I started this post with an intent to rant ad nauseum - about how the young folk don't understand good service (yes you, Maddison - i'm not staring at your nose-ring, i just want another coffee)! And how Australians are, literally, petrified of a bend in the road - your car's steering wheel isn't an afterthought; Kia actually expects you to turn at some point and has planned for it.
But I've reconsidered. Maybe it's the 'first world problem' chants of my first-world friends echoing through my head. Or perhaps it's the rum in mum's fruit cake making me feel all too festive. Whatever it may be, looking back at 2015 I've found more causes for celebration than commiseration. And here are just a few of them:
Run run run run: Recently some Melbourne friends had the privilege of meeting my dad for the first time at a picnic, thereby discovering the origin of my world-famous chicken legs. But the very same chicken legs carried me across the finish line of the Run Melbourne Half-Marathon, and are still holding me up today.
Roman Holiday: Atop my bucket list, since creating one, has been visiting my new spiritual home - Italy. It was OK, I mean, if you like eating gelati every day, driving Ferraris, ogling blue-eyed Adonises, and Jesus. I know there are parts of the world I've yet to see - most of them, if I'm honest - but experiencing such an intoxicating blend of everything I love will be a hard act to follow.
Moving on up: Compared to many of my friends and relatives, my path through life so far has been fairly linear: I finished school and went to uni; I finished uni and got a job. So it stands to reason that, within my career, as I've worn away one rung of the corporate ladder I've climbed to the next.
Slave to the machine I may be, or just another cog in the system...or something like that, I'm no good with technical language, only marketing speak...but I'm realising my goals and fundamentally leveraging the skills, opportunities and learnings I've been afforded, in a recognised and supported effort, although not formally communicated at a macro level, to improve my position both industrially and financially. In non-jargonistic terms - I'm doing what I've always wanted to do.
So on this last day of 2015, why not consider a new year's reflection before your resolution? While counting down the minutes for your Uber to arrive tonight, look at the path you've walked this year rather than the path of your driver. Or if you're planning a quiet night in, count how many more TV channels you can now watch, as Grant Denyer counts back at you.
I hope you'll find as many reasons to smile as I have. I'm still fighting the urge for a good whinge, but if I dared to claim I'd been hard done by this year...I wouldn't have a chicken leg to stand on.
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