I’ve made my first big mistake as a columnist: I have forgotten about my audience.
In my haste to make complex economics into simple prose I’ve ignored the people who read the pieces.
One ‘fan’, lets call him Thor, found my piece on your personal inflation rate lacking humour.
He was right.
At that moment my mind spiralled into despair, I realised I was a fat, old and boring man. I turned to Insta (which is what influencers do) for self-help ideas.
Spiralling into Instagram ‘self-help’
The good news is self-help is quick and it was clear I could lose pounds and look good in days if I just followed some useful online tips that cost just a few pounds a week.
A week later I was still fat and old. The influencers lied and sold me a fake dream.
There was only one way to overcome this situation and I decided I had to get back to basics.
It was obvious I needed to use statistics to prove that the reflection staring back was a lie, I needed a new perspective.
Statistically I was looking at an old man.
Given medical conditions, family history, national stats – I reckon 70 years is a fair estimate of my likely innings, more would be a bonus, less is possible.
Statistics never lie
My analysis suggested I was a man 63% through his life. However, self-help stats gave me hope.
The first 18 years of my life were really just practice and learning, all fairly useless and furthermore I had no cash or ability to earn. Removing that allowed me to quickly reduce my progress to death to 50%.
The truth is I was entirely useless until the age of 22. Most of the time between 18 and 22 was spent partying, playing football, going to football and generally winging it.
This rebasing means I am only 46% through adulthood and therefore I can confirm I have more ahead of me than behind me. Damn good news!
“Dear Mr Bream, in the last two years you have put on 6kg and in the last year since I saw you you’ve added 2kg”. This is what I received from my doctor, who happens to be a lovely and caring lady.
The letter said it all really: I was fat. My BMI was 27.4 and the NHS site says that I would really benefit from gradually losing 5% of your current weight.
However, yet again I saw a way not to be fat, I just need to look at the stats differently and now I’m pretty much thin (healthy).
This change happened almost immediately but certainly it will be confirmed by October and here is the magic.
Reframing your thinking (and statistics)
Firstly I get naked for the weigh-in and I stand tall. Both of these factors immediately reduce the BMI to 25.9.
I just need to walk 1.2 million steps by the end of December and cut food by 10% and it is done. That’s 10,000 steps a day and one Mars Bar a day less. This will reduce my weight by 6 kilos minimum.
Immediately I am svelte and hot.
If I can turn this fan from negative back to positive laughter levels, even LOLing then I will have a 50% success rate
Across a UK distribution, I found that 64.2% of people are overweight or obese and therefore with a few small changes and some sleight of hand I’m not fat. Genius.
Finally, I need to be less boring. This is where stats really help.
I’d consider I have four regular readers.
One is neutral on humour and reads in their role as a family friend. The second I’d say reads to mock and goad me but secretly likes it.
Mrs Devlin sees me as a celebrity and the final reader, ‘Thor’, is the one who cares about the laughs.
So the key to success will be turning him.
If I can turn this fan from negative back to positive laughter levels, even LOLing then I will have a 50% success rate. If I can get a few more giggles I am absolutely flying.
Remembering what actually matters
The most important take away is that we’re not always what people think.
Most of the time we aren’t even what we think of ourselves – so if you’re feeling fat, old, boring, lonely or something else, then stop.
Write down the evidence and you might just find that actually you’re a pretty damn fine human being. This isn’t about looking through rose tinted glasses, it’s about reminding yourself of the facts.
All of that said, nothing wrong with a bit of self-depreciation and if it makes a couple of people smile then even better.
I hope Thor, Mrs Devlin in Banff and my two fans near Cullen can forgive me once they read this heart-warming story.
James Bream is general manager of Aberdeen-based Katoni Engineering and chair of DYW North East
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