I'm 35 and sleeping on a mattress on a friend's floor because I can't afford a property in Australia
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An employed mid-30s Perth woman has shared her rental search struggles
Shannon McDougall, 35, said she now slept 'on the floor' of a friend's place
Her viral TikTok videos about the rental housing crisis received mixed responses
A woman in her mid-30s has confessed to 'sleeping on a mattress on the floor of my friend's place' as she struggles to secure a rental property in the tough Australian housing market.
Shannon McDougall, 35, has this past week shared a series of viral TikTok videos voicing her concern about not being able to find an affordable rental property in Perth.
'I'm 35 years old, sleeping on a mattress on the floor of my friend's place because it's impossible to get a rental, or it's way too expensive,' she said.
The marketing and graphics assistant said she was forced to accept her friend's generous offer after running out of 'options'.
'[M]y only options are to sleep in my car, sleep on the floor at my friend's house, or try and find a room in a share house, if I can afford it and if there's any available,' she said.
'How are those my only options? How are those the only options of many Australians right now?'
Shannon explained that she had looked extensively for suitable properties within her budget and price range, but was disheartened to find that even a 'tiny one bedroom apartment' was beyond her reach.
'I don't mind having to live in a tiny one bedroom apartment. But having to pay $500 a week is f*****,' Shannon said.
'I earn an average wage. But I can't afford that.'
Shannon also said that she had been investigating share house rental listings - but the pet owner added that even this was proving difficult.
'It's like $300 to rent a room in a share house in Perth, which is ridiculous,' she said.
'I found that a lot of places don't actually allow pets - and I've got two dogs,' Shannon added, explaining that the 15-year-old dogs were her 'babies' and that giving them away was non-negotiable.
'I'm still sending inquiries but not having much luck.'
Even if she were to be accepted by a share house rental, she expressed worry over the 'risk' of inadvertently winding up living in a situation with 'the worst roommate ever'.
'Can someone please tell me when the housing crisis in Australia is going to get better?' she asked.
FEMAIL spoke to Shannon to glean further insight into her rental search struggles and she confirmed that she had now been looking for a place to live for three months 'since February this year'.
Prior to this, Shannon had previously lived with a relative for the past few years before they had sadly passed away.
'Currently, I'm moving between friends' homes each week while searching for a rental or share house,' Shannon explained..
In her widely-viewed social media videos, Shannon made mention of the point that people may be wondering why she hadn't previously been in a position to purchase her own property.
'Before anyone says, "You're 35, why don't you own a house?" - I did own a house in my 20s,' Shannon said.
The creator, who specialises in 'DIY Fashion, Thrift Flips & Try-Ons', explained that she had previously been a home owner in her 20s and had owned a place with her then partner.
'I owned a house with my ex for six years. We bought it at a good time in 2012. Then we split [and] he paid me out. It wasn't enough to then go and buy another property,' she said.
Shannon provided broader details on her former property ownership situation, explaining that she and her ex had bought their place in 2012 for $405,000, at a time when she had been earning an annual salary of $42,000.
When they separated six years later, the 'market value of that property' had made only a modest gain of $40,000. After accounting for the outstanding mortgage amount owing to the bank, she claimed to have only received a small buyout amount from her ex in 2019.
Shortly thereafter the COVID-19 pandemic hit and Shannon said she was also made redundant during this time. Simultaneously, she claimed the price of Perth properties increased rapidly.
Accordingly, Shannon said the lump sum payout from her ex was no longer substantial enough to use as a deposit to secure her own place, and she was forced back into the rental market.
There were mixed reactions among the thousands of comments to Shannon's TikTok videos, with the marketing graphics assistant herself acknowledging that the responses fell into 'two distinct categories'.
'The first category is made up of people who resonate with my concerns, sharing their own struggles with unaffordable housing,' Shannon told FEMAIL.
Indeed, one reply read: 'Being a female, single, 35, low-income Australian must be a brutally bitter pill to swallow. Our entire societal structure is working against you.'
On the other hand, Shannon observed that many comments came from 'people who deny the existence of a housing crisis in Australia, claiming that rent prices are stable and homes are still affordable'.
'Many of them are calling me entitled and financially irresponsible. I'm not bothered by the negative comments,' she said.
Among the comments, there were certainly many who vocally questioned Shannon's financial decisions - particularly since her partner had bought her out with a lump sum payment six years prior.
'So what did you do with that huge pay out, it would have been a great deposit. [S]ounds like you spent it all and now stuck,' read one reply.
'There is no one to blame but you. Over time it was your financial choices, life decisions [and] not taking extra steps to improve your finances. Absolute accountability is the only way to change your life.'
Despite the wide-ranging reactions, Shannon said that she stands by her decision to post her confessional videos about her rental property search experience.
'I didn't make these videos to get sympathy, I made these video because the housing crisis continues to be downplayed or dismissed by people it doesn't directly affect,' she said.
'I am very aware that the issue extends far beyond my own experience. I feel that many Australians have become resigned to the current state of housing, accepting it as the new norm.
'Affordable housing has never felt so out of reach.
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The Guardian
6 hours ago
- The Guardian
My best friend of 50 years knew me better than anyone. But when she died, no one seemed to take my grief seriously
I don't remember a time in my life when Chrissy wasn't in it. We were born 11 days apart and were both one when our families moved on to the same street in Geelong, a port city an hour south-west of Melbourne. We had a very Australian childhood; summers spent in our bathers, running through sprinklers; swimming in back yard pools; eating sausages in bread on New Year's Eve, when we were allowed to stay up late while our parents drank cask riesling with the neighbours, and we'd lie on the cool evening grass listening to crickets. During those blisteringly hot summer days of our childhood, we lived at the beach, where shark alarms were constant and the waves dangerous. Occasionally, Chrissy would paddle out on her inflatable red and blue raft to the big waves out the back where the serious surfers were. Sometimes, I'd panic when I'd lose sight of her, only to see her come rolling in on a massive wave, perched on top, laughing her head off. She was fearless. But I did lose her, five decades later. When Chrissy died at 51, I discovered a new and terrifying grief: that for a best friend. It was shocking, painful and incredibly lonely. Friends know you differently from family, but where do you sit in the pecking order? Below immediate family, ahead of a cousin, behind a current workmate? Our lives began together and the sheer amount of time spent with each other – the years of conversations and experiences, silly and serious – gave our friendship depth and meaning. Chrissy knew me in a way nobody else ever will. She saw me through experiences no one else ever knew about, not even my family. So why is it so hard to talk about the specific pain of losing a friend? Though we'd spent most of our childhood and early 20s together, Chrissy and I diverged in our mid-20s when I moved cities and, eventually, countries, to America. But despite the distance, our friendship remained strong, rooted in a shared history. We were like branches on an old tree that had grown in and around each other. 'I've got a damned brain lesion,' Chrissy had messaged from Melbourne while I was on the runway at LAX in Los Angeles, about to fly home to New York after a raucous weekend celebrating a friend's birthday. 'It's happened so fast. I have to go straight into hospital to get it removed, so I don't know if it's straightforward and they just get it or if I need follow-up treatment,' she'd written. 'I just wanted to let you know the bad news rollercoaster is still taking rides,' she'd added, referring to my wife, Mika, who'd been successfully treated for breast cancer a few years before. 'But they said it's in a good spot and they can access it, so I'm feeling OK.' I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me as the plane began taxiing down the runway. 'Sorry this is a message,' she'd ended, betraying a deeper anxiety. 'I reckon I'd cry too much if I called you.' Chrissy's initial surgery didn't go well; the surgeons couldn't get to all of the tumour and a leak on her brain left her in intensive care for weeks, with a drain in her skull. Friends sent voice messages and songs that reminded us of her. (Mine were Friday I'm in Love by the Cure, Modern Love by David Bowie and Eye of the Tiger by Survivor – she loved the Rocky movies.) Chrissy was diagnosed with stage 4 glioblastoma, which has a survival time of 12-18 months. When she was discharged from hospital after five horrific brain surgeries, she was given a brief respite before going straight into radiation and chemotherapy. Talking was hard, so we would message and she'd put on a brave face and say she was 'doing as best as I can be'. She made jokes about her 'crazy hair', half-shaved because of the drain in her head. She refused to cut it purely to annoy the people who kept asking why she didn't. The tumour ('the fucking toomer,' she called it, using a Schwarzenegger-Terminator accent, which made us laugh) was aggressive, but she remained optimistic. I flew to Australia to see her, catching a train from our home town to Melbourne where Chrissy lived with her British husband, Kev, and two teenage children. I looked out at the steel-grey skies and low winter sun reflecting off the paddocks, making them a deep golden as troops of kangaroos sat on their hind legs, affronted by the train speeding past. I held my overnight bag to my chest and thought about what I would say to her. Kev met me on the platform while Chrissy waited in the car. When she saw me, she got out slowly, laughing, before the tears came and I held her close to my chest. She felt so fragile, I had to swallow a sob. We went out for Vietnamese food and talked with Chrissy's kids about TikTok videos, the aerial silks classes her daughter was taking, and part-time jobs. I looked round the packed restaurant and wondered how people could sit there, eating, drinking and laughing, enjoying their lives, while my friend was dying. Chrissy is that friend who is embedded in every important memory in your life: she was there through primary school, high school and university – where we did the same degree and lived in each other's pockets. After graduation, when I did what every other wide-eyed Australian has done for generations before me and moved to London on a working holiday (and, yes, I did land in Earl's Court), Chrissy and Kev called in to see me while they backpacked around Europe. When I returned to Australia, Chrissy often took up residence on my old brown velvet couch, and when I moved to New York she made the trip across the Pacific a few times, most memorably for my wedding, where she commandeered the dancefloor until the early hours. But the most vivid memories I have are of early childhood. The slumber parties where we'd stay up watching The Empire Strikes Back in my parents' wood-panelled, brown-carpeted rumpus room, when we would cocoon ourselves in piles of blankets and pillows, waking up to morning cartoons and my mum cooking us bacon on toast with Worcestershire sauce. She was a natural at sport and every game we played felt like it had a grand slam title at stake. Her strength and agility, always so apparent, made it difficult to see her so depleted now. The endless cycles of radiation and chemotherapy she had undertaken in the hope they would extend her life were brutal. The steroids she was given to mitigate the side-effects of the 'chemo bombs' made her ravenous, but she found it hard to eat, and the keto diet the doctors put her on to slow the growth of the tumour made her excruciating headaches worse. She apologised for 'being a burden'. 'I don't want to die,' she said. We'd had intense conversations before – in the early 90s, she was among the few people I had told I was gay – but this one threw me. 'I know,' I said, adding hopefully but pitifully that the treatments 'could still shrink the tumour' and give her more time. We'd go for short walks on Williamstown Beach in Melbourne, where she had liked to swim and take her rescue dog, Polly, for a run. She took me to her favourite bakery – in a former textile factory – where I ordered the sausage roll and custard doughnut. She had the Reuben pastrami sandwich and key lime pie. 'I know you can probably get better ones in New York,' she'd said. 'But I love them.' She tired quickly and needed to lie down. I walked her home the few blocks from where we had eaten lunch; the unsaid hanging in the air between us that she couldn't go anywhere alone because her balance was affected by the tumour and she could fall or, worse, have a seizure. She hated being dependent on anyone. 'This fucking toomer,' she said, trying to smile as we walked slowly along her street in the bright winter sun. Sign up to Inside Saturday The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend. after newsletter promotion I never had to question the strength of our bond or what it meant to my life. But when Chrissy became ill, people seemed to either interrogate me about how deep our friendship really was or avoid the situation – I even felt a vibe from some of, 'Why are you making such a meal of this?' Some friendships were damaged. When I told one friend of 20-plus years I was flying home to Australia to see Chrissy as she was dying, he said, 'Jesus, I'm so sorry,' before moving on to tell me about some dramas he was having at work. He never asked me about it again. A colleague spoke about the death of a friend's father. 'He's had to fly home – it's your worst nightmare,' she said after I'd returned to New York from seeing Chrissy for the last time. When I got back to work, my boss never mentioned it and we just carried on as normal, as if my month off had been a jolly holiday. Some people asked about Chrissy once, and you could almost hear the sigh of relief vibrating through subsequent conversations when they could go back to talking about holidays, parties, work. Some friends, at least, were honest. 'I'm sorry. I've wanted to message,' a good friend who'd known Chrissy in our early 20s texted. 'But I didn't know what to say.' I rang a close friend of 15 years to let her know that there was a possibility I might have to fly back to Australia and not be in New York to help her through a medical procedure, suggesting she put a Plan B in place, in case I had to leave quickly. 'Of course you're backing out,' she said, clearly annoyed, which left me speechless. 'Why aren't you there already? She's still alive,' she said, which felt very much like an accusation. 'Why would you wait for the funeral?' When I said goodbye to Chrissy in Melbourne (we'd cried and said we'd 'see each other soon'), I had known I likely wouldn't see her again, but I'd made peace with that decision. I also knew I would go back for her funeral – not just to celebrate her, but for myself as well, and to be among friends and family. But my friend's comments made me doubt myself. What is the appropriate course of action to take when your oldest friend is dying in another country? Is one trip enough? Should I have gone five times? Should I have moved back to Australia? Even if I'd wanted to go and sit by her bedside for a month, there were barriers that stopped me from doing what I wanted to do because when you work on contract as a journalist, a dying friend doesn't merit the involvement of HR. There was also the crushing sense brought on by some of those around me that a dying friend didn't warrant the grief I felt. 'We have socially constructed templates for losing a parent, a child or a life partner, but the lack of social templates in the death of a friend plays a big role in isolating people in their grief,' says Rebecca Sokoll, a New York-based relationship therapist. 'If I tell someone my mother has died, they immediately reflect back their own understanding over a type of suffering that is established. The response to the loss of a friend is not established, and that requires people to listen and to understand, and few people are going to truly know they need to do that.' In hindsight, I think I craved some kind of acknowledgment over what I was losing; that I shouldn't need to explain or justify my grief around a 50-year friendship and how devastating that was. Two days before Chrissy died, I spoke to her on FaceTime. By then, she was mostly asleep but, in a kind and moving gesture, Kev put headphones on her so I could speak to her in private. I told her I loved her; what she and our friendship had meant to me. She frowned slightly and moved her mouth as if to speak, before exhaling deeply and going further into sleep. The memories of our friendship had been ours and now they were mine. I promised her I would remember all the stories for her kids. Kev kissed her hands for me – hands I would know anywhere – and I said goodbye, almost a year to the day since she had been diagnosed. Mika, a teacher, asked for bereavement leave to fly with me to Melbourne, which was denied because Chrissy did not qualify as a direct family member. The New York City Department of Education gives its employees four days off for deaths in the immediate family, plus an extra travel day if the funeral is outside New York. Mika, who had her own special relationship to Chrissy over the 15 years she'd known her, watched online as I gave a eulogy. I still talk to Chrissy (God, she loved a chat!) but the loneliness I've felt since her death has been painful. Her absence has made me question other relationships in my life. Some I once considered strong have fallen by the wayside. Others have been reignited and some have flourished unexpectedly. None of us will escape the devastation of losing a close friend. I can only say, cherish those relationships, nurture them and protect them. I thought Chrissy and I would know each other when we were 80, still talking about music and still eating strawberry doughnuts, but she wasn't afforded the privilege of growing old. A couple of weeks after her funeral, I went for a swim at Ocean Grove, a rugged beach on the Victorian coastline near my parents' house, a haven for surfers, seals and, occasionally, great whites. It was an uncommonly hot November day but the ocean still had a chill, the waves were enormous and the current was strong. I inched in deeper and deeper, sucking in air from the chill, hopping from one foot to the other as the cold of the ocean rode its way up my back. Beside me, a group of teenage girls had run full throttle into the water, screaming and laughing at the shock of the cold. Without fear, they had dived straight under the waves, emerging still laughing and clinging to each other. When did I get so timid? Once – like those girls – I would've gone straight under, brazen and unafraid. On the horizon, a monster set of waves started to rise, rolling in so quickly that I had a second to decide – go over or go under. There was only one course of action. I breathed deeply and went down into the water as low as I could go, fighting against the washing machine-like cycle of the ocean, which thrashed me around for what felt like an eternity. I knew I couldn't resurface because there'd be another wave right behind it before the swell could reset and calm itself ahead of the next rising onslaught. I held on until my lungs felt as if they were about to burst when, finally, the endless churn started to subside, and I could come up for air.
Scotsman
12 hours ago
- Scotsman
Why teachers need to talk about pornography to stop epidemic of sexual violence
Sign up to our daily newsletter – Regular news stories and round-ups from around Scotland direct to your inbox Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... We need to talk about sex. Or at least the version of sex that our young people are devouring online. Sex where it is 'normal' for a man to choke a woman to the verge of her passing out. Sex where violence, including rape, is considered acceptable behaviour. Sex where young women boast about having group sex, preferably in front of a camera. Shocking? Certainly, but for many of our young people, perhaps the majority, this is how they perceive sexual relationships. For a generation raised on hardcore pornography, sexual abuse is mainstream. Normal even. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad I thought I was impervious to shock, but on Tuesday morning I sat in a room in central Edinburgh listening to a group of experts in sexual health and violence against women calmly explain how our children's minds are being distorted – literally – by the easy availability of pornography. While boys may have once passed round dog-eared copies of Playboy behind the bike sheds, today's young men have hardcore pornography in their blazer pocket, sadistic sex just one click away on their smartphone. Social media can provide easy access to pornography that rewires the teenage brain and is as addictive as cocaine (Picture: Matt Cardy) | Getty Images Porn stars on TikTok Easy access to pornography rewires the teenage brain. It is as addictive as cocaine. The dopamine hit from watching 'breath play' – a euphemism for strangulation – is as important to an adolescent as the junk food they crave. And it's not just boys who are affected. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad One of the most popular TikTok brands is the Bop House, a group of beautiful young women who share a Florida mansion where they make 'adult content' for OnlyFans. Many of their 90 million followers on social media are teenage girls, convinced that creating porn is an aspirational lifestyle choice. READ MORE: Majority of Scots want to see pimping websites banned The seminar organised by Beira's Place – the female-only Edinburgh support service founded by author and women's rights campaigner JK Rowling in 2022 – was no mere talking shop. It was designed with a practical purpose in mind, as the centre's chief executive, Lesley Johnston, explained: 'We hope to leave attendees with ideas for concrete action that can be taken in order to address the impact of pornography on levels of violence against women.' And while the evidence from the panel experts was at times profoundly depressing, it was countered with some optimism. Mary Sharpe, chief executive of the Reward Foundation, a charity which provides free training materials for schools and parents, pointed out that while internet pornography is one of the key drivers of the epidemic of violence against women and girls, there is hope that the trend can be reversed. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'The good news is that when users quit porn the brain settles down and appreciation of women often improves,' she said. Teachers self-censoring in class But how to get young people to quit what has become for many a daily habit? An expert in teacher education believes the answer lies in how teachers themselves are taught. Shereen Benjamin, a senior lecturer in primary education at the University of Edinburgh, told me that teachers and student teachers find it 'extraordinarily difficult' to discuss porn and its impact on children and young people. 'Frank discussions become impossible as people self-censor through fear of being seen as insufficiently knowledgeable, as prudish, or alternatively as knowing too much,' she said. And she suggested that any roomful of student teachers will almost certainly contain people who have been affected, and possibly traumatised, by their own experiences of online porn. 'This makes it even harder to raise the issues,' she said. Many schools deal with the difficult subject of pornography by inviting outside agencies to help deliver relationships, sexual health and parenthood (RSHP) education for their students, but Benjamin believes the use of external providers prevents teachers from developing ways of handling the topic in the classroom. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'Whilst it may be tempting for school leaders to respond by inviting outside agencies to deliver classroom input on porn, this does not tackle the problem of porn being a 'no-go area' for teachers, and there are risks associated with handing any part of the curriculum over to unaccountable outside groups,' she said. The way to equip teachers with the skills to handle challenging topics such as porn was by teaching them how to approach the subject with 'courage, openness and intellectual rigour', Benjamin argued. Abusive teenage relationships Another intervention may be as straightforward as banning mobile phones in schools. Conference delegates heard evidence that smartphones are used by boys, not only to access pornography or to blackmail a girl by threatening to send intimate material to her parents, but to control their girlfriends in the classroom. Anne Robertson Brown, executive director of Women's Aid in Angus, said that often boys will demand photographic evidence of where a girl is sitting in class. And the scale of abusive teenage relationships, often fuelled by porn, is such that Angus Women's Aid has established a project that supports girls under 18 suffering abuse. 'We have a major issue,' she said. 'It is not just in Angus. It is across Scotland.' Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Pornography is big business. Platforms such as OnlyFans and Pornhub earn tens of millions for their owners, and they are rapidly becoming an accepted part of our contemporary culture. And despite 30 years of campaigning by women's groups and significant changes in the law, sexual violence against women and girls is on the rise. The police recorded almost 64,000 incidents of domestic abuse in 2023-24, an increase of 3 per cent compared to the previous year. And 37 per cent of sexual crimes recorded in 2022–23 involved victims under 18. Weaning our children off hardcore pornography will not be easy. It will likely require a tougher regulatory framework for social media, a ban on mobile phones in schools, and more effective training and support for teachers so that they can cope with the epidemic of porn in Scotland's classrooms.
The Guardian
a day ago
- The Guardian
Parenting in the climate crisis: how to raise kids who care about the environment
Although it's unfair, it's young people (and the generations to come) who will have to deal with fallout from the climate crisis. So how do you talk to young people about living sustainably and raise knowledgeable kids who care about the future of the planet? Here are some tips for engaging the next generation on the environment meaningfully. Damon Gameau, actor, film-maker and director of documentaries including 2040 and the upcoming Future Council, says we have built a system that doesn't value nature – and that needs to change. 'Very quickly, children aren't encouraged to care. They're encouraged to try and extract and conquer and win and compete.' Instilling care and empathy in children works in a similar way to teaching them most other things: through modelling, education and good conversations. Susy Lee, author of Raising Kids Who Care and an educator with 18 years' experience, says the first step is being intentional about what you're trying to teach. 'We need kids who know [that they] don't need to be suckered into buying more stuff [and] that generosity and compassion and helping others is actually what makes them happy.' Good conversations need two things, she says: curiosity and positivity. Don't lecture, be collaborative and be guided by questions. Listen more, talk less. Involving kids in age-appropriate discussions about what matters, then modelling good choices, leads to positive outcomes. Some starting points are: discussing where to donate money and time, whether to get an electric vehicle or petrol car, or visiting your local MP to raise issues important to your community. Gameau says adults can also help by acknowledging the size and scariness of the issues, and letting kids feel anger, sadness and fear. Young people already know about the threats, he says, pointing to an international survey that found nearly 60% of young people were either very or extremely worried about the environment. Then connect kids (and adults!) with the living world again: spend time in nature, get to know the bird varieties and tree species around you, have adventures outside. It's easier to care about things you know, see and experience. Take the time to stop, examine and discuss. Seek out joy, beauty and fun to counterbalance the gloom. Zena Burgess, CEO of the Australian Psychological Society, emphasises the importance of action and taking individual steps that build a community of people making positive progress. This is echoed by Lee and Gameau, and reflects Bob Brown's catchphrase: action is the antidote to despair. Start where your kids are. If they love the ocean, take them snorkelling, watch documentaries, pick up rubbish on the beach. Look for ways to reduce plastic in the home and community, join campaigns against single-use plastic. Follow the children's lead, show them hope and possibilities, and steer clear of overwhelm. It's not the kids' responsibility to fix things, it's ours. But we can support them, combining their ideas, creativity and passion with our knowledge and experience. This help ranges from having good conversations to dealing with emotions, arranging logistics, finding information and joining organisations. And it extends beyond our own children: we'll all be affected by the future we've created, and need to use our skills and connections to make a difference in any way we can. Look for ways to make it fun. Jump in the surf after you've cleaned the beach; revel in your results. You're joining a community of billions of people taking action across the world. Spread the hope and joy of these stories; seek out the positives. Make sure there's a clear link between doing good and feeling good and make it something others want to join. Make it cool to care. Raising kids who care is a matter of balancing the truth of where we are with the resilience of both the natural world and human endeavour. As Gameau says, 'There's something beautiful about the human spirit, particularly when its back is against the wall and innovation and creativity get unleashed. We're capable of doing extraordinary and wonderful things.'
