Jason's Blog

As term starts with remote learning instead of masses of students returning to their educational institutions, it's hard not to notice the changes happening all around us. As industries change and develop, there is always a mass movement away from what was once generally accepted as the norm. When mp3 came about, there was a giant exit away from the record industry. As streaming services became available, no longer did listeners 'own' the music they listen to, but nor did they need to. Accessibility is now greater than ever before. More choice, more freedom, more autonomy? Brexit is another example. Better together, or better on our own? Most people have already made their mind up about this one, but time will tell.  Online Learning platforms such as Udemy and Coursera have existed for a while. They are an exit from universities and have millions of users gaining qualifications already. Udemy alone has over 35 million students and 57,000 instructors teaching courses in over...

Who would you rather take advice from - someone who has succeeded in life or someone who has failed? This, of course, depends on your own definition of success and what you value more than anything. However, more often than not, those who have gone to the top of their field, gained the most recognition, or made the most money are deemed the successful ones. They are the ones given the platform to speak and advise those aspiring to emulate them. This does not necessarily mean that they are best placed to be giving out advice. Perhaps it's the ones who have failed in their endeavours that possess the best advice, knowing what they did wrong and what they would have done in hindsight, in order to not repeat the same mistakes. They do say that failure is the stepping stone towards success, and that you learn more from your failures than your successes. Successful people may be completely ignorant to how easy they made it look, just like the maths professor who can no longer empathise w...

Go on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter etc. and try and find a post or picture of someone depicting a positive aspect of their life, whether it's them on an expensive holiday, having a nice time with all their friends smiling, or perhaps a post about some success in their work or academic life. It probably won't be long, scrolling through, before you find one, or several. Now try and find one that depicts a less positive aspect of someone's life. Perhaps showing how lonely they are, how they failed their exam, got fired from work, are eating simple and cheap food etc. It will no doubt be much harder, if not near impossible to find. Why? No one wants to show people the boring and rubbish parts of their life, but instead want to show everyone how good their lives are: how happy they are, how successful they are, how rich they are, how life is just so perfect! No one posts their failures. It's obvious, isn't it? It's completely natural that people want to be perce...

Earlier this week, Boris Johnson was criticised for saying Muslim women wearing burkas (an outer garment worn by women in some Islamic tradition) "look like letter-boxes" and for comparing them to bank-robbers. Unsurprisingly, he has aggravated a number of people and has been criticised for his rather negligent comments.  Not soon after, however, the chair of Mosques and Imams National Advisory Board (MINAB), Imam Qari Asim MBE, stated that "Boris Johnson has legitimised hatred towards Muslim women by his burka remarks." Rather counter-productively, making statements like this, could have even more negative consequences to society than the initial remarks themselves. It is completely understandable how Johnson's comments have caused offence to the Islam community, but to then state that they "legitimise hatred", is potentially even more inflammatory, and, unhelpfully plants that into the minds of the accused, and those that support the accused...

As written by a friend on Facebook: I have seen a lot of the  # itsokaynottobeokay  movement across my news feed recently and I think it raises some issues worth talking about.  This movement has been successful in getting general attention for what is a pertinent issue that needs to be thought and talked about well.  I think it’s important, however, that this doesn’t simply develop into a trend in which people copy and paste the same text, statistics, and pose. This movement is trying to raise real awareness about young people who lose their lives to suicide or are, perhaps, at risk of losing their lives because of the degree to which they suffer in them.  Evidently, I don’t and can’t see the thought process that goes on behind every post but, going by what I see, I ask: where is there real awareness shown in copying and pasting? Aren’t we meant to be showing this is something we’re willing to talk about, something we personally understand and...

In the beginning, it’s difficult to see the effects, but staying “disciplined” to the plan compounds over time until the results are always greater than you imagined. Just like investing money, except this is a safe bet... “We must all suffer from one of two pains… the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. Discipline weighs ounces, while regret weighs TONS!” It's time for you to decide; would you rather put yourself through the pain of discipline now, to achieve your goals and ambitions, or would you rather get to old age later, and feel the regret of not having forced yourself more to achieve what you wanted? 

A person walks past a store, examines it, and says, "This store is stupid. Who would go there?" As they walk past, a group of people decide to go in. What must they think to themselves?! The people in there must also be stupid! (This is as creative as my writing gets!!) When we innovate and get creative, either by opening a store, writing a book, composing music, drawing a piece of art, etc. there will always be people who will disagree with you, who are not impressed with you, or even go out of their way to criticise you. If you ever feel like that last person mentioned, then perhaps instead of criticising it, just say, maybe it's not for me, but other people like it. For example, looking from the artist's perspective, why would an author look into negative reviews/ratings of their books? It's not like they're going to re-write it after seeing the bad review amongst many other ones. If you saw a 1* review of 'How to Kill a Mockingbird' or ...