Communication is key!

Wow - what a mad couple of weeks! There's been dramas, fall outs, unnecessary bickering, you know all the normal things that happen within a group of friends, but one thing I think we've all learned is that communication is key. There's no point making snippy Face Book status updates and firing messages back and forth, as these can very easily be misinterpreted. Instead it's much easier to pick up the phone and have a conversation, or go for coffee and chat face to face as you definitely achieve more that way and wrongs can be righted within a short amount of time, instead mud slinging through cyberspace.

It's got me wondering though, are social networking sites and technology advances responsible for more friend fall outs, for the very reasons I've stated above? Do we talk to one another less and thus communicate in a less appropriate manner? Look at the mobile phone! 20 years ago, the majority of people didn't have one, if you made an appointment to meet friends, you actually had to turn up, you couldn't send a lame text message to get out of something (yes I'm guilty of doing it too), with some ridiculous excuse. Well the same can be said for the internet, when the majority of people's social calenders are planned through FB events and whether they are 'Attending, Maybe, Not Attending'.

Have we become more insular as people? Do we communicate less, because you can change your mind at the 'click of a button'? And could dramas have been avoided if only we'd taken a few minutes to actually talk to one another? Probably, and that's why as a close nit group of friends, we have decided that 'Communication is Key' and that if someone has an issue, then we have to talk not type about it. To quote an old BT ad slogan 'It's good to talk!'

Although it has been a time of unnecessary dramas and issues, I think as friends we have grown closer to one another and reinforced what is an what is not acceptable, we can now say what we feel (within reason) without fear of someone else flying off the handle, because as friends you should be able to tell each other how you're feeling and warn someone if certain behaviour is a little unacceptable - so for now, it's all good :-)

Sadly every now and then you do come across the odd person where talking or any sort of sane communication on any level seems virtually impossible. But that's a whole other topic and one that I shall address/discuss very soon.

The mass exodus

It's tough times in Dubai and many people have had enough. There has been a mass exodus going on for a while and I never thought it would affect me, until the last few weeks when more and more of my closest friends told me they'd decided to leave. The main reasons being that they've lost their jobs, can't make enough money to make ends meet anymore or need a change of scene.

It's started to get me seriously thinking about my future in the UAE, how long can I stay here for, how long do I WANT to stay here for. You see Dubai is very much like a bubble, it's not the real world, you go back to reality when you take a holiday. But to be honest the days, weeks, months all start to meld together and you find yourself doing the same routine day in and day out, plus when when you're an old timer like me, there's nothing really new to try anymore and monotony can set in very easily. Add to that the problems that you have in progressing career wise because of being tied to a company because of sponsorship visas and you can find yourself stuck very very easily.

I think it's very easy to get to a point where you're just literally living from day to day, and that's not me! I want to live life, to explore, to achieve, to have the drive to do the things I've always wanted to do, but I feel like I'm losing that, like the excited twinkle in my eyes has become a dull glazed, apathetic look and that really makes me very sad and also scared. Why scared? Because I'm starting to feel like it's time wasted. When life is too short to begin with, why waste it being in a place where you have no future and can't achieve anything.

So I think now realistically in the next six months time will tell whether I decide to stay in Dubai or look for pastures new. There's a whole big wide world out there for exploring - let's not waste anymore time :-)