Take one child, limitless dreams, unlimited potential, pure innocence and a sponge-like brain. Force them by law to spend at least ten years of their precious youth being force-fed the most useless information. Constantly reminding them that they’re only as good as their grades in a system that teaches useless mind-numbing subjects and claims to confirm our intellect with repetition and random memory tests. I didn’t give a flying fuck about the square route of the number nine or the speed of sound; I just so desperately wanted to know the basics. Happiness, love, the things that we need in our lives; the things that help us to find confidence in ourselves, our ability and our dreams.

The bank wanted me to sell those customers that debt, because the system needs you to buy that new car, that holiday to Barbados, that latest iPhone or that new extension you’ve always been dreaming off. The banks are happy to let you do it with their high interest credit products, and they want me to be the guy that sells the idea to you. I was serving the machine that was enslaving me.

The macabre melodies were a surreal audible example of just who I’d been before and a stark contrast to who I was now.

My heart is your home, wherever in the world you are – you will always have a place to stay.

Dad, despite the fact you can be a right grumpy bastard, I’m so incredibly grateful to have you in my life.

Life is difficult for us all. We’re all driven by love, and the desire to be loved and happy. If you take the right attitude, you think positively, you fill yourself with gratitude, joy and passion – it could be hell on earth and you’d still be happy.

You can do anything you set your mind to. You’re a human being, full of so many different thoughts and emotions; you’re the most powerful force in your universe. So when you realise that the absolute worst that could happen to you is death, wouldn’t you rather die knowing you did your best you lived your life in the most amazing way? You followed your dreams, you found your purpose and you served the rest of mankind simply by being the best person you can be? Or would you prefer to die with the regret of everything that you didn’t make time to do?

I’ve always known my circumstances were far, far from the worst, but I truly believe that just the slightest misalignment in our upbringings can have such a dramatic knock-on effect on our lives.

I believe we are our own gods, and our own devils. Good and evil doesn’t exist out there in the world, it exists in each and every one of us.