My review of 2018

My review of 2018

Usually when I do an annual review of my life, I end up writing a long essay about all of the meaningful moments of the year. However, this time, I am going to do things a little differently. Instead of the essay style description of what has happened to me during the year, I am going to put all of my experiences of the year in 2 categories. "Gifts" and "Lessons". The gifts are things that I have directly benefited from in some way and the lessons are things that I have learnt from the course of the year.

Gifts

• A greater understanding of Yoga and the benefits of Yoga.
• A greater level of self-value.
• A heightened ability to deal with difficult people.
• A better understanding of my own family.
• A greater resistance to physical pain.
• A greater understanding of Shogi.
• Weight loss mainly due to a vegan diet
• Winning the online Shogi title of "10th Purple Dragon".
• A second consecutive whole calendar year without an asthma attack.

Lessons

• People can get emotional about other members of a family.
• There are many people in the world who have a rather "black and white" view on how the world should be.
• Mothers are eternally emotional beings.
• Women are generally more emotional than men.
• There is no point in fearing failure
• Japanese is a complicated language with a lot of "half definitions" and "context"
• I often struggle to deal with cold and flu symptoms.
• I still struggle with anxiety.

How I lost my fear of failure.

How I lost my fear of failure.

Failure is NOT a bad thing.

Many of us believe that in order to succeed in life that we have to avoid failure. By this, I mean that want to push away , abandon or somehow, react adversely to any thought of failing at any time. We always want to believe that we can be successful right from the very beginning and throughout.

This however is a lie that we sub-consciously tell ourselves when we pursue our goals in life. We sometimes act as if we are entitled to have success in life all the time.

However, if we look at our lives carefully, you will find that we are destined to experience failures right from the very beginning of our lives. When we are babies, we are taught to walk and talk. When we first try to walk, we would normally just crawl on all fours with our arms and legs in order to move about as we are not able to keep our balance on our two feet.

When we are growing up and we fail a school exam or we do not do a certain job in the way that our parents or teacher would like us to do it, we are shamed, told off and occasionally even disgraced for our short-comings. This gives us the internal signal that we are "failures" in some way. However, sometimes our failings actually have nothing to do with us. We might have forgotten or mis- understood an instruction or maybe we simply do not have th right "mental toolkit" to succeed in a certain task of job.

One way of another we are constantly told that failure is bad and wrong and that we should avoid failure and be adverse to it all costs; and yet failure as we are about the discover, is actually the most important and valuable part of out road to success in anything that way try to achieve in life.

Talk you way to success

One thing that I have learnt through my journey is that you can actually programme the way you think about life. I first learnt this from a book called "What to say when you talk to yourself" by Shad Helmstetter. This small  book taught me how powerful affirmations and inner mental messages can be. Positive self-talk can be a very powerful tool on you path to success. For example, I convinced myself for a long time that I was bad a blitz (speed) chess because I was not a naturally fast player. When I play chess, I usually like to take my time and double-check certain move before I played them. However, I started to encourage myself by saying "I AM a good blitz player" This helped my lose my fear of failure and before you know it, guess what! I actually won an online blitz tournament. Hence, my life has proven that this method really works. There is a common expression that comes from successful people. "Fake it till you make it!" Sometimes the best way to be successful is to pretend that you already are!

Self Forgiveness

While reading the book "Forgiveness is power" by William Fergus Martin I realised the importance of forgiving oneself when falling short of our goals. Many of us are often harsh on ourselves when we are not able to achieve what we wanted to do. Many of us blame ourselves for our lack of achievement in a certain task but we have to remember that there are usually more factors in achieving a certain goal in life than we realise. These are many external factors like:

• Atmosphere
• Social Settings
• General Environment
• Education
• Location
• Upbringing

These are only a small amount of external factors that may prevent us from succeeding. As we can see, it is not always our fault when we fall short of our goals in life. Many of us have barriers that we may not even be aware of. 

Self Forgiveness is about realising that sometimes  our ability to achieve a certain goal in life is simply our our hands. When you fall short of your goals, remember to tell yourself that you did your best in the given situation and your results cannot always be helped.

Failure LEADS TO success!

As explained above, failure is not a bad thing. In fact in order to succeed, we actually have to accept  that we are initially going to have our failures first. What we have to realise above all things is that failure is not the opposite of success, failure is part of success. We have to look at our short comings as opportunities to learn valuable lessons instead of seeing problems and losses. If we look at all challenges this way, then we can attempt any task or challenge and embrace the journey that it leads to the full. During my chess career, I went through a lot of failures and difficulties. I even wanted to quit at times, but I decided to keep going and finding different ways of doing things and eventually, I got my rewards for my efforts. Any path to glory will have it's bitter moments but sometimes you just have to be patient for success to come. Eventually, you will get there in the end.

Summary

The realisation that I have described above has given me a sense of freedom and joy. It has given me the desire to try new challenges in life and enhanced my motivation to improve on the challenges that I am already taking. I can now pursue dreams and goals without ever worrying about what is commonly called "failure". I look forward to new challenges (and continuation of old ones) that come my way in the future.

Good luck with yours!

Richard Davis

My road to chess glory: Part 4: Scrutiny

My road to chess glory: Part 4 : Scrutiny

The 2011/12 proved to be a difficult season for me not just as a player but also as a team captain. At the time, I was the captain of the Stoneleigh trophy team and the competition recently had some major changes to the format. The Stoneleigh trophy was an inter-club,rapid-play team competition where there are 8 game between the two teams in each match. Each player score 1 game point for winning a game and half a game point for a draw. each match is essentially in 2 halves with 4 games played in the first half and the other 4 being played in the second half (usually, it's the same 4 players playing reversed colours; although they a team can choose to have 4 different players for the second half.) Whichever team scored the most game points for their team wins the match. However, before the start of the new season, I was told that there would be told that there would be a new handicap match format for the competition which meant both teams would have to reach a "target" score in order to draw a match and exceed it to win.

Before the season started, I had a game-plan about how to win the Stonleigh trophy. I wanted to be
one step ahead of my opposition. Basically, I wanted as bag a grade range as I can possibly get. As high-ranked a player as possible on board 1 and as low-ranked a player as I can get. on board 4 with average players on boards 2 and 3. New thinking for a new format. however , this philosophy cane under heave criticism from a member of the club who also happened to be the inter-club tournaments director of the Surrey board and vice-president of South Norwood chess club which I was a member of at the time. he simply wanted me to select the strongest players that I can get. Infect I almost had my captaincy for the Stoneleigh team stolen from me as he phoned the day after the 2011 A.G.M saying that he should take over the opposition because he thought I was "depressed" in the A.G.M. I had to tell him that I was not depressed but tired and I was still willing to run the team .

In the first match, we narrow lost by 1 point and the vice-president told me on my mobile phone on my way home after the match "you need to get someone who will get you a point". He simply didn't appreciate what I was trying to achieve with my player selections and first thought I chose a weak team. The results were not going our way and we only had one match win in our first four matches which meant we were unable to win the competition.  What made things worse for me was the fact that before our fifth match I had a serious stomach infection where I had to go to hospital one early Saturday morning which left me feeling weak for a few days. During  that time I had a very rude phone call from the vice-president accusing me of "falling asleep", clearly unaware of what happened to me during that week-end. The illness also meant that I had little time or energy to think of what kind on team I wanted to have for the match. I thought that I might as well experiment with one or two players who had not previously been in the team. However, the vice-president decided to take the law into his own hands and demanded that he should be in the team over another player. This lead to me having a strong panic attack as I felt as if he was denying me my rights as a captain to select the team that I wanted. Out of shear panic, I gave in and asked him what team he wanted me to have. He gave me the list of 4 players he wanted me to have for his team which inevitably included himself in replacement of another player. I felt like my power and rights as a team captain were instantly taken away from me. It was a moment where I felt named and shamed. We eventually won the fifth match our only victory that season. The final match ended in a draw.

I will never forget that phone call from the vice-president for as long as I live. The feeling of powerlessness I had during that moment haunted me for a couple of months and changed the way I viewed the vice-president. However the worst was yet to come. 

My road to Chess Glory: Part 3: The road to recovery.

Going into the 2011/12 season, I decided to make major changes to the way I played chess. Before the start of this particular season, I had a style that I eventually called "Tempo Hunting". This style of play was aggressive, but was also tactics dependent and required sharp calculation for it to be successful. I realised that my ailing body was not able to compete in the tactics department. Therefore, I adopted a more positional style. I changed my repertoire and relied more on judgement rather than calculation. After a while, I saw my results improving. However in the summer of 2012 when I was preparing to make my debut in the CCF Cup, I found myself suffering an asthma attack and had to go to hospital about a week before the start of the tournament which ment I was forced to take a bye in the opening round. This left me feeling fatigued for the rest of the summer as I could only manage an equal score of 3 wins and 3 losses. I did however did better in the Wernick Cup that year as I won my section and therefore qualified for the final on my first appearance in the competition since winning it in 2009. It was a 4-way final where I finished runner-up after 2 wins and 1 loss, losing only to the overall winner.

Different (A poem)

DIFFERENT

If they are red then I am blue.

If they are false then I am true.

If they are right then I am wrong.

If they are short then I am long.

If they are hot the I am cold.

If they are fresh the I am mould.

If they are square then I am round.

If they are a penny then I am a pound.

So here I am, something new.

So here I am, out of the blue.

So here I am, fitting in

So here I am, blending in

So here I am, it's all change.

So here I am, let's re-arrange.

So here I am, It's only me!

So here I am, can we just be?

I am different, something new.

I am different, a point of view.

I am different, rain or shine.

I am different, a pure devine.

I am different, so they say.

I am different come what may.

I am different, so it's true.

I am different, ... but then so are you!

My life direction(as of April 2018)

My life direction( as of April 2018)

Me with the Wernick Cup which i won in 2009

My Chess Career

I recently announced on Facebook that I will retire from over-the-board tournament chess at he end of the 2019 CCF cup. This is so that I can have full focus on my spiritual journey where I can grow and develop as a person. This will be the end of a 14 year journey that started in 2005 and I am thankful for everything the game has given me.

My Shogi 1-Dan Persuit

Shogi is the Japanese form of Chess

I have really been into Shogi recently. Shogi is the Japanese form of chess which I first learnt to play in 2008. I joined the Shogi playing site 81 Dojo in March 2012. For the first time in my life, I feel like I am now a stronger Shogi player then I am a chess player and now fell  like I can reach the rank of 1-Dan by the end of the year. At this point, I would like to join the World Shogi League but I don't know how at this point.

My Buddhist Path

In April 2016, I announced on Facebook that I am following and studying Buddhism. There has been many wonderful life lessons that i have learnt from Buddhism and other spiritual studies.I hope to one day become part of my local Buddhist community. I think it will give me a real sense of belonging in the world.

Finding Work

One of the most frustrating aspects of my life is that I have never really known what i really want from a career. i studied I.T. and accounting in college and have had voluntary administration jobs in the past but I have never really known what I want to do professionally. At this point in time, I am thinking about studying psychology, perhaps with one day being a psychologist, a therapist of a counsellor. However, this is just a vague thought at the moment.

Is Autism Just Human Evolution?

Is Autism Just Human Evolution?

My diagnosis story

According to my parents, I was diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome at the age of 10. However, the condition was never explained to me at the time of the diagnosis. In fact I was in a constant state of disbelief of the idea of me having the condition until I arranged a one of appoint ment with a secretary at my local surgery to see my medical records. For me to realise this truth was heartbreaking. I thought I was like every other person on the planet but clearly, medical science had other ideas.

The medical mystery

Throughout my life, I have had Asperger Syndrome (AS) and other Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASDs) be called all sorts of things. I've heard it be called a mental illness, learning disability, medical condition and even a disease!

Medical science always puts a negative connotation to the autism spectrum. Many have said that there has to be a cure for it. However, I am hearing more and more no YouTube that ASDs are rather a step in human evolution. This way of thinking about ASDs is certainly not out of the question when you consider th growing amount of cases around the world. (even without the controversial MMR vacccine) Many scientists have struggled for decades to find the cause of ASDs but alas have yet to find an answer.

What is the truth?

So is autism really just a step in human evolution? If scientists are not able to give a definite external reason for the sharp rise of ASD cases then we are clearly seeing a transformation within the human species. Society is always demanding us to conform and be like everyone else as if we were all ment to be the same person. Society is always fearful of someone who is different in some way. However, it is our differences that makes the human condition as rich as it is.

As you are about to learn from these 3 videos, there are a growing amount of people who beleive that ASDs are not "illness" that have to be "cured" in some waybut rather a step in human evolution. Maybe all of us will be "autistic" in some way.

Teal Swan: Autism (Understanding Autism, Autistic Children and Autistic Adults) - Teal Swan

Arthur Arcturus: Is Asperger's Human 2.0

Tony Atwood: is Asperger Syndrome the next stage of human evolution?