What Are You Most Proud of in Life and Why?

[Batard]

I've been pondering this recently, if I were to be struck down by a terminal illness, what would I reflect on in my life with any fondness. I instantly ruled out work, fuck if you're proudest moments are at work then you're not enjoying life enough in my humble opinion.

Perhaps bizarrely, my proudest moments are all tinged with a sense of bittersweet achievement. Going to Australia in 2015 on my own after a breakup, getting married to someone I didn't really know and all the traveling I did because of it. It's all made me a much more reflective instead of reactive person. I'm in a good relationship because of it.

I'm fortunate to have good friends I can visit in other countries around the world and that makes me feel proud because I remember what my life was like before that. In 2012 when I signed up to TFF I was living with an ex but basically as a lodger, barely went out and certainly couldn't have envisaged traveling as far I have. The simple act of getting into a certain genre of music drastically changed my life. I'm still a cunt. But I can handle that.

How about you?

 

[Stan]

100% definitely being a 'GamesMaker' at the London 2012 Olympics. Handing medals out to athletes who had trained a number of years. Being their at the pinnacle of their success be it Gold, Silver or Bronze which they received. The adulation and praise that GamesMakers received before, during and after the Olympics was something I'd never felt before. I have that feeling that I can say 'I was there' on Super Saturday (where GB won shit loads of medals, especially golds). It wasn't just the medal-giving which gave me pride, though. It was meeting and working with new people and maintaining those friendships still to this day. The team I worked with were amazing. Everyone had a positive attitude and everyone together knew how important it was to each other and to the athletes taking part. To say 'I was there' and being in the thick of it while the whole Olympic Games took place gives me the ultimate pride. 

Will dig out some pictures for you all...

The team:

[Cure]

I'm rather proud at receiving four conditionals and an unconditional offer from some of the top universities in the country. More of a back-up if things go wrong but I'm very proud. Although insignificant to some it proves that I defied the odds and proved the mental health professionals who suggested I'd amount to nothing wrong and worked hard to get this far.

[Cure]

23 minutes ago, Cannabis said:

A medical professional suggested that ''you would amount to nothing?'' - what the fuck 

Pretty much. Doesn't fill you with much hope. 

[MUFC]

On 12/03/2017 at 12:32, Cure said:

I'm rather proud at receiving four conditionals and an unconditional offer from some of the top universities in the country. More of a back-up if things go wrong but I'm very proud. Although insignificant to some it proves that I defied the odds and proved the mental health professionals who suggested I'd amount to nothing wrong and worked hard to get this far.

Well done mate, I hope you got through uni and perused your desired career path. You deserve it.

[RandoEFC+]

TF365 Member of the Year 2019 without a doubt.

[JoshBRFC+]

Good point about your proudest achievements being work then you’re not living enough. Mine used to be work up until a year or 2 ago.

Mine are 2 easy things. And sorry to be boring and predictable. But number 1 is my daughter without doubt. Because of the the way she’s changed me for the better and still continues to do so, still kind of seems surreal. 
 

Then number 2 is getting over a looooong time of grief and depression after my father passed away. Because I wasted many years in self destruct mode. 

[Toinho]

Depends on what your job is - I don’t think people can play down other people’s achievements or proud moments without knowing what change or differences they have made.

[RandoEFC+]

3 hours ago, Toinho said:

Depends on what your job is - I don’t think people can play down other people’s achievements or proud moments without knowing what change or differences they have made.

Spoken like a true educator . I think I'll do my job for the rest of my life, and that there's nothing wrong with being proud of that. Obviously if I had kids or was even married or something then that would take precedence but that's just not the order my life has gone in personally. 

[CaaC (John)+]

On 12/03/2017 at 12:32, Cure said:

I'm rather proud at receiving four conditionals and an unconditional offer from some of the top universities in the country. More of a back-up if things go wrong but I'm very proud. Although insignificant to some it proves that I defied the odds and proved the mental health professionals who suggested I'd amount to nothing wrong and worked hard to get this far.

 

On 01/02/2021 at 12:18, MUFC said:

Well done mate, I hope you got through uni and perused your desired career path. You deserve it.

That's an oldie post you reacted to @MUFC lol, Cure now comes under the name @Robbie in here and came back aboard in November last year and I bet he can tell you how he got on at University. 

[ROBBIEFC]

15 hours ago, CaaC (John) said:

That's an oldie post you reacted to @MUFC lol, Cure now comes under the name @Robbie in here and came back aboard in November last year and I bet he can tell you how he got on at University. 

I got on quite well at Uni! I got a 2:1 (just off the first class) and ended up carrying on and doing a Masters degree. Sadly I'm doing it from the 'comfort' of my bedroom but it's a step in the right direction! Not many people opted to do one, and decided it may be a good option in June when it was too late and the places were gone. I count myself lucky! 'Desired career path' is difficult. At 21, I still have no idea what I want to do. I'm a bit like the wind and I'll turn my hand to anything. I'm planning on moving away from the old home town once lockdowns have ceased and I'm planning to get into things like the theatre and back into my music leisure wise: career wise, it's anyone's guess. I'll take any blessings.

[ROBBIEFC]

My biggest achievement, in terms of personal development, has been overcoming the throes of a chronic gambling addiction.

Long story short, I started gambling for leisure on football in March 2019. It was just that and nothing malicious. I made a chart to log what I'd been betting on, my stakes and their returns, match scores and all of that lovely stuff. It was exciting. On that first day of it, I had a fiver in my account. By the end of the day I had £44 in a shock twist in a game I fancied the underdogs in in the 90th minute. Picture the scene: a team, with no goals and no corners - zero, are tied goalless with thirty seconds of stoppage time to go. The odds are 40/1. I've had a bet on earlier in the day which sadly lost. I put a pound on this match and, miraculously, this team go and bang one in at the other end. Gobsmacked wasn't the word. I'd won £40 out of nowhere. I carried on doing pound bets and worked up to a healthy couple of hundred over three months. I was happy.

I had a girlfriend at the time. She was the most horrible, spiteful and manipulative person you could ever wish to not meet. I'd been practically trapped into staying with her for months and, by and large, was developing a serious case of manic depression from it. She saw I had won this money and tried demanding it. So, reluctantly, I lost it deliberately. Every penny. So that she couldn't have it. How did I manage it? Not on football that's for sure. Table games, nearly every time roulette. Silly money spins, first a five and soon to be fifties, doubling each time I won.

That was that. I had the taste. And what a horrible taste it was.

I'd deposit £10 after a weekend at work. Back to leisure, but this time I didn't care about football. I'd go straight onto the roulette, working it slowly with pound spins up to about fifty. I'd then go on a rampage on the slots and rack up four figures before setting it to withdraw to PayPal. The casinos used to have this thing (thankfully outlawed now worldwide, to my knowledge) called a 'reverse withdrawal', allowing you to pull that back in. She'd start demanding money, being abusive and unnecessarily disgusting in manner and tone. So, in my state, I'd reverse it and then blow the lot. This was a weekly cycle, which became around three or four times a week. Money lost all value. It was just a number to me.

There came a point where I'd get paid from my part-time job and just dump my wages into a bookie and wager them all on one spin, often losing. Even if it won, I'd do it again until it did. I'd render myself penniless and start selling my belongings. Completed DVD collections were decimated; I pawned my PS3 and PSP, which I had cherished for years, to have a spin on the roulette wheel and lose. All of my PS4 games went to pay for driving lessons for a month. I wagered money for food on gambling, opting to feed it rather than eat. I lost weight quite drastically from an already quite slight frame. I became a complete recluse and lost my friends. It was embarrassing.

To stop the rot, I set myself a goal. I'd have one £10 and I'd make it my summer project to turn that into a thousand pounds to buy back, or outright replace, the things I'd sold. It was going well, but I hit it fast. I made the thousand in four hours flat without trying. So I decided to make another, which I did in twenty minutes through insane luck on the slots. I withdrew it and it hit PayPal. I left it alone and didn't transfer it to my bank. Big mistake. The ex came sniffing, found out I had this money and tried manipulating it away from me. I resisted and got hurt. So, I went into University the next day, went into the toilets and... donated the money to charity. I realised what had become of me and couldn't have the money. I was convinced I didn't deserve a penny of it, not even to live on. I can be proud of that one. But alas the cycle continued. I had a huge win for two grand on a hand in poker (four aces) and took it immediately. I spent half of it fast, on random things I'd never normally buy like expensive aftershaves and a new jacket. The ex found out and demanded it but I refused, she got away with £20 and that was it. I hadn't realised it was her abuse that was driving me to this gambling problem at this point, but the final act was to come. I got in from work one night and went on a rampage. I'd arranged to go to a place called Cheshire Oaks with one of my best friends, who had stood by me this whole time, and we were going to spend the remaining grand and a half before I could blow it away. The night before we went, I turned it into five thousand and was withdrawing it when... she called. And called. And called. And then she got nasty. Words are painless when used solely but the things she said to me that night angered me. I just doubled my spins, from £5 to £10 and all the way until they were gone and I'd been left with a hundred. I took it. I'd realised it was time to come clean to my parents.

I went for a walk that morning, having reflected that this wouldn't be wise. It was going to be kept quiet that I had an addiction. I made a call to my GP to discuss the option of counselling, was exploring the use of software to stop me accessing sites, and so on. It was not too far away from home that I got a call. It was my mother, so I answered it naturally. I've never felt fear before to the degree of shaking, and typing this is making me shake a bit too from recollection. I was being kicked out of the house. I was to never return, and was being disowned. I'd find a black bin bag waiting for me outside the front door with some clothes in and a blanket. I was out. My ex had told them, albeit a twisted version, about my gambling.

I've never been scared of my parents, not ever. I managed to coerce my way into the living room to talk. It took me eight hours to explain myself and secure my bed for the rest of the weekend. I wouldn't speak to them again for a week. They let me stay but I was ultimately disowned. I had no one but the one person I didn't want: my ex. On the Thursday, I went for a walk. I'd not gambled since this time. I received a phone call and was screamed at. So, I reluctantly put fifty into a casino and gambled it. I hadn't learned and it had to be forced to stop. I immediately sought help, and managed to get prevention software installed free of charge from the UKGC. It took hold immediately. I walked into where I work and just sat down, almost crying. I was deeply unhappy. This soon turned to anger. Why had I done this? How had it got so bad? I left and walked and thought until I'd say 2am of the next day. Two hours later I realised it was all down her and, rapidly, caused her to turn on herself so I could get out. I was free.

I woke up upset. I went out and started my path to recovery. I reconsolidated friendships. I rekindled with my family. I went out that night and had a nice meal on my mates. I started to get help in the form of counselling and started to, slowly but surely, regain a sense of value in money. She sadly ended up exploiting and, until this September, was in a relationship with my best friend at University. He had his own struggles with a different addiction and she used him from there. So I didn't have him. I'm still working hard to get myself fully clean and, ashamedly, had a slight relapse around July when we left the first lockdown. I quickly snapped out of it fortunately, but I've still been going strong.

The independence gambling takes away from you when it's irresponsible is huge. All it took for me to fall was one person, albeit an absolute cow. I don't recommend it. My road to recovery hasn't been easy, but I'm fairly close to now being able to say that, aside from the occasional bet a close friend puts on for me on the football every other weekend, I'm squeaky clean. And that makes me proud.

[Inverted]

In terms of concrete achievements, getting a traineeship as a lawyer.

Over those 5 years of uni there were a lot of sleepless nights, terrified mornings, brain-fryingly confusing classes, embarrassing public slip-ups and defeats, painful reality checks, trains to Edinburgh and Newcastle in badly fitted suits, bewildering corporate recruitment days, brutal interviews, excruciating efforts at "Networking", and awkward shuffles away from any convo that wound up discussing which firms everyone's parents work for.

[Dr. Gonzo]

About a decade ago I had a pretty horrible cocaine addiction that was sort of driving my life. It often felt like my life was going off the rails - and a lot of the time it probably was. I'd cut ties with good people because I'd become a piece of shit and most of the people I was calling my mates were absolute lowlife scum. And had I kept hanging around that crowd only focused on where I could get more beak... I'm sure my life would be extra shit.

I'd had a big wakeup call when some of the people I was calling my pals at the time got themselves into some serious trouble... and I very narrowly avoided being involved with any of that shit. But that shit happening and a few days of sobriety were really eye opening. I cut ties with bad people, I re-established ties with friends and family that I'd neglected.

And that was the start of me having a different outlook to how I approached life... I started thinking and planning about what I wanted in the long term. I went back to hobbies I'd neglected in the pursuit of getting as fucked up as I could, like guitar. I threw myself into my studies and turned my grades around at uni pretty massively. It was the start of a long road to take me away from the shit part of my life I wanted to get away from. And that's what I'm most proud of - because now my life is very different from where it probably would have been if I didn't have that wakeup call.

[Danny]

14 hours ago, Inverted said:

In terms of concrete achievements, getting a traineeship as a lawyer.

Over those 5 years of uni there were a lot of sleepless nights, terrified mornings, brain-fryingly confusing classes, embarrassing public slip-ups and defeats, painful reality checks, trains to Edinburgh and Newcastle in badly fitted suits, bewildering corporate recruitment days, brutal interviews, excruciating efforts at "Networking", and awkward shuffles away from any convo that wound up discussing which firms everyone's parents work for.

Loving what you do is a good way to get past hating how you have to get to it