There's a great video that I've linked below which talks about the rise and fall of empires. Every empire rises and every empire falls. Do you think we are witnessing the collapse of the West and is it inevitable?

Just curious how many of you are in Chiang Mai?

After 5 weeks in Thailand and Cambodia without any issues or stress whatsoever, I arrived back in the UK in October and a friend picked me up from Heathrow. We honestly forgot to pay the drop off fee for the car to enter Heathrow as it is a new system and as soon as I remembered (2 days after) I called to make the payment but with literally zero leniency I was told I can't pay and that I'll be fined £80. That was my very first greeting back to the UK. We drove from Heathrow back home and my friend and I were hungry and it was late so we went to McDonald's drive through, the food was handed out the window without a word or a smile to the point I even said to the staff you could at least speak to your customers. I then arrived home and within 5 minutes of sitting down, the girl who lives next door started screaming down the street and smashing things as she was arguing with someone and just as I started to eat my food the police arrived to calm her down. To top it off, since I've been back (October to December) 6 kids have been stabbed and killed within my town and the surrounding towns. I'm now 40 years old and I can say that I enjoyed the UK in the 90's and early 2000's but now I feel like I don't belong here (I was born here and I'm a British citizen). I don't even bother to go out anymore when I'm in the UK because going out in town has become so dangerous, you only need to look at someone the wrong way or sometimes not even that. I used to go out very often. My life in Asia and UK are so different it is unreal! In Asia I'm out every day, doing something all of the time and I warm to the people so much that I now have more friends In Asia than I have in my home country! People in the UK are so distant, well in my area and down towards London they are. To me, the UK seems like it is finished, completely f*cked which is why I'm getting out and moving to Asia in January. I'm literally clearing all of my house out now ready to rent it out. Brett covers a lot of these topics in his videos which is why I related to what he was saying in them and honestly, I think its stuff which needs to be said.

I wanted to share one thing I started doing that I have seen great benefits from recently, and that's having a "Sabbath" day away from technology. I switch off my phone the night before and won't touch my computer for the whole of next day. The first few times you do it, it's wild to see how addictive you are to technology and how your brain tries to drag out to have that stimulation. After a bit of a struggle, I focused that energy into reading, and got more reading done in one day than I managed to achieve in a whole week. Give it a go if you have an opportunity, even if it's once a month, or just for one day.

Do you guys recommend using a VPN?What VPN are you using?