This week is my birthday week, and I’m going to turn 29 this year. I can already feel the arthritis in my fingers, the kink in my neck, and my vision is slightly blurry. Actually, you probably wouldn’t think I look 29 – somehow I’ve managed to retain a child-like appearance. Maybe I haven’t mentally matured?

One of my favourite Drew Maughan original quotes goes as follows:

If you forget where you came from, chances are you’ll end up going back.

Of all the quotes I’ve come up with myself, this is the one that’s rung true every single time. It’s certainly happened to me, and I’ve seen it happen to many other people throughout my life.

One of my greatest achievements is going from a broke, uninspired, demotivated and almost destroyed guy who had turned 22 (thanks to university, which I didn’t want to go to anyway, and a racist white girl and her comrades), to a highly-skilled and sought-after freelance web developer, on the verge of starting their own limited company. Sure, I had become a villain in the process, and most people still don’t like me. But with a lot of preparation and a bit of luck, I’d effectively turned things around.

Even with my numerous humbling experiences, it has still been easy to lose sight of where I was seven years ago to the day. Even overlooking the alleged fecklessness of recruitment people a month ago, I’ve had to mind I don’t become arrogant when receiving their calls. There was a time when I wasn’t even considered for the most basic of jobs, just because I got a token third degree (which simply means you’ll have to wait a few months to get your first job).

In hindsight, I think it was forgetting where I came from – being on an incredibly stingy Jobseeker’s Allowance, and having to pay £30/month for broadband so I could look for jobs – that was a big part of my recent financial crisis, as well as not getting any work. I guess I had the attitude of, “you’d better hire me, I’m the best there is!”, which came back to bite me.

I’m sure you know of at least one person who’s forgotten where they came from, too. They’re usually the overconfident people, who expect things to materialise just because they say so. But regardless of where we are in life, at some point we all get brought back down to Earth.

Although I try to keep myself grounded mentally, I’ve felt the bruises of being brought back down to Earth several times. And when people around you are screaming at you to dust yourself off and get up (or, more likely, using the opportunity to land a cheap shot), it’s very easy just to stay still and recover for just a few more days.
I’m not one of those people who believes in pretending pain doesn’t exist, and giving ignorant advice to people about things I know nothing about. I think that grieving and recovering is absolutely necessary, because they help people to cope. But what happens afterwards is most important: we have to get back on our feet, and resolve not to let ourselves get into this situation again. (Unless you’re a “princess”, in which case you don’t learn a damn thing.)

There’s no telling what I would be like right now if I hadn’t gone through that particularly hard time, and not having done the things I had done during that time. Right now, though, I have a greater appreciation for where I am right now. Have I “made it”? Does being where I am right now give me a licence to talk down to people? Am I one of those “enlightened” beings? No. Things aren’t perfect, or even super, but they’re a lot better than they used to be.

I had the good news last night that one of my paintings has actually sold, and now it’s time for me to post it. Several years ago – or even when I decided to put the paintings up for sale – I would never have imagined anyone actually buying my work. I just hope to God I don’t lose sight of that, otherwise I’d deserve to get my arse kicked again.