I ever met.

Throughout my teens I got into the unhealthy habit of constantly being on the lookout for my next crush,

Desperation made me see all men as potential boyfriends and saw simple eye contact as a sign that a stranger I just walked past on the street liked me.

No, no, no, no, NO!

This was not healthy at all. The constant searching and desperation and placing your worth on whether or not you're in a relationship. There is so much more to life than this. On YouTube comments, I always see people comparing their ages along with the fact they haven't been kissed yet, or lost their virginity, or what ever it may be.


It's like a negative competition. Comforting someone else's worries by expressing your supposedly worse situation. The amount of people that are unhappy because of how few "Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging"-esque bases they have hit is upsetting to see. Why does it matter the age at which you have your first kiss? Yes your peers may have, but never feel pressured into doing something because it seems like everyone else around you has already done it (they haven't, believe me). And even if you do feel ready but haven't met the right person yet, think about it in a positive light. Think about all those awkward first kisses you have avoided, not the great ones you could have had.

Everything happens for a reason (in my books) so now, instead of thinking:

"Hi, I'm June, 19, and haven't been kissed" (and I wear hats - any Emma Blackery fans in the audience today?) 

, my thought process is more, the situation hasn't arisen yet, but when it does, it will be amazing and worth the wait. And more importantly, 'so what?'.Why get it over and done with, sloppily in a club environment with a drunk stranger just because you want to get rid of this pressure you've put on yourself, when you could wait and have that movie moment with someone you like and know? Romance is only a small section of all the things in life waiting for you to explore. And besides, like I said in my last post on this topic, good things come to those who wait. Hold on, it will be worth it in the end.

You shouldn't base how you feel on your relationship status or how many "Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging" bases you have 'completed'.

But, alas, I have digressed from the original topic as per. So getting back on the motorway from the cute country lane we've turned off onto: not having been kissed, had sex or been in a relationship, these things do not define you and you cannot put pressure on yourself to change something that is only partially in your control (you can't make people like you). If you haven't found the right person yet, you haven't found the right person yet. I know I've had some fortunate misses when it comes to crushes over the years, having been the stereotype of falling for bad guys. No proper relationship is better than many with the wrong person if you ask me. I'll wait out for the Thorntons instead of settling for Lidl's own thank you (You're getting all the analogies today haha).

This may be hard to hear I'm sure, when you're sitting there wishing the person of your dreams to just appear before your eyes and for the wait to be over, but saying yes to the next person who asks you out, especially if you don't like them, just because you think a relationship will solve everything is not the right way to go about things. I know people who have been in unhappy relationships because they only got in them due to the pressure to be in one. And I also know of people, and am sometimes that person myself, who despair over their lack of love life. Who have cried out how much they want an S.O. and get extremely down about this fact. Who place it as their number one priority above everything else. It's hard to watch, because you can't just grant their wish.

Instead of looking for the quick fix, treat the base of the issue. Allow yourself to let go of the pressure you feel to have a significant other. This will do you more good than getting into a relationship will ever do. Being content single means you will never rely on others for your happiness and self worth because, guess what:

YOU ARE WORTH MORE THAN YOUR RELATIONSHIP STATUS

No relationship will ever solve all your problems. See singleness as time to focus on you. To focus on the things you need to do to be in the best place possible when the opportunity of getting in a relationship does come along.

Being at peace with your single status and not putting pressure on yourself to find someone, is a lot better in the long run, than the quick fix of being in a relationship.

And one final thing. Just because you aren't in a relationship does not make you any less of a person. It does not mean you are any less handsome or beautiful or clever or talented. It simply means that the person who will fall in love with all these parts of you and more hasn't found you yet (and they will), because you most definitely are all of these things and beyond. You are beautiful and handsome and clever and talented with or without a significant other, and don't you forget it!

June xx

Any thoughts on this topic or advice you would give someone who feels like this? Please feel free to share in the comments :)

I am addicted to social media.

Like many, I can spend countless hours scrolling aimlessly through Facebook, liking countless images on Instagram and watching ridiculously long snap-stories all in the aid of procrastination or boredom. And half the problem is that I didn't mean for this to happen. A quick check of a notification about a uni society would turn into a 2 hour scrolling marathon, a catchup of the latests Bubzvlogz video would turn into 20 then 30 videos and before long my afternoon's gone, and no I haven't started that essay yet... Something needed to change, and that change came along in the form of Lent. I like to challenge myself each Lent, so have moved away from giving up certain foods and gone for things that I know will be hard. Two years ago I gave up makeup, which was only hard on special occasions as I don't mind not wearing makeup in everyday situations so learnt nothing from it, and giving up YouTube last year didn't solve the problem because I just relied more heavily on other forms of social media to while away the hours.

This year it all went.

Facebook, Youtube, Snapchat, Instagram, the lot. And boy did I need it! Not only did I actually stick to my plan of getting 4 essays done in 4 weeks, but it was so freeing to be away from that superficial world of online. In fact, to prove how isolated I had been from that world, I just 're-entered' Instagram and when someone mentioned seeing Kylie at Coachella, my first thought was Kylie Minogue, not Kylie Jenner 😂 The rules were that the only thing I was allowed on was Facebook, but only to use messenger and to check updates about society things - as class timetables etc for dance rehearsals were posted on there. Everything else was out.

Anywho, these are the three things I learnt from not using social media for over 40 days:





As I knew that social media was a major way of me relaxing and taking breaks (I really need a craft to do in revision breaks - anyone got a good knitting pattern?), I knew I would need something to take it's place. Having become so aware of my isolation from the real world, the news specifically, while at University, I opted to download the BBC News app on my phone as something to read when bored or eating breakfast, or when ever I would normally use social media. What was interesting is that I ended up using it as if it was social media. I would spend ages scrolling through the feed like it was Facebook, and could easily spend an hour browsing through articles and videos. While having access to the news in this way was useful  - for instance I don't know how I would have found out about the London Bridge terror attack otherwise - the way I was treating it was fascinating. Have I become so addicted to using social media that when it is taken away from me I will make anything fill the gap? Am I so bored that I will read anything and everything? Without that app I don't know what I would have done to take a break from Uni work - even reading isn't a short task: when I get into a book I have to at least finish a chapter - just reading a couple of pages as a revision break doesn't work.






This was a massive sign about how connected us youths are. For instance, I couldn't get rid of Facebook messenger because it was such a major form of communication for me. Same thing with WhatsApp. But despite these leniencies, there were other ways that no social media for me was a nuisance for others. SnapChat was the major problem. When I got notifications telling me my friend had sent me a snap, I had to message them to tell them to WhatsApp me the picture if it was important, cause otherwise I'd never see it. Furthermore, any picture they put up on Snapchat of an event we were both at, I would have to ask them to send me separately so I had record of the picture, because I could no longer screenshot it. Furthermore, being part of dance shows this term meant meeting loads of new people. Only problem was, that when it came to adding me on social media to keep in touch, I had to explain to everyone that, no you can't snap my snap code because I don't have access to it right now, give me a minute to try and remember my username and I'll get back to you. But don't be alarmed when I don't accept it for a month. I won't see it for ages. Not only was it tiring for me to keep telling people that I had given up social media for Lent, but it was inconvenient for others too.  It almost seems that life relies on Facebook so heavily that to not have it is majorly disruptive.




This was the hardest Lent ever. And it sounds pretty sad to say that to be honest. But those first fews weeks of going on Facebook to check a society's post and feeling the pull to start scrolling down the home screen was intense. Instagram is a new thing to me, so despite notifications I never felt the need to go on it. And without SnapChat I did ok. Youtube I'd done before so that was fine, apart from when I wanted to watch something for 5 minutes, but couldn't cause TV episodes are a minimum of 30 minutes long. But Facebook. Oh dear me. The pull to scroll, to see the rest of a post that would peep up when I went to check a room change for dance rehearsals was strong at the beginning. The temptation to go into it's depths was mad. Ridiculous even. You think I'm being hyperbolic. I'm really not. And I'm ashamed to say that. In fact, when I was bored and had run out of news articles to read, I would go on my society's pages and scroll down them with the guise of 'I'm looking for a particular post' *shakes head in shame*. Ultimately, social media is the ultimate boredom buster that I need to replace. I need a hobby away from screens (my poor eyes) that I can dip in and out of (you think I was joking about knitting?!) instead of reading pointless clickbait posts.

I think one of the reasons we spend hours on social media is because - and why I struggle to replace it - it is such a short, simple task. Reading one post takes max 5 seconds. Then you're onto the next one. A photo on Instagram, 2 seconds. A 4 minute YouTube video? That's nothing out of your day until you watch 10. Who cares if it isn't interesting? 20 seconds later and you've found one that does interest you, and before you know it you are googling something random and trying to workout how the heck you got there in the first place. Other pastimes don't work like that. They aren't 10 second snippets you can dip in and out of, but meaningful tasks you have to dedicate time and effort to. Therefore, until I find something decent to replace it with, I think I might be destined for the same path of pointless scrolling that I was struggling with before Lent. In fact, with the my BBC news feed not going anywhere I might spend even longer scrolling with more outlets to while away my boredom. That or I find a way to keep so busy that I never have any bored moments to fill in the first place...

This was meant to be a meaningful challenge with me proclaiming at the end that I no longer rely on social media and can do without it. Unfortunately this is real life. This is not a failure, but a learning curve.

TTFN

June xx

Would you ever do anything like this. I would 110% recommend you try it, even for a weekend or a week. It is such a good thing to get away from these things for a while and identify how and why you need them and if you overly rely on it. And if you have done this. What was your experience like? Let's have a natter in the comments.