“Life's a bitch and then you die"

“Life's a bitch and then you die"

The first time I heard this saying it constantly played on my mind. I must've been no older than 10 and could only describe myself as a care free, happy go, lucky kid with a good attitude towards life. But not long after hearing that saying things started to go a little downhill for that 10 year old boy.

I moved to a new house, completely removed from my friend circle. I became a recluse, never setting foot across the door and never making friends... So I started to think to myself

“Maybe life really is a bitch”.

Throughout my teenage years I evolved into the person I am now, but that saying stuck with me, to think that currently I am a very social able person with great friends and an amazing girlfriend still had this mind set, life's a bitch and then you die.

I started thinking about it differently, no matter what you do in life it means nothing in the end because you just vanish of the face of the earth. I grew up quickly and matured quite early, and like most people I had this idea in my head that the key to happiness is to go school, do well, then go to university and get a great job to do for the rest of my life which at the same time you grow old happily with a great pension behind me. It all seemed pretty straight forward and easy in my head..

When I turned 16 I got my first job while still in school, I hated it. In fact I’ve hated every job I had, all 8 of them. That made me thinks about life when I'm older, if I kept quitting these pointless/easy jobs after a few months how was I supposed to commit myself to a full time job working in and around 40 hours per week with possibly a family to support? School became too stressful and I eventually left in lower 6^th feeling demotivated, after having an argument with a teacher... So that was that, I was no longer going to university and I would have to do low pay, degrading jobs for the rest of my life. I jumped from job to job, content with my average boring life, not thinking much about the future which at this time had no brightness surrounding it. When I was 19 and living with a friend I got offered a great opportunity which to this day was one of the best things to ever happen to me. A youth organisation situated in Belfast offered me the opportunity to enrol on a youth work OCN course.

This was the opportunity that I needed in order to kick start my opinion of myself and encourage me to think better about my future.

My mind set started to generate positively and change dramatically, I learnt many of life essentials which are to be kind, courteous, patient and polite. These simple attributes made a huge change to my attitude towards life…  I was much happier, even if I was working in a job I didn't like I would always think positively because I knew that it was just a stepping stone. I learnt to enjoy the simple things in life like taking a walk up the mountain taken on board the surroundings as I was looking at the beautiful view, playing with my nieces and nephews and spending time with friends and family.

I came to the realisation from that day, a great paying job isn't the key to a happy life... I found out that the key to a happy life is too add positivity to your mind and encourage yourself to see the greatness in anything that was challenging. You learn more about yourself by stepping outside of your comfort zone… Take that step, I have and I haven’t looked back.

Ryan Moorehead.