It’s been a while (again) since I last wrote.

Modern media enables us to envision the trappings of the rich and famous. Our education system teaches us that almost anything is possible. Success is a universal goal. Every entrepreneur can be a Richard Branson with the right combination of hard work, luck and skill, so they say. Even the less talented can achieve the greatest heights – cue Liam Gallagher and Sarah Palin. How many people go through their teenage years expecting that, one day, they will be happy, rich, famous, satisfied? I’d guess quite a few. How many achieve all four? Not many.

Yet the less you expect, the more likely you are to be pleased with the results. I’ve learned, through listening to my mother to expect very little – which means that I constantly feel like things are going rather well. Yet I know others whose lives are much fuller than mine who are constantly disappointed because their actual life doesn’t live up to their exalted expectations.

With that in mind, I’ve realised that the more you fantasize about what might be, the less you appreciate what is. As ‘ABC spirituality’ as it sounds, I try to enjoy what’s in front of me and expect a little less. I’ve been amazed at the difference it’s made to my mood, to my stress levels, to my enjoyment of things.

I’ve recently arrived back from a 2-month holiday. None to bad in anyone’s books and that’s probably partially to blame for my current somewhat dreamy perspective. On return, I wrote a letter to a friend which I felt encapsulated some of my key thoughts about development and being in the moment that I wanted to share.

I sincerely hope that my friend doesn’t mind my repeating some of the words that were a personal note to her and that you don’t mind my somewhat stream of conciousness-esque thoughts, which were tumbled into the letter. Here goes…

Long ago, especially working in Madagascar and other parts of Africa, I’ve questioned whether the big white land rovers, the good intentions and the money, effort and suffering of development workers, really actually does much to help… or whether it hinders. Certainly when you look at Ladakh, for example (I read a great book called Ancient Futures – see my post on the book here), you see that in touting the latest development tools, us do-gooders actually did a lot more harm than good. In fact, the last thing they needed was ‘development’. They needed to maintain the delicate equilibrium that they had fought for many generations to develop. Things like high child mortality, low incomes, disease etc were all actually just natures way of balancing the system and ensuring that this equilibrium was maintained. But then in plops the WHO and the American tourists, who can’t believe that people live in such squalor, ‘I mean, some of the babies had dribbly noses and the children were so dirty’, and we introduce roads, and vaccinations, and education systems, and tools and machines… and voila. The equilibrium is upset, the local farming methods die, the population booms and suddenly you have a load of apathetic youngsters desperate to escape to a better life, which in reality is to slums in cities with no community and nastier conditions, so that they can become the next 2Pac and while away their days, if they are one of the million who make it, in an empty apartment full of modern art and revolving water beds that are hard to share… and a bunch of old folks who remain behind lamenting the lost simplicity of the past with grandchildren to look after them.

My own sense, is that the key is just learning to enjoy and not worrying too much about whether or not we’re making big bucks or big impacts. The next stage of my journey is to truly work out what I enjoy and to maximize that enjoyment in the long-term, rather than seeking the little, immediate highs that feel powerful but leave you with little to show for it. Being an Epicurean, in the true sense of the word (rather than the over-indulgent sense of the word).

It’s been a tough year for me. Worrying about my business, feeling insecure about my security, wondering if I’ll ever meet someone to settle with. Yet the future has changed and a lot of the planning was a big fat waste of time. As my time on the vipassana retreat taught me, the past cannot be changed (although there are some good lessons to take with you) and the future is completely unpredictable. So all you really have is the present. As cheesy and Ekhart Tolle as that sounds it’s a little reminder that keeps reminding and reminding and reminding, and then one day you have to sit up and listen to these reminders and thwack yourself on the side of the head and wonder why you didn’t learn to listen a little earlier!

Africa was really great for me – it shook me out of my reverie a little and although I’m not fully out the other side (will I ever be), I’ve seen glimpses in the past couple of months of true happiness. These moments aren’t about achieving things, or making a difference, or doing good, or making money… they’ve been small moments of just watching and soaking up and appreciating and accepting. It’s been nice. I’ve known it in theory for so long, but it’s great to have some feelings, rather than just intellectual understandings. It’s interesting really – it’s all there right in front of our noses, if only we can really look and feel and touch and smell. Mostly, it’s impossible, but I’m sure we can train ourselves to get better at it, so rather than glimpses you start to get nice panoramas of peacefulness. Somebody said the other day that ‘Economist lie awake at night worrying whether reality will ever work in theory’ – There’s one of the big problems: we’re so worried about our theories, our development, our achieving, our doing good that we fail to take into account what’s going on. Certainly, we need to educate ourselves and make decisions that might be painful in the short-term rather than being so ‘in the moment’ that we implode. But we could do a hell of a lot less stressing and a hell of a lot more appreciating and noticing the rather wonderful things that are going on about us, all of the time.

So, there’s my little note. I rather hope that it at least brightened my friend’s day, as she continues to help in deepest, darkest Chad – on the border of Darfur and the turmoil that still rages within. Let’s hope she really is making a positive difference, as opposed to Dambisa Moyo’s view that ‘if a company had 60 years with the record of performance that aid to Africa has, the company would have been shut down’.

The Parisians - rather good at chilling

I haven’t posted since the 4^th January, as I’ve been on a break. You probably haven’t even noticed! Yet for many bloggers, this would be a serious no-no. You have, they chime, to keep posting ‘every day’ or ‘at least once a week’. Your blogs have to be a certain length, or include a number of urls or photos to ensure that you maximise your readership.

Well, it is nice to have readers – but to me this is endemic of the impatience of the internet age. I’d rather write posts I enjoy writing at a pace that works for my lifestyle. Frankly, I believe that my readers will appreciate it all the more if my posts are representative of me and my style, rather than hammered into conventional internet shape.

What happened to the writers of old who had to wait four months for a letter from their loved ones if they happened to be sailing far a field? Not much… they waited, and the world kept turning, and wonderful novels, treaties, tomes and philosophies were still written. In fact, they probably had more time to write them, rather than look for interesting urls to pepper their works with.

In my experience, taking a break from things can actually help you be more productive. Perhaps not in the sense of ever-increasing GDP, but if you measure productivity as I do – which is about producing more moments of value – then certainly.

Yet people take less and less holidays despite the labour-saving and timesaving technologies we now have at our fingertips. Americans, poor souls, take an average of 14-16 days holiday a year, in comparison with the ~30 that Europeans get. This article in the Weekly Standard explores a few arguments. However, despite a few promising moments, its conclusion is woefully trite and blinkered by the limitations of traditional, machismo-influenced economics.

Does being progressive really have to mean focusing on progress (although the inherent philological link might make it difficult to break the two)? What is this progress and toil accelerating us towards? At the moment the future seems bleak as a result of our labour, certainly from an environmental perspective. Mother nature would much rather we were all less productive (feel free to use this as an excuse next time you miss a days work!).

So when you find the screen swimming in front of your eyes, or work interfering with your dreams, or stress closing in… take a break. You deserve it, it may even be more productive.

Taking a break is a very powerful tool. It helps you relax. It helps you find solve problems you might not have the time to concentrate on. It enables you to ‘do’ and see more, rather than less – as the last few weeks have proven for me. It helps you watch the world go by, rather than going by the world.

The second patience is the one you and I grapple with. The very same patience that allowed me to write and you to (I hope) read the whole of the last story without feeling the need to go and do something else, or be more productive. Although I forgive you, of course, if you think it was crap. After all, there wasn’t much to it – somewhat like most of our lives (remember the humility virtue – this week’s my week!).

What I’ve noticed in my post-Patience life, is the importance of patience in our every day (please play close attention to the capitalisations).

In my week focusing on patience, I noticed that I continually anticipate other people’s points in conversation. I’m constantly wanting the future here this very minute. I want to have finished my to-do list. I want to be more successful. I want to be back in Africa. It is an entrepreneur’s curse – to see the potential of the future and want it here, now.

What I’ve learned by focusing on patience in the last weeks (notice that this is weeks, not a week – because what’s great about the Franklin guide to self-improvement is that even without the direct focus, there is a positive residue from previous weeks), is that patience is incredibly powerful. If you wait for someone to finish their point without interrupting, you are often able to reply in a more meaningful way. If you leave longer before you sit down to write, you often find that your mind has been working away at your subject matter subconsciously and it’s more perfectly formed when you do sit down.

At the moment I’m writing a proposal for a book and I find myself impatient to get it finished. But the longer I leave it and the more time I give it, the more coherent, crystallised and complete my thoughts. I find that if I’ve given myself time, I can sit down and the structure and words assemble themselves very satisfactorily. If I sit down out of guilt and impatience and try to push the proposal through, I often do more harm than good.

I’m not suggesting for a moment that we all have the luxury of time to only do things when we want to. I’ve been overdosing recently and there must be a balance. All writers (and I certainly wouldn’t categorise myself as one, yet) talk of times where they have to force their work… perspiration rather than inspiration and all that.

Yet I’ve noticed that I continually grab at things when the grabbing is counter-productive. So, with renewed patience and focus, I’m enjoying the process of letting things come to me, rather than running to them and for the time being it’s working and I find myself relaxed, happy and surprisingly productive. Here’s to patience and, of course, wonderful Patience.

This autumn, I met Patience twice.

And I suspect that you’ll need some patience to get through this article, which for the purposes of yours, I’ll split into two parts, especially as the first is a simple story of slapstick insignificance.

Patience 1

The first Patience is my wonderful friend Tara’s (of Wildfitness fame) housekeeper in Watamu, Kenya. Patience is a huge Kenyan lady with a beautiful chubby child-like face from which two large luxuriant eyes sparkle (note the lady above is another patient-looking Kenyan lady, but not the same). Patience would turn up at the house most days with a smile and a waddle, and proceed to completely invalidate my already meagre efforts around the house. Frankly neither of us had a huge amount to do during the days, the house being small and its occupants being fairly low-impact – but my attempts to offer help were quickly thwarted and I relaxed into a somewhat guilt-ridden laziness.

I know, I know – a housekeeper is hardly in keeping with a simpleTom. Yet we must remember that Kenya is a very different place from where most of us grew up and I truly believe that the arrangement is wholly symbiotic, at least in today’s Kenya.

Whilst Tara rushed around being super-productive and I took the time to read and read and read – Patience moved slowly and deftly around the house. In the garden, the gardener proceeded to mow the four-acre lawn. When I say mow, no doubt you imagine a sit-upon mower (after all four acres is quite a spread), or at least a petrol number, or at the very least a push-along contraption. Not even – he proceeded to mow the lawn with what looked like a sharp-edged sand wedge (a golf club, for those of you not in the know). He’d move, very slowly, thwacking his grass wedge back and forth, back and forth, not so much cutting the lawn as swinging great big divots into the ground leaving a driving-range effect behind him as he continued indefatigably. He was exercising the ‘Russian/American/Chinese foreign diplomacy’ approach to lawn-mowing. Namely, the finished product was deeply unsubtle, damaging and perhaps would have been better left. Although unlike these countries, it demonstrated his patience and my comparative sloth.

At lunchtime, Patience would disappear into the gardener’s hut and we’d hear laughter and giggles (innocent I’m sure) and then an hour later she’d meander back to the house to continue where she’d left off.

One afternoon I offered Patience a lift (a welcome break from my busy schedule!) and she invited me into her home. With a glass of tea in one hand, I chatted with three very shy children who were wondering what on earth a muzungu (white person) was doing in their house. It was a humbling experience, as I’m sure you can imagine. Patience, huger in her tiny home, and her three children painted the picture of a happy household. The contrast between her house and ours need not be laboured, because that is today’s Kenya. And also because I truly believe her house was as happy as ours – as such the size and the conditions are not really of significance. (A little bit of simpleTom-esqueness at last.)

So why do I tell this story. Firstly, because over the last three months since my visit, I’ve often thought of Patience. Of her very simple daily existence with three wonderful children and a very wonderful Tara. Of her humility and her patience (two of my Franklin-esque virtues that I’ve been working on). Of wonderful Watamu.

But secondly, because during the course of her day Patience ascends and descends an incredibly rickety set of wooden stairs in Tara’s rented house. And with characteristic impatience, I wait for the day that Tara will email me to say that the stairs have finally collapsed under Patience’s weight. That sounds callous, and dangerous. But it won’t be like that, I’m positive. I hope you know I’d never wish for anyone to get hurt – ever. Instead, there’ll be a loud crack and the stairs will tumble to the ground and Patience (who has built-in padding, to say the least) will lie shocked in a wide-eyed heap and then giggle, dust herself off and then clear up the mess. By the end of the day, the gardener will have been commissioned to fashion a new set of stairs (salvaged from the old, of course) which will be even ricketier, and the whole process will repeat itself, more than once, in a rather wonderful African way.

To be continued… and of course, Happy Holidays!

Benjamin Franklin was by all accounts a fairly prolific character. His modest resume includes, being a founding father, an author, a printer, a scientist, an inventor, a soldier and a diplomat. In his time aboard planet earth, he invented the lightening rod, bifocals, a stove.

Many of us are plagued by an overwhelming plethora of self-improvements we’re just waiting to subject on ourselves. New Years eve is perhaps the perfect example when resolutions come a-tumbling forth and you decide you’ll become a vegan non-smoking teetotal exercise freak (and mini-dictator). Sure enough, after a week of self-flagellation, you relapse and become a cigar chomping, meat-eating slob (a republican? – whoops, sorry).

Franklin realised that despite the will to improve, doing so all at once was confusing, often contradictory and almost impossible. So, at the tender age of 20 (fret not, people grew up a lot earlier in those days) he came up with 13 virtues, which he focused on, one per week, meaning 4 sets each year.

His “Plan” was made up of 13 virtues, each with short descriptions:

1. Temperance: Eat not to dullness and drink not to elevation.

2. Silence: Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself. Avoid trifling conversation.

3. Order: Let all your things have their places. Let each part of your business have its time.

4. Resolution: Resolve to perform what you ought. Perform without fail what you resolve.

5. Frugality: Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself: i.e. Waste nothing.

6. Industry: Lose no time. Be always employed in something useful. Cut off all unnecessary actions.

7. Sincerity: Use no hurtful deceit. Think innocently and justly; and, if you speak, speak accordingly.

8. Justice: Wrong none, by doing injuries or omitting the benefits that are your duty.

9. Moderation: Avoid extremes. Forebear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.

10. Cleanliness: Tolerate no uncleanness in body, clothes or habitation.

11. Chastity: Rarely use venery but for health or offspring; Never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another’s peace or reputation.

12. Tranquillity: Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.

13. Humility: Imitate Jesus and Socrates.

I’m following the same idea, with my own variations and so far, it’s proving to be a much easier, simpler way of dealing with the process of working on the self. Here are mine, in brief:

1)    Health, 2) Eat and Drink, 3) Happiness, 4) Patience, 5) Humility, 6) Tranquillity, 7) Industry, 8 ) Fun, 9) Mind, 10) Kindness, 11) Compassion, 12) Impermanence, 13) Do whatever the hell I want.

I’ve yet to do a full cycle, and I definitely moved the eat and drink away from Thanksgiving week, but I’m enjoying the process and by writing about it and throwing it out into the ether, I’ve goaded my stubborn self to keep at it. My happiness week resulted in only one blemish… my eat and drink week looked a bit more like Franklin’s ‘Order’ week in the photo above, even without Thanksgiving temptations. When you take one step at a time, it’s easier to ‘be the change you want to see in the world’. It’s also easier to see where you’re going wrong.

I’m leaving his daily schedule for a decade or two which, if currently implemented, would leave me grumpy, tired and a little middle/old-aged before my time. Baby steps, but steps nonetheless.

This morning, feeling slightly fluey and wanting to take it easy on myself, I picked up a copy of GQ Magazine, a magazine that promises to help me ‘look sharp and live smart’ that is read by ~1m every month globally. A closer reading of that catchphrase might indicate that vanity is something to be desired. Let us have a quick look inside this magazine and just pretend, for a minute, that I’m highly impressionable and vain, obsessed by looking sharp and smart – a marketer’s dream consumer who buys everything he sees.

By the time I’ve got to a piece of ‘smart’ in the intellectual sense within the magazine, the letter from the editor – which is the first page that isn’t an index or an advert (or the first one that has any meaningful writing), I’m on page 60. This is a rare oasis, the next piece of content that is unrelated to consumption of goods or services is on page 151 of the 320 page magazine. A total of 185 pages within are dedicated exclusively to adverts. The remainder include index pages, pictures, contents of features that persuade you to buy things in the adverts, or see films, or go to restaurants. In total, there’s very little ‘smart’ within the magazine measured purely by the number of pages dedicated, without going so far as to analyse the content. Plus there is an awful lot of stupidity. For example, purchasing a $27,000 Rolex (note that I need not tell you what this is – the brand is so effective you already know), when you can buy a watch for $5 that performs many more functions and doesn’t turn you into a walking security risk would seem somewhat foolish.

Let’s say I bought one of each of the items advertised on pages 1 to 59 at the cheapest price a quick search of the internet can provide. My total shopping bill comes to $78,253.66 and I’ve bought a total of 40 items, including 7 jumpers, 3 watches, 5 jackets, 7 bottles of cologne and a host of other accessories that should rightly make me ‘smart and sharp’. I’ve also noted that 5 brands are now claiming that their products have the environment in mind. Whether that’s the truth or to induce me to believe the brand is worth buying, I’m none too sure, but boy do I feel better about the $78k hole in my bank account. The poorest country in the world, Zimbabwe, has a per capita GDP of ~$200, meaning that my little shopping spree would cover a mere 391 years of an average citizen’s life there. 80% of the world’s population lives on less than $10 per day. In their case, we’re covering 21 years of life. 21 years of life versus 40 items that, as far as I can tell aside from car insurance and a laptop, provide very little net additional utility to an individual’s life. Especially considering that aside from the car insurance, two bottles of liquor and a laptop, I’m fairly confident that I could purchase an item of replicable quality without a label for less than a tenth of the price. If I went second hand, we’re looking more like a twentieth or more of the price.

I’ve also glanced, in the adverts, at some of the most enviably beautiful and rich people in the world. I’ve just youtubed one of the adverts and found out I can watch a ‘compelling’ video of the making of the adverts, in which a number of supermodels get almost (i.e. never quite but almost) naked. I’ve also been enticed by products and people that I don’t know but I now envy, or at least that’s the hope.

Now before you expect me to go off on a rant about the shameful differences between rich and poor and the horrific inequality in the world, remember that the aim of this site is not to guilt you into making an immediate donation to Oxfam. Its purpose is to make you think about what is good for you and what makes you happier, rather than making you feel bad about wanting more stuff and then guilty about the poor people of the world for the stuff you have.

With that in mind, here’s the rub. The average income of a GQ reader is $75,103 – meaning that to purchase the heavily overpriced goods that come before the editors letter page would require more than a year’s salary… before tax. What’s interesting about this salary is that although fairly generous by modern standards, it isn’t the kind of pay that would allow for too many purchases of $5,000, let alone $27,000 watches. If we presume that there are a few readers of GQ who earn significantly over this amount, it is possible that the average is actually higher than the median. So what is really going on here? If the average reader is not the average purchaser of the goods advertised, why advertise at all? The simple answer is because the marketers are creating aspirational desires in these consumers resulting in occasional purchases of these goods. These desires also enable the companies selling these goods to price them way beyond the levels of their utility and comparable models. The cost of the marketing is easily covered by the increase in perceived ‘value’ that these goods are given by the marketing. The same unlabeled cashmere sweater as is sold by many of the ‘boutique’ brands can be bought at a fraction of the cost, a legal replica (one that isn’t an exact copy) watch of the same quality can be purchased for many multiples less. It’s not even as if these companies require a huge budget for research and development, an argument that many companies (think pharmaceuticals) use to justify high prices.

The point behind all this is that there is little reason, sorry, absolutely no reason what so ever, behind the prices charged by many of the brands that people aspire to being able to afford. There is an argument that wines, or cars, or houses justify additional value on the back of improved quality or performance. Certainly a $1000 dollar bottle of wine may well be of superior quality than a $10 bottle, even if it might be hard to make a case that it is 100 times better. But for many fashion brands, the only thing you are paying for is the brand, the image, the perception. That, my friends, is pure insanity. We work harder, to earn more money, to buy products that are more expensive than those that can be replicated identically for a fraction of the price. We climb voluntarily into a vicious circle that leaves us poorer and unhappier. We’ve become so used to the marketing we’re bombarded by, we no longer notice the subliminal effects they have on our day-to-day.

I’ll leave you with an advert that is at least honest, although I’ve a funny feeling it may have been modified slightly… Happy thanksgiving, let’s hope you consumed all the right things – love, friendship, laughter, conversation…

Leisure – WH Davies

What is this life if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs

And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,

Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,

Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,

And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can

Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

Here’s a little exercise or for you, dear reader. Not, I should add, the type of exercise that convinces self-help junkies they are minutes away from enlightenment. Nor one that has the slovenly amongst us feeling droopy-lidded. Instead, an exercise that should be fun…

Try to imagine your perfect day.

Now, before you imagine winning a gold medal at the Olympics in the morning, being massaged by Natalie Portman whilst she lectures you on micro-donations in the afternoon (perhaps that last part is unique to me), and having a fondue and poker session with Yoda, Cleopatra, JFK, Jesus, Jane Austen and Kurt Cobain in the evening, let’s set a couple of rules.

Rules and exercises – I’m sorry – this is rather uncharacteristic. After you’ve spent a number of good hours fantasising about a day that requires time-travel, re-incarnation (whether you include Jesus here is up to you), 84 hours and more energy than a puppy can muster in a room full of squeaky toys, let’s reign it in slightly shall we. No? OK, take your time. After all, my unrealistic day carried my mind happily through an extremely uncomfortable 8-hour journey from Johannesburg to Swaziland in a minibus not much larger than a camper van containing 20 humans, 10 chickens, 1 goat, more luggage than Hannibal took on his trans-alpine jaunt, and an extremely large dollop of tolerance.

Oh good, you’re back. Now to reality and rules… The rule is that the day has to be realistic to you. Which means that if you’re a woman in your perfect day, yet you were born a man, you’ll have had an operation somewhere en route. It means that the day has to be possible somewhere out in your future. It cannot be 2050 if you’re 18. You cannot have invented a machine that enables you to travel in time, given the state of the laws of achievable physics today. You cannot spend all day fishing without getting a slightly sore back and wet feet. You cannot be in Highlands of Scotland for dawn and the South of France in the evening, without spending the requisite time in a jet, even if it is a private one. You are not to be the best guitarist in the world if you have already been playing for 10 years and still haven’t mastered Stairway to Heaven – unless it’s 30 years time and you’ve practiced solidly between now and then, which would make you really rather dull on the day itself. You cannot eat 17 courses of rich foods without feeling at least slightly sick afterward. You can, of course, in your unrealistic day – but please separate out the two. One is the ‘Superman’ day, the other is the ‘just me being me really well’ day. We’re focusing on the latter.

One of the greatest challenges is to be aware of who you are, what you are capable of and what you want from your day. A day that might actually take place, rather than one that only James Bond or Wonderwoman could handle. Think about the moments, the feelings and what you’d like to do on that day. Try to map the day down so closely that you’re aware of each few minutes. How do you feel when you wake up? Who do you spend time with at which points during the day? What do you spend time doing? Where are you? What are your emotions telling you? Are you rushing from one thing to another to try to fit as much in as possible, or do you take time to enjoy the moments? Do you spend time emailing? Do you get drunk? Are you in love? Do you have children? If so, are they with you on that day? Are you working? Are you at home, or on holiday? What do you eat?

When you are realistic about the limitations of your own body and mind and stop fantasising about your possibilities, it becomes more of a challenge to ‘design’ your perfect day. Some of us, myself included, need to fight hard to truly know ourselves when we’re imagining. In my perfect day, I must remember that I will still get tired, make mistakes (perhaps not as many as usual), suffer embarrassment, be cheeky and have one pint too many. That’s me. To remove those things would be the essence of what it is to be me. Perhaps in 10 years time, I’ll have smoothed some of my ‘edges’. What changes in my perfect day is not my flaws, but my ability to cope with them.

It’s a time-consuming exercise for most of us. So the next time your batteries run out on your iPod and you loose the your copy of War and Peace whilst on a 36-hour train journey across Northern India (not a pleasant situation, I can assure you), try thinking about your perfect day. Over time, it’ll start to take shape.

Now think about the days you’ve had in the past that were close to perfect. They might be different to the day you’re starting to formulate, but they stand out as the very best of days. What happened? What made these days so special? How did you feel? Why were they so good?

Why perform these exercises? Please don’t misunderstand me, I’m not suggesting that we all turn into egomaniac fantasists trying to shape the world in our image (any more than we already are!). I’m not suggesting, for one minute, that your perfect day will actually take place – that’s not the idea. Instead I am inducing this dream-like reverie because, quite simply, it has been one of the most valuable ways that I have come to determine what is important in my life. Because it has helped me stop wishing the unachievable and to start working on the things that are. Because, unlike many of the exercises that have been forced upon me by the books of people purporting to help me, it was an awful lot of fun. Plus, and here’s where things get a little bit paradoxical, it has helped me plan for the future a little bit less and enjoy the present a little bit more. Why? Because my perfect day is very simple. As I thought longer and harder about my perfect day, I realised that there was less and less to it. My dream-day consists of me enjoying the day and not worrying about the future or the past. My dream-day is a pretty ordinary day in which the main extraordinary factors were my thoughts, feelings and appreciation of it. Of all of the fantasies that rattled through the rolodex of my mind, the best ones were some of the simplest. Of the days in my past that have been akin to perfect, the best have been the ones that have been the ones where I’ve been in a good state of mind and good things have happened. I realised that the best days were not the days when I achieved a thousand things – those days were often lost in a blaze of mania. Instead, the best days were those when I was truly myself, and when I had the time and inclination to soak up the events that passed.

My perfect day is a simple day.