Funny old life

[Dom]

I know we are all getting older, but is anyone else feeling a little lost?

I have been trying to find my groove for a while and my focus is changing. Just set up my own business because its what eveyone has always said I should be doing, yet here I sit completely ****ed off with it. I wouldn`t say im a miserable prick by nature, just can be a bit indicisive.

After all the **** thats happened over the last couple of years I think im just looking at life differently. For some reason I got swept up in the whole get rich lifestyle ****. At the end of the day im a geek, i love my wife, my family and my friends. I don`t need to be trying to get flash things, im happy with Primark. Just want a few quid at the end of the month to buy some toys. I would be happier doing something I cared about rather than doing myself in.

I don`t think this is a mid life crisis more a what the **** am i doing? Now I have done it and I have actually had time to think again im just sat here thinking WTF is going on? Im just sat here in an office, not taking any money for something I don`t actually give a **** about. I went and bought another poncey car so it went with the whole image, but I was happier in my fiesta. God knows why I have managed to manufacture this image in my head that is the sort of person I would label as a wideboy. Even stopped collecting as I thought I needed to focus on "grown up things", but after a while I realised collecting is my thing. I picked up an old Radar Cannon the other day and I was chuffed as nuts with it. ****ing strange how you can let what you think you should be mess with your head to such a point you don`t even recognize yourself.

Sorry guys this is more of a vent than anything, just having a "feelings" moment.

 

[plantman]

We all go through phases like this mate, honestly, i had some lifechanging news and now i dont givehalf as much about toys, well not as much as i used to.
I concentrate on making myself and family happy.

You'll get over it, and we all have stories to tell.

Onwards and upwards

 

[Frunkstar]

This is know to me personally as governmental conditioning, the idea that we "should" subscribe to, IE -

Self image
Social standing -
Fast car young wife that look a million bucks
2.3 kids
Home + mortgage - god forbid you can buy outright
& most importantly to be in debt up to your eyeballs till the day you die, so that the Tax man (government) get a huge slice of what your making & can keep tabs & the more you make, the more they get = the happier they are & the more miserable you get.

Quite a simple equation but sadly 99% of humanity simply don't get the fact the "money does not = happiness"

In my thinking you only need to have your needs not your wants & everything else is a bonus, I was a professional till I had a severe R.T.A many many years ago which left me with a lot of free time on my hands & with not having the use of my legs made it a lot of time to think, I have since that time lived my life from a different view point, that being that being happy with your life & your situation is a much greater reward that self indulgence & being happy with who & what you are is the key to it, after all how many people can say they are satisfied with what they have & who they are??.

Another thing to consider is that EVERYTHING in life is transient so never try to hold on to any thing to hard or it ends up hurting you & to coin a phrase - the things you own end up owning you.

Do what makes you feel right & does not mess with anyone else & life gets simpler.

Wow, heavey subject matter for this time of day :lol:

 

[itfciain]

Very heavy

Think we need a pair of boobies ............Weasel ????

 

[weasel]

 

[Dom]

lol thanks fellas, now we have all shared its back to the tits and toys :twisted:

 

[PGowdy]

We all go through phases like this mate, honestly, i had some lifechanging news and now i dont givehalf as much about toys, well not as much as i used to.
I concentrate on making myself and family happy.

You'll get over it, and we all have stories to tell.

Onwards and upwards

Well said.
Everyone goes through these phases from time to time. Patience and positivity are sometimes hard to come buy but they're the only things that can make anything work.
Having finished life as a musician about 1 year and a half ago i spent over a year completely lost not knowing what to do with the rest of my life. I started training to be a producer and just realised i'd fallen out of love with that life. Very scary. I decided rather than go to do this production course i had signed up for (out of fear of doing nothing at all) i would just take some time away from music and try to figure out what, if anything, i could do with the rest of my life. It was a scary few months. I thought about taking up DJing full time (something i've been doing part-time for about a year), but then realised it just wasn't something i felt driven enough to do 4-5 nights a week (usually finishing between 1 and 4am).
At the end of it, almost out of the blue, i decided i would take the horn by the balls and start my own business. Something i had considered several months ago but decided i probably couldn't do it. Too difficult. Too many unkowns. What if.... etc etc
But i can't work for anyone, i just always feel i know best and can't bare being told what to do. Especially not for peanuts. And i'm not qualified to do anything that pays well.
I've now been working on it for about 4-5months and it's given me a whole new lease of life. I'm ploughing 1000s of pounds into it without even flinching and turn-over is increasing every month. It's just very "small-time" at the moment through ebay but i'm already at the point where i need to hire storage space.
The point is, i realised that sometimes, you need moments of utter terror and despair to get yourself moving. 6 months ago i had nothing and no ideas and was facing the prospect of spending the rest of my life doing something i didn't want to do.

 

[itfciain]

Pete - if you don't mind me asking, what do you do ?

 

[Dom]

Thats awesome mate, I think thats where i went wrong. I ignored my gut and before you know it I was too far in to put the **** back in the donkey. I take it you are selling something other than collectables on there?

 

[PGowdy]

Yeah well i started trying to do what other were doing which of course carries several problems from the off. I thought about getting into vintage stuff and then thought "naa, too many people doing it..."
I made a few mistakes and made a few good moves too but didn't quite know how to sustain it.
One thing i was doing for a while (and still do a bit) is buying sale/reduction items from on unnamed web-site and selling them on ebay. I made a little doing this but it was hard graft and not very sustainable or reliable as an entire business.
I then decided i should stick to what i know and love. If you enjoy something it's easier to put your energy into. So i went back to vintage but i found something aside of the common line that i enjoyed. So my plan IS actually to mainly stick to vintage things, memorabilia, collectables etc but also expand from where i am now to where i can sell almost anything.
It may or may not work out for me but my benefits are- No mortgage, no wife, no kids so i can take a few risks and live on peanuts for a year or 2 until things start to take shape.
I also DJ and help out at my brother's pub a few times a month which gives me enough cash to do what i need.
Being in a band for so long i risked everything a 1000 times and lived on next to no money for what seems like an eternity so this is nothing!! :lol:

 

[Dom]

Thats cool, its what I should have done. I ahve an insane amount of inventory, just selling on ebay finds a way to annoy me. I always seem to get the odd random transaction that drives me insane. Trouble is ebay/paypal are so stacked in the buyers favour and the seller is paying all the fees

 

[PGowdy]

Yeah ebay is a constant minefield but it's a necessary evil.
I can't afford to do it at the moment but once i am making enough i'd like to set up my own web-site with a "shop" within.
The problem is with this is it costs about £40-£50 a month to do this. I would obviously still have ebay and my ebay fees each month are already over £60! That's not including the .40p a time it cost to list a ****ing item which is outrageous. It may not seem a lot but i list over 60 items a month and hope to double that within 3 months. LIsting 60 items a month costs £24 then £60 ebay fees and about another 20 paypal fees.... This on top of the £75 a month i am going to start paying for a TINY storage space from next month is all i can handle at the moment. But having your own web-aite is definitely the way to go.

 

[Dom]

LOL yeah ebay have it all the bastards. You may want to try having a table at some of the shoes mate. That will cost you £60ish and it would be good advertising for when you get your shop sorted.

 

[PGowdy]

Yeah well i've actually toyed with the idea and also doing something similar down Camden market. I need to look into it. Things like that are certainly at least a year off but it's all to think about.
There's already a guy in Camden selling vintage toys but all his stock is utter ****. (sorry if you're on here mate but come on!). He just sells beaters and a few very rough boxed items. Nothing a real collector would buy. It's a bit of a disgrace to be honest. When i visited his store this summer all i could think was how much better u could do it and how much more money i could make. Definitely something for the future.