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This thing about making the right choices at the right time wasn’t easy for anyone, and in his case, it had always been a gamble rather than a systematic and well analyzed decision. In some instances, it was the right play and it felt like smooth sailing, at other times he found himself in a glass house and it felt like he was treading carefully and painfully across broken glass. One could never be sure, until it was too late and by that time it was too late to make a change or so it seemed. Because, as he was taught by his mother when he was a child, it is never too late to change your mind or turn back. Yes, it will require courage and a belief in oneself but that is really what life is all about. We can never be sure about the future, and we should never accept things that do not feel right. Always listen to your heart, she would say. Thinking back, he could see that she was a wise woman and understood fully his nature. Things change all the time and people are constantly changing their mind and rearranging their lives. The only certainties in life and the only facts, at least temporarily true, are to be found in books, and even these change as the volume and depth of knowledge develops over time. What a mad world, he thought to himself. We are all taught to think in a structured way and to apply systematic, mostly pregiven laws to how we make our way in the world, and then emotions get in the way and out the window goes the systems and structures. Maintaining a continuous relationship to books and the latest news and facts is really the only way to stay abreast of everything and to know at least at any given moment what could be the right course to steer yourself towards in life. It all seemed to confuse him and he wondered if he would ever strike the right balance between the order of things in life to grow. The steam had drifted from the cup of coffee that sat on the desktop beside his laptop. With one arm rested on the surface he lifted the cup and drank while moving his view out the window and onto the street below. It was not very good coffee. Mostly the coffee he made was too strong and sent him into a state of semi hyperactivity. Sometimes instead of boiling the water, he would run the tap until the water was hot and use this to mix with the instant coffee granules. Not very high standards in many respects, but then again it wasn’t very good coffee. It needed something to fortify it, something stronger like rum or whisky he thought to himself. Acquiring a taste for good coffee did require a dedication and interest over and above simply satisfying a craving for caffeine and a thirst. Fortified tea was good also, well dosed with a generous helping of some reasonably priced blended malt whisky. This had been a favorite childhood drink he reminisced. That and also milk mixed with honey and whisky. They both masked the taste of the strong liquor with a sweetness that quickly left you legless and sleepy. Looking back at the computer screen, he struggled to find out how exactly to phrase the email. Things had come to a tipping point, and he found it hard to imagine that the electricity company would accept any further half-baked explanations concerning why he was in arrears and unable to pay. After all, the monthly costs were not high but then again, he was always in a dilemma between the cost of wine and the necessity of paying his bills. It didn’t add up in his world most of the time. The consequences could always be postponed, delayed or offset against something else. Also, the great emptiness in his life in many cases lead him to a sense that it didn’t really matter. He closed the window and decided to take care of it later. There were the crosswords to do and later he had seen by chance an ad for a program about the ongoing crises in the health care system in America. He didn’t live in America, neither was he employed in health care and not for that matter could he honestly say hand on heart that he had any genuine interest in health apart from regularly playing squash and going for runs. He did consider himself to be fit though. Nevertheless, it had been described as a scandal and that brought some intrigue even though it had no actual baring on his life whatsoever except for something to mention in passing conversation at work the next day. He hadn’t been to see a doctor for years. The last time he saw a doctor was when he woke in the intensive care unit of a hospital in London after a wild night out with some friends that had ended with him making an attempt to dive down a flight of stone steps, consequently landing headfirst on the pavement and suffering a serious head injury. He had been unlucky that time, not like the time he had jumped on the back of a motorcycle in the middle of a serious bender holding 2 opened bottles of beer in each hand and somehow miraculously managed to have the presence of mind to grab hold of the person driving before it sped off thus avoiding flying off the back. Fortunately, the CT scan had shown no severe damage. He was given 2 valium tablets and it was suggested he contact a psychiatrist for further treatment. In the sum and whole, there was so many odds and ends to fix in his life at this point that he didn’t know where to begin and even if he started at one end it was not clear that it would solve anything. At least that was the thinking in his mind. Not an ideal set of circumstances as you approach your 40th birthday he thought, as he went into the kitchen and emptied the coffee into the sink and opted instead for the bottle of French red wine. For some reason, this was all he drank during the dark, winter months. There was something about the taste and texture of red wine that he associated with the time of year and the early, dark evenings. In the summer, likewise all that he drank was white wine and he couldn’t stand the taste of red wine during these months of the year. There was a book open on the coffee table in the living room. The Road Less Travelled. It was a self-help book. A psychology book about personal development and spiritual growth. The kind of book that he was into at the moment. He had some work to do in that department at the moment. Ever since the breakup of his last relationship. In fact, the revelation hadn’t come to the forefront of his mind until a couple of months later. The time directly following the breakup being fueled by spells of heavy drinking and self-indulgence, that he now with the benefit of hindsight, realized was a very badly adapted coping mechanism that he developed himself through the course of many failed and not very well-built relationships. Lifting the paperback up from the glass surface and looking at the opened page, he had managed to get to the second chapter. This was last weekend. It was now Thursday, and he felt almost an obligation to continue reading in the pursuit of further knowledge on how to dig himself out of the hole he had dug for himself. Because it was starting to become a hole with some significant depth and not the kind of depth that brings insight but rather the kind of depth that fuels further feelings of depression and despair. Hobbies are self-nurturing activities, the first sentence read. The glass frame rattled in the steel frame as the book hit the table and landed on the floor. He picked up the glass of wine and swigged down the contents before heading back to the kitchen, leaving the emptied glass on the table and returning instead with the bottle of red wine which made a loud bang as the glass of the bottle hit the glass coffee table. The red liquid swirled as it was poured into the glass. He sat back with the glass in his hand and proceeded to drink with the semi subconscious aim of getting pleasantly drunk and forgetting about his problems or their possible solutions. It was a much more inviting idea to displace everything into the bottle of red wine and watch the program on television that was his plan from the start. Stick to the plan, he thought to himself with a sarcastic chuckle. This was what they would usually say at work when confronted with any new ideas proposed that would disrupt the accepted way of doing things on certain project. Maybe the TV program was not such an interesting proposition anyway, he thought to himself. As his mood shifted to a more complacent frame of mind. He decided it was a much better idea to just sit there with the outside noise of the city in the background as company and the occasional yell or cackle of partygoers on their way to spark his meandering curiousity, as the time started to approach midnight. He had a shift starting at 9 am tomorrow morning and he was beginning to verge onto the idea of calling in sick and extending the 1 bottle into another one. After all he was safely at home and not in any impending danger of losing his phone or his keys, or his wallet for that matter, and neither of having any kind of accident or run in with fellow drinkers or the police in a drunken stupor that would land him in more serious trouble. Then again, he had lost count of the number of times he had had that thought and then ended up going out after getting completely smashed and running into trouble.