Guest Blog - Tom Fell

I’ve wanted to write a guest blog for quite some time, however I’ve always found the prospect quite daunting. I feel more than able to work with people to make sure they get the most from the FutureYou platform, but what do I have to offer in terms of content? I’m only twenty, with very limited experience in the world… what do I have to pass on?

Slowly but surely, a few ideas have started to trickle down to me. I began to realise that the “naivety of youth” could be an advantage, not a disadvantage. Also, it dawned on me that there are still things in life that I have learned from, and that have changed the course of my life – and maybe they could help others too.

Although I may have no idea how the world works, maybe that’s a good thing. In a bit over a year, I will leave the protective walls of university and go out, starry-eyed, into the real world. And although I won’t know how the world works, especially the world of work, I certainly do have an idea of how I think it should. I think it’s a really interesting thought experiment to cast my mind back to the start of university, and what I’d hoped to be doing, compared to what I am doing. There are things I wanted to do, that I haven’t, just because “that’s not how it’s done”, or “that’s not the usual student thing to do”… does that mean I was wrong? To quote a book I’ll mention later, “We can't just assume that because something is old it is right.” This has made me make some changes to my life, and I definitely am happier because of it. Maybe the same thing will apply in the working world. 

I have always been someone who absorbs content. I listen to more music than anyone I know and read as much as I can get my hands on. Whilst the books I read are primarily novels, and fantasy novels at that, I feel like I have learned more from these sources than anything else in my life. It’s a well documented fact that reading can expand your thoughts, and teach you new things, however I feel like this argument is always around self development books, particularly when talking about business and the nebulous thing that is “success”. Jack Dorsey, CEO of twitter is a massive proponent of audiobooks, and says that to him, every work day is a success, because on his way to work he has “already learned something”. Again though, I feel like the world could gain so much, by taking a step away from books that are FOR learning. There is something beautiful in getting lost in a story, but more than that, you can learn more than you think.

There is far too much in my life at twenty, let alone in the lives of people with heavier responsibility that is for a specific purpose. When was the last time you went for a walk, not to get somewhere, not because “I need to get my daily step count up” and not to walk the dog. When was the last time you did something, just because? This is something I have tried to recapture in my life through reading. I don’t read to learn, I don’t read so I can say I have read 2 books a month, I don’t set an hour of the day and say, in this hour, this is when I read. I do it when I want to, for as long as I feel like, and it has taught me more than I can express, but I’m going to try. Firstly, it’s taught me that I can take more time for myself than I’ve ever realised. I can’t think of a single time I’ve regretted saying “just one more page”, yes, it might mean I spent 5 fewer minutes scrolling facebook that day, but I know which one I’d rather keep. Secondly, it’s taught me about myself, and the people that surround me. I love fantasy books so much, because it takes characters and puts them in an unimaginable world, yet so many of their problems are mirrors are what we experience in this world. I can’t count the amount of times I’ve chuckled at a character that cares too much about what someone thinks of their coat, and then caught myself doing the same thing half an hour later. It’s taught me to analyse my own actions in the way I would a characters and I’ve learned more about what I like (and what I should avoid..) than from anything else.

More specifically, certain stories have really resonated, and almost acted as self help books, despite just being a novel. I’ve read about characters that suffer from chronic depression to characters with never ending wells of motivation. Despite the fact they’re just stories, they can still be a never ending source of inspiration. To quote one of my favourite novels of all time, “One can believe in a story without believing it happened.”

What I’m trying to articulate throughout this post is that it’s always worth taking time to do something for no real purpose, and it’s worth assessing your actions for things you do just because “that’s the way it’s always been”. Maybe it’s time for a change.

Life is a journey, and one final quote from Oathbringer, a quote that I have on my wall, “the most important step a man can take. It’s not the first one, is it? It’s the next one. Always the next step”.

Keep moving forwards.

TWF.