Too Tired To Play Games - By Simon Macbeth

This book scares the shit out of me. I made myself a promise when I started putting my past on paper that I was going to talk about everything. I didn't want to embellish the goods bits and hide the bad because then you wouldn't be reading about me. You'd be reading a sanitised version of the truth, about someone I had invented to make myself seem better than I really am. I've told enough lies in my life already.

I have written about things in this book that even the people closest to me know nothing about. This book contains the good and the bad of everything I've ever done, and then there's also the downright terrible. That is what frightens me the most about sandwiching my life between a front and back cover - my Mum, my sisters, the people I've worked with over the years will be able to read this and see what I'm capable of.

I am no angel and this story is most certainly not a fairytale. In real life, for most of us anyway, there are no Cinderellas or Prince Charmings waiting around the corner to save us. My life is no different. I've done things I am ashamed of and yet I have achieved things that fill me with pride. I've worked hard and I've cheated. In gambling terms I have played the hand I've been dealt to the very best of my ability. There are times when I've won big and times when I've had nothing.

There isn't a single thing that I would change about my life. When you have read about some of the scrapes I've found myself in you my find that hard to believe, but I do honestly believe that thing happen for a reason. You make mistakes so that you can learn from them. You experience the highs so you can store up those positive thoughts to help you to get through the lows, to give you hope when none seems to exist.

I've read other books of this type where the writer starts off by saying that they felt they had to write everything down as if by spilling out all of their misery on to a sheet of paper it would act as some kind of catharsis and all of their negative baggage would magically slide away. I have always thought that those people put comments like that in books to make people sympathise with them, to get people to like them before the reader gets too far in. That is not my style at all.

I started writing this book because I thought I had an entertaining story to tell and that I might make some money in the process. I've got a fledgling property development business which needs investment and none of you would turn down the chance to have a book published or make some cash. Through dredging up the past and going through some memories that I would have quite happily kept tucked away in the dark recesses of my head I genuinely feel as if it has helped me come to terms with one or two of my demons. I guess I bought the wrong ticket, but got to the right destination in the end.

Writing this book is both the best thing and the worst thing I have ever done. It is an incredibly personal thing, writing about you. I knew that by being brutally honest in the telling then the experience of reading would be that much better. It has to be said that there are certain sections where I wondered whether you as the reader would like me or loath me, but then at many of those bad times I didn't really like myself.

It has been a long and difficult journey, but I'm proud of who I am now. This is my story and it is dedicated to all of my friends and family, whether you have been a positive or negative influence on my life.

I really do hope you can see the good amongst the bad.