“The countenance is the portrait of the soul, and the eyes mark its intentions.”

Sage advice I should have followed in years gone by.

Marcus Tullius Cicero.

As I walked down the street from one of my 3 local 7-Elevens tonight I was nearly hit by a car.

This car came probably in under 1m away from me.

I never flinched once nor cared. I’m in Thailand. It was way close, but it was never going to hit me.

And if one thing Thailand has taught me is that caring less is freedom.

For those interested in the car story: it’s just usual here. Bikes often get closer as you’re walking up and down a street.

In Australia, I’d go completely and utterly spare. Every. Single. Time.

But somehow this wonderful country called Thailand has taught me not to care. To not get stressed. To not unduly worry.

Yes, Thailand has a horrible track record with road deaths, but likewise no one is going to run into you as you walk up the street.

I’ll walk up my street again tonight, and I won’t give a shit about being hit because I know that an average Thai on a bike, or in a car, doesn’t want to hit me.

And this conquers a lot of anxiety I ever had.

So I have a new gig, I’m a staff writer for Social News Daily. It was officially announced Monday US time (31/3.)

Post here.

It was a beyond lovely post and I promise I had nothing to do with it…well except edit it after it went up after Andy Beard pointed out to me on Twitter: b5media was founded in 2005, not 2004 as per the original post (note to self: I’m getting old and forgetting dates 🙂 )

.@duncanriley Congrats – wasn’t b5media launch in 2005?

— Andy Beard (@AndyBeard) March 31, 2014

I’m also somewhat stoked that a good guy like Andy Beard not only remembers me, but remembers my past better than I do.

I’ve had a proverbial shit ton of positive feedback about the new gig across social media, including people who I haven’t had much to do with in years (some going back to TechCrunch time) that have gone out of their way to like, congratulate or other forms of social media recognition.

It’s humbling. It really is that after all these years people still can find value in me writing, and giving my opinion.

Those who know me, or have followed me through some pretty dark years know some of the story post divorce to this point. Roller coaster kind of comes close.

I’m not going to rehash it all again…because if one thing about the response to this new gig tells me is that where perhaps at times that while I didn’t have a lot of faith in myself, others still did, and do.

It’s my 13th year in blogging, and I’m in my 10th year this year of doing it for a living. I’ve been what I guess some would call extremely well off, and I’ve also had periods where I was buggered if I knew how to pay the next bill. Because life is never boring there were I think six periods over all 🙂

Over the last 18+ months I’ve tried to rebuild myself, and part of that has been with 4aus.com..sure, not exactly nail biting tech posts (or revenue), but I’ve built it to the stage it has paid the bills, and oddly it gives most readers joy, often daily, when they find free stuff. There’s nothing nicer when a reader emails me to say they loved a sample they obtained via the site..and in one case a $20,000 holiday abroad. The site helped me rebuild daily discipline in writing (8 posts minimum a day week day (I aim for 10), and sometimes it’s not as easy as it seems when you can’t find 4 or 5 freebies to post.)

I’m not giving up 4aus.com (it pays my bills), but having joined Social News Daily others now have an expectation that I write and deliver, and from this week I aim to continue to crawl back to someone I use to be. I hope to be someone who can make headlines again and break stories.

Since starting at SND I’ve already had an amazing impact in writing about the potential new Armenian Genocide in Syria, (with an insane 11,000 social shares and counting, on the first post, another 6k on the follow ups and still counting) and although someone said to me on Facebook today that I’m being employed to write click bait: it may be true to some extent but even if once a month I can drive traffic by helping promote an amazingly worthy cause like #SaveKessab, I can and will go to bed at night sleeping better for it.

PS

Hi world, I think I might be back! 🙂

Before I start, let me say that the following comes with a warning: I’m not a lifestyle guru, nor am I a life coach, any sort of guru, or any of the god knows how many sites who are promising you the world based on an idea.

But here’s the catch: I have an idea.

The following should be taken with not a grain of salt, but with about a dozen bags of it, because like way to many people blogging theses days, I’m not an expert just because I have an idea that may or not be good.

That aside.

In the new year I’m hitting the reset button on my life.

I’ve had some amazing experiences, successes, but I’ve also had some fucking tragic awful failures, be it mostly in my personal life.

Yay, I can build a website up. Nooo I fail at relationships, although I can survive them from anywhere to 3 months through to 9 years (with most <2 years.)

A friend (and I wish I could remember who) once said to me that you will only be ready for a relationship when you are comfortable with living by yourself.

After nearly 10 years of marriage the whole concept sounded wrong. The thought that I could live alone was wrong, and after the separation then divorce all I did was try to fill my life with someone else.

I’m not suggesting that anyone reading this can’t, or shouldn’t have someone in their life, but it’s an interesting point: “you are only ready for a relationship when you can live with yourself” (I know that’s not what I wrote above, but in each instance, it’s words to that affect.)

I can live with myself now. Actually, at this point in my life, I’m quite happy doing so. It only took 38 years 🙂

I’m currently planning to move back to Chiang Mai, where I spent roughly 4 out of the last 6 months in. I love the place, but I’m not using this post to explain why, I’ll save that for another post.

The moral/ idea of this post/ story is that you can be happy alone (with salt 🙂 ) I know it’s hard and hell it took me years to accept it but as I write this I know that I’m going to be far more happy alone than I will be in a relationship (and that’s putting aside the BS I’ve dealt with.)

I only wish I could remember who told me about being happy alone so I could credit them.

I’ve been there, done that, and if you are going through any relationship issues, or alone issues, know that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and you can be happy alone.

I’m not going to open up a call centre here but if you want to talk about your probs, or ping my brain: duncan at nichenet.com.au Happy to talk.

But again, as per the heading: the reset button is coming. I hope to get back in Chiang Mai ASAP and come January 1st I’m pressing that button.

(insert guru stuff here) YOU CAN DO THAT 😀

OK so I’m taking the piss now but seriously, I am, and if anyone reading this has had any doubts, you can as well.