Don't Push Too Many Trolleys

5Take Responsibility for Your Life

When you don't take responsibility for your life, you don't make active decisions. In other words, you tend to procrastinate, and often – when things go wrong – you blame other people or claim to have had “bad luck.” But the real blame, if you didn't make a decision and take action when you needed to, lies with you. I'm not talking here about things that are not within your control, I'm talking about the things that you could have done to avoid the bad situation.

Procrastination is something I try to be very disciplined about eliminating from my life.

I remember one incident that could have cost me my life.

When I was 18, I had saved up enough money (from weekend trolley pushing) to buy my first car. I had been working in ASDA for a couple of years and had passed my test a while before. Once I turned 17, I was straight out there, eager to learn to drive. I passed my test first time, only a few months after I turned 17.

I bought a three-door Ford Escort 1.1 litre. I think it was a “Y reg.” I used to drive my friends into Guildford so that we could go out. I never minded not drinking because the thrill of having control of a car was so great.

The first accident I ever had was when I was following a friend in his car. We were going to a party. He turned a corner and I misjudged my distance from it and clipped the rather high kerb, which shook the car (and my passengers!) up a little. But it wasn't serious. I had the car checked over and the small ...