MY REVIEW OF 2017
New Spiritual Discoveries
I Started the year by trying to find the Brixton Buddhist Centre which happens to be small room that is hired for meditation and various therapy treatments located in a small building called "Yoga Point" where yoga classes predominate. My initial search for this place was in August 2016. However, there were a few bus diversions around London at that time which made it too difficult to find the location. Thankfully, with the help of the internet, I was able to find the Brixton Buddhist Centre for a meditation and Buddhism class. I loved the bedroom like aura of the meditation room. It helped me feel right at home and I settled into the meditation very quickly. At the same time, the Croydon Buddhist Centre was having it's shrine room re-built and refurbished. The new shrine room officially opened on the 13th May, I first paid a visit to this new shrine room on the evening of Wednesday 28th June while attending a meditation class.
Meditation, Buddhism and spirituality has played an increasingly important part of my life this year. I feel like I am gaining valuable life lessons from my spiritual studies.
I subscribed to the American Buddhist magazine "Lion's Roar" on Thursday 2nd March. "Lion's Roar" is a bi-monthly magazine that gives Buddhist wisdom on everyday life experiences.
Life Blog
On Saturday 21st January, I launched my own personal life blog on the internat where I would create and publish articles about my opinions, experiences and lessons on life. The first entry of the blog is the review of 2016 which was dedicated to my elder sister Mariam who sadly passed away in April of that year. This year, I have touched on topics like anger and loneliness.
Chess
This has proven to be my most successful in Chess to date. My ECF standard-play grade reached an all-time high of 134. I won my first major individual championship since winning the Wernick cup in 2009. The 7 and a half year wait finally came to an end in April when I eventually claimed the CCF Division 1 title with a record of 6 wins, 3 draws and 2 losses. I showed the trophy to my family and we took photos to remember the occasion with.
I also had my best summer campaign this year where I entered in 2 competitions. The CCF cup and the Felce cup. I finished joint 2nd in the CCF Cup where i won my first 5 games before losing in round 6 due mainly to a mistake in the opening. I pressed for a win in the 7th and final round but I eventually lost and had to settle for finishing joint 2nd. I won £45 in prize money.
In the Felce Cup, I won the South Norwood section with a record of 3 wins and 1 loss. This promoted me to the Felce Cup final where I faced the winners of the other 2 sections.
I won the first game of the final after an adjournment but lost the other 3 games mainly due to bad opening play. However, I did win £10 in prize money for finishing 3rd overall in the tournament.
The Easter Rapidplay at CCF was another event where I had success where I shared 2nd place and won £17.50 in prize money.
On Sunday 12 March, I launched a Facebook group called "The Dragon Kingdom of Chess, Xiangi and Shogi. This was originally just about Chess and Shogi but there was also interest in the game of Xiangqi. Xiangqi and Shogi are Chinese and Japanese equivalents of Chess. Members are free to post anything that is that is related to any of the 3 games.
Back in 2015, I decided to run 2 Super League teams at CCF. Both of them were called "The Dragon Kings" after one of the 7 professional titles in Shogi. There was the long -play Super League with a record of 6 wins and a draw and hence has been promoted to the "Premiership". The rapid-play team also had a decent calender year as they finished in third place with a record of 3 wins 1 draw and 1 loss.
They started the new season well enough with 2 wins to start their campeign, however, at the time of writting, we lost our 3rd match mainly due to a default.
On Saturday the 16th and Sunday the 17th of December, I played in the CCF Christmas Congress "Major" section. I took a bye in round 3 but otherwise played in the other 4 rounds. In the 4 games that I played in, I had 3 wins and 1 loss. It was my first long-play congress in 3 years.
The lowest point of the year however was having to leave South Norwood Chess Club for a second time after falling out once again with one of the vice-presidents. I actually lead the club to winning the Ellary Williams Memorial Trophy for a second time. However, my conscience became clear when the vice-president in question insulted the head president of the club. I was so insulted by his behaviour that I decided that I no longer wished to work with him anymore.
I sent the vice-president an email to announce the termination of our relationship. However, he actually tried to bribe me into playing for his teams but I made it clear to him that I do not play chess for money. He also tried to suppress my feelings and thoughts about him over the phone. That made it clear to me that this was not a healthy relationship. In the end, I had to make a second email to him just to understand the simple 3 word sentence "end of relationship ". Eventually, I decided that there is no point staying at the club if there is somebody there that is going to destroy my mental health. It's always a sad moment when you have to leave a place that you once considered a second home but sometimes you have to do what is best for your own well being.
Yoga
For most of the year, I have been interested in finding suitable and affordable yoga class to attend. Luckily, I found a banner outside my local park advertising various activities that was to take place in a local Hindu temple. One of those was a yoga class that takes place every Friday. I had my first attendance there on the 8th of September. It was challenging but also enjoyable. The best thing about the venue for the yoga classes is that they are free and only a couple of blocks from where I live. i hope to go to more yoga classes in 2018.
My Spiritual Future
Since the beginning of 2016, I have been on a personal spiritual path which has significantly enhanced my inner contentment. I have bought and discovered a lot of materials on spiritual development. However my most profound discovery of the year was the Be Here Now Network YouTube channel and website https://beherenownetwork.com/ which provides podcasts with recordings of some of the best spiritual teachers in the west. I enjoy listening to these podcasts when I am working by my computer or even occasionally when I am trying to sleep. I have to say that I general, I feel more complete now then I have been in a long time. In fact, back in November, I learnt something uplifting about one of the most talked about aspects of my natural way of being; self talk. For a lot of my life and especially during my childhood, I was often shamed and told-off for talking to myself which as I understand now is caused by intensive thoughts. I have always been an intensive thinker. In some respects, until 2016, I was addicted to thinking. Most of the activities that I have enjoyed for most of my life have involved thinking. One of the great things that my spiritual path is that it has helped me be aware of the thoughts that I have and be able to control, monitor and reduce the intensity of my thoughts and emotions. I have also been well informed on the internet that self-talk is normal and every one talks to themselves . This is a relief to me as I was often told during my childhood that self -talk was "the first sign of madness". Now I'm even told that self-talk is the first sign of success! I even bought a book online called "What to say when you talk to yourself" by Shad Helmstetter which explains how we program our own minds to determine how much success that we have in life.
2017 has proven to be a year of spiritual enhancement and self discovery. I am currently going through an exciting period of my life where I am finding more and more ways to increase and maintain my inner contentment. It's also been a year when a long wait for
real success over the chessboard has finally come to an end and I now feel like I know what's best for me both as a chess-player and a person.
The End
Completed on Saturday 13 January 2018
There are many things about the working world that I find straight forward. You wake up early, you turn-up to your work on time, you dress appropriately, you listen to you boss and you dedicate yourself to the task ahead of you. OK. That understood. However, there has always been an area of confusion from my perspective about when you are part of the work-force and suddenly, you fall ill.
I never intended to have so many days of work but my body clearly had other ideas. It should also be noted that at the time of working in the bureau that I had to move home and had this "mystery illness" which was yet to be properly diagnosed. I was going through hell medically as it seemed that I would fall ill for no reason. I had countless appointments with my GP about what was going on with my body. Why was I having so many headaches? Why was I having on-going cold and flu symptoms?Would it ever end? My confidence in the working world got lower and lower and I seriously questioned if I was really fit for the working world.
