Bettering

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I remember sitting by a pool in Bali (the struggles) on my gap year and writing in my diary that I wanted to become ‘a better person’. I had read the requisite amount of Dostoevsky, Hesse, Eliot and Somerset Maugham to know that my previous aspirations – to become rich, successful and renowned – would likely lead to discontent.

I was traveling on my own – to see and experience the world solo. I had dreams of returning tattooed, wise and rich with confidence and tales. Alas, I wasn’t ready. Still painfully shy or at least awash with self-doubt, I found it hard to wander up to strangers and forge new relationships. A lot of time was spent ‘trying’ to overcome these insecurities, or passing time alone, without much of a sense of direction. Certainly, there were moments of joy and discovery – trance parties on the beach, tropical hangovers and characters met – but I was overly-aware of the difference between my own abilities in seizing the day, and those of others who seemed just bigger, more confident and charismatic than I. So ‘becoming better’ became my focus.

There were a number of ways that I realised I might ‘become better’. Through studying, reading, discipline, awareness, compassion, hard work and the rest. Unfortunately, I wasn’t very good at these either. And so time passed, as it’s want to. My gap year wandered on. Then university and ‘real life’.

14 years on, I still have aspirations of becoming a better person. If I remove the improvements gained by time, experience and wisdom, I wonder whether, in fact, I’ve become any better at all. Perhaps I’ve even gone backwards. Certainly, I’m not too bad. I’ve done a bit of work that has had lasting impacts, here and there. But I’m still driven, or is that haunted, by the idea that there is so much more that can and could have been done to ‘improve’ – my aspirations, fueled by those ‘big’ people met, and literary characters witnessed, seem bigger than my abilities.

Despite all these years of trying, I seem to get no closer.

This morning, after reading a couple of chapters of Kane and Able – (people forget that Jeffrey Archer, despite being bit of a dubious fellow – or perhaps because he is one – can spin a gripping yarn) I went for my morning swim in the lagoon in front of my house, determined once again to make this a ‘bettering day’. How much can I fit in? Is there time to write a blog post (yes), write a bit more of a new song on the piano, to do some work, learn some swahili and do some exercise. Can I fit it all in and do it well? Can I leave myself an iota better at the end of today and turn that corner that I’ve been trying to turn for 14+ years.

Or, as it occurred to me as I swam – given the 14 years and lack of progress to change my fundamental being, should I come to terms with my deficiencies, know myself, and embrace what I have rather than what I believe I should have. Surely that is more Simpletomian. Why is it, after all these years of high-expectation, have I not learned the truth? I’m always optimistic about what could be achieved, that what usually is.

Which brought me back to some of the fundamental tennents of my Simple journey – not to be lazy and give into sloth – but instead to embrace natural inclinations. To be gentle with oneself, whilst at the same time making considered improvments, being mindful of patterns and trends and implementing some discipline. Rather than waking up frustrated by a previous lack of progress and expecting that energy to propel toward a new lease of life – to gently accept the way things are and work with them to improve the self, just that little iota needed. With compound interest, those iotas may indeed add up.

Most of us have an inherent ability to improve ourselves that doesn’t need to be forced or cajoled through guilt or self-lamentation. The happiest times in my life have not been when I’ve had a Franklin-esque day, but instead when I’ve cast aside concerns and just been. I still get things done.

I need to trust myself – to be confident that the process will unravel, rather than force the issues. The frustration, rather than compel me to be better, instead initiates guilt, which is deconstructive.

I’m still mostly a nice person. Plus I actually tend to be better when I’m not trying than when I am – without the pressure, or stress, of self-flagellation, I tend to think and worry less and do more.

24 Hours Later

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24 hours ago, I was (at the time or writing, not posting) on the tube somewhere between Acton and Rayners Lane. In these 24 hours I have transported myself through time, continents and society.

Since landing on Kenyan soil I have watched a group of people surround the staff at an airport gate and shout, dance, giggle, collective eye-roll and generally behave extraordinarily, (through the lens of a Londoner’s eyes), on account of a delayed flight. I wasn’t exaggerating – dancing, just to amuse one another (and, of course in Kenya, for a bit of a show).

I have driven through villages with no plumbing or electricity, alongside passangers that live four to a single room.

I have swam in a lagoon and watched ospreys circle overhead and fishermen paddle around in dugout canoes.

I have arrived at a house (or folly?) that now constitutes about two-thirds of my wordly wealth and wandered, filled with excitement and anxiety, around rooms I’ve never seen before.

I have seen people I haven’t thought about since I left, 5 months ago, who’ve continued their daily lives tirelessly.

… and yet it feels like I never left. The constrasts couldn’t be more marked, yet the ability to adapt improves with every swing.

and now I sit exactly 7.3m above the ground, watching those Ospreys dive for fish in Mida Creek in front of my house as a tropical storm rumbles on the far side of the creek and a little geckko on the wall above me eeks out its daily bugs.

I’m here for 2 weeks +, alone in my house wondering if I’ll enjoy the solitude, or if it will start to creep up on my sociable bones. Either way, I will be sowing the seeds for future love within Ruby’s (the house’s name) walls.

More shortly…

PS - I’m really not trying to rub it in, promise

An evening on Mida Creek

A Hard Day’s Night

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We’ve gazed into the eyes of creatures on the bottom of the oceans, played with the dark side of the moon and as of the last few weeks, potentially managed to make something travel quicker than the speed of light.

Clever beings are we.

Yet I still find it somewhat strange… amusing even, that Michael Phelps, Vladimir Putin, The Dalai Lama, Mark Zukenberg, Madonna and even the seemingly indefatigable Berlusconi probably spend at least 5 hours of their days unconscious.

These are some pretty energetic people and yet their bodies render them immobile for perhaps a quarter or more of their lives. One minute a nuclear scientist is tinkering with quantum physics and a few minutes later they could be asleep, dreaming of sweet nothing.

My own battle with sleep has been ongoing.

The adage, ‘you get all the sleep you need when you’re dead’ makes no sense to me. The extra couple of hours I gain by reducing my sleep are easily outweighed by the grumpiness felt. I’d rather live less, or die early and feel energetic and awake, such is the drag of tiredness on my mood.

I sleep about eight or even eight and a half hours a night.

Shocking, I know.

What a waste. I could be fluent in an extra couple of languages. Many an evening might have had a more licentious had it not been for my drooping lids.

When I tell people how ‘much’ I sleep, I’m often met by the same pieces of advice. “You’ve just got to train myself” they say, chirpily before diving off to set their alarms for quarter to six in order to enjoy a morning’s yoga session before a breakfast meeting.

Perhaps I haven’t trained hard enough, but when I’ve tried or been forced to reduce my sleep I’ve just not enjoyed my days nearly as much and after a month or two, I find that a rather compelling reason to give up the training.

Perhaps it’s time for some rigorous analysis of diets, exercise and some serious scientific experiments.
Or…

Yep, you guessed it.

I could just accept that I need a bit more sleep and enjoy that fact. We’re all different creatures. Just because some of my friends can hop and skip all night long only to spring out of bed 5 hours later doesn’t mean that I too should be able to too.

Nowadays, I sleep without an alarm. The benefit of being self-employed means that if I’m clever about my meetings and calls, I can build this ‘disability’ (or to an insomniac, perhaps a coveted ability) into my life.

It would be nice to linger a little longer at weekday dinners, or be a little perkier in meetings after a sometimes inevitable shortage of sleep. As such it is certainly worth doing a few experiments. But rather than it drive me mad, I’m happy to slip into bed a little earlier than some and sleep a little longer than most.

Some sleepy achievers:

http://www.flobeds.com/sleepWSJ.htm

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3495/is_10_45/ai_67414162/

http://winning-without-losing.com/book/chapter/67/

I decided not to wake him up and ask if he was actually the secretariat...

Simple Destiny Control

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(Happy 11.11.11 folks…)

One of my greatest friends attacks his creative outlet with an almost religious zeal. He is a veritable inspiration. At eighteen he could hardly play a note on the guitar, had a weak voice and little sense of rhythm (sorry “TJ”).

Despite these dauntingly major hurdles, he decided he wanted to become a musician and so began his journey. He finished his degree then immediately went to work, taking himself to guitar school, practicing so much that he gave himself repetitive strain injury. After a year, he was stage-ready and started his first band.

He honoured me by requesting me to be the bassist, but I decided to start Blue Ventures instead. A wise choice in retrospect, but at the same time I will always regret not pursuing a musical career.

In the last ten years, he has progressed from a poor musician into a fantastic one. Despite a couple of his bands going by the wayside, he is now a solo artist (website here), signed with management and he’s just released his second solo album to critical acclaim. He is a reminder to each one of us that if you have the will, there is a way. His tenacity is unparalleled.

While I was in Berlin, he taught me another very important lesson – that of controlling one’s own destiny. Without doubt, my friend “TJ” is a remarkably self-sufficient soul. He can walk into a bar or nightclub and approach anyone without fear.

That might not sound so impressive on first glance – but think about it. How often have you spotted a person who looked interesting, or a woman or man who you liked and just walked up to them and said hello, fearless of the potential outcome?

It’s an astonishing power and one that is difficult to be around. As a more timid soul, it meant that I would regularly find myself being left at that bar or club while “TJ” disappeared, making connections, seizing life and treating the venue as if it was a house party full of friends.

For a while, I was frustrated – I didn’t want to be left alone. I got to the stage when I didn’t want to go out much because I knew it might be like going out on my own.

Then I met another musician – another genius – another inspiration (website here). He reminded me what it is to be fearless.

I decided that rather than shy away, or not go, I would at least try to match “TJ” – to be as bold. I had some of the best nights of my life. Suddenly a club or bar wasn’t a collection of strangers, but people I could meet. I felt liberated by the feeling that every person met was an experience – whether good or bad. In addition, when I faced the situation and just introduced myself to people, it was rarely bad…and when it was bad, it was more amusing than embarrassing.

After years of feeling that a situation determined my mood, I could eventually take things into my own hands.

I’m nothing like “TJ”. He’s still one of the most charistmatic people I’ve ever met – able to bound over to strangers and treat rejection as if it were a booster.

Yet I’ve made a slight shift. A step in a new direction – realising that my days (my days and my evenings) are in my own hands – rather than in the reactions of others. I have been handed a ticket to control my own destiny.

Thanks “TJ” – for empowering and inspiring (maybe forcing) me to realise what it is to be in control.

TJ in action in the early days at the Barfly

Simpletom – 100th Birthday

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This my 100th Simpletomian post. A century.

I’ll be checking the post when I get home to see if the Queen remembered.

A little high-five, if you will.

Maybe I’ll have a simple cup of tea to celebrate. Maybe even a hobnob. Alternatively, a nap when I get home, although it’s only the middle of the day.

Forget all of that – maybe we could go out in a limo, drink some fizz, do some lines and get some hookers?

Ahem.

I was thinking I might do a mega 100 reasons that I’m still writing posts. I’ve defied my usual poor record of starting things that I can’t finish. Damn you Esperanto.

Instead, a simple reflection will suffice.

I cannot remember exactly why I started. No Damascene moment occurred. Just a gentle continuing nagging sense that simplicity, rather than complexity, is a truer path to happiness. Moreover, that happiness, which I believe is our fundamental aim, gets lost in the noise and distraction of our modern world.

Just writing as often as I can (not as often as I want, or should) has helped. It is a form of therapy, a reminder to focus, an excuse to think though ideas and to crystallize thought.

I don’t think I’ve changed much since I started writing. A reminder of how far there is to go, and how hard it is to change.

Yet there have been moments. Glimmers of truth that have gleamed through the fog of day-to-day life and helped me establish some kind of direction – or perhaps more than direction – place.

This is extremely appropriate, because as I write this with furrowed brow (on my simple-phone) I’ve just gone the wrong way along the Northern line on the tube and had to turn back.

Now back on track, I’d like to thank those kind people who’ve read, encouraged and commented. It means a huge amount to me.

I’d like to use this milestone as a reminder – a small reminder – that:

100 posts later, and I still have a long way to go.

100 posts later, and I’m not bored…in fact I’m as excited by this journey as ever.

100 posts later, and I’ve just scratched the surface.

I want to use this moment as a small reminder to up the game a bit and try harder. To say it how it is. To be fearless and more focused in my pursuit. To try to go slightly deeper. To take more moments to think. Also not to think but to just feel. Then explain myself honestly. Without the filter, we often use to sugarcoat, or impress.

Since I started this blog, I’ve lost a business and begun to build another. I’ve lived in four countries and built a house. I’ve made new friends, loved old ones slightly more. I’ve had some fun, happy flings. I’ve finally got over an old love forever on my mind for way, way too long (Complextom?) and now feel ready to love again (please send a photo with a SAE). I got within a hair’s breadth of getting a book deal, and then lost it. I’ve made mistakes, been stupid and fucked up. Like normal.

I’m just another little person wiggling about – now a mere one in seven billion.

As the world scales up, I’m trying to scale down. To listen to instinct, to common sense and to remember what’s most important.

It’s not you or I that are important.  Although we mostly forget. It’s not even saving the planet, or stopping suffering.

It’s simply enjoying being, and being simple.

—

Thanks for reading. Now send this to 100 friends.

Alternatively, just have a cup of tea and hobnob it up, or a little midafternoon nap, as I did when I finally got home.

A sunset swim in Watamu, Kenya - a nightly ritual - and one of the best periods of time spent since Simpletom began

Remembering Simplicity

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Now and then, I find it necessary to corral my fundamental simplicity messages – to refocus and try to remember what they are.

Simplicity, cheeky sod that it is, isn’t always simple. Like happiness, there are effortless moments. However, to fundamentally influence both simplicity and happiness, it requires reminding oneself and continually working at it.

Sure, the work should slowly succumb to the pleasure, but as with getting healthy after sickness, or picking up an old instrument you haven’t played for years, at first it is difficult and there are always reasons that your practice might slip awhile.

In both examples – the stiff muscles trying to get healthy, and the bum notes miss-hit – it takes some time and frustration to get over the reinitiating and into the joy.

What can we do each day to try to develop mnemonics, to help us remember? What is the simplicity equivalent of heading out for a jog, or sitting at the piano?

Certainly, at the moment I need them. Unlike most simplicity authors, I do not claim that this path is a one-way ticket in the right direction. The awareness of your goal perhaps makes it seem further away, especially during difficult times.

These should be little things that help us pick up momentum and to ease ourselves back into the frame. We can pick up the bigger items later. Here are some of mine:

1)    Find something you like doing that is entirely different from your normal day-to-day routine and helps you escape. Do it for just five minutes. For me, this does actually involve sitting at the piano, or picking up my guitar and playing and singing.

2)    Throw or give away three things that have been sitting around too long – perhaps a magazine you think you should read, or a book that’s been by your bed pressing into your dreams.

3)    Book at least one midweekly night in at home a week and do nothing, watch a movie, read a novel (not nonfiction) or spend time cooking.

4)    Go for a walk outside, even if it’s raining and it’s just round the block. This includes when you’re at work.

5)    At least once a day, fight the urge to check your phone or email for new messages. At least once a week turn your phone off for at least an hour while you’re still awake. One morning a week, don’t check your emails when you first arrive at your desk.

In one of my next posts, I’ll try to look a little further down the path and see if we can spot where this simplicity is heading. For now, take these baby steps with me and let’s see if we can get back on track.

Simplicity Vs Corporate

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I don’t necessarily let my clients know about this blog.

That leads me to wonder whether there is a fundamental disconnect – a tipple of schizophrenia in my life that I need to address.

If you need to ‘fake it to make it’, does that make you essentially a fraud?

Clearly, this website is in the public domain, as is my company. The more curious clients won’t struggle to find me here. I hope they like what they see. However, my sense is that many people I work with might not understand my simplicity quest.

The fact is that at this early stage of the business, I’d rather not scare anyone away by ‘coming on too strong’. If I’m professional and provide an excellent service, does it help my clients if they know that I am vagabonding and trying to maintain a work-life balance? If you’re talking to CEOs and heads of department, is it OK for them to know that you might be in your boxer shorts at the other end of the phone, living in a foreign city?

Simplicity might suggest to some that I’m not serious about what I do, or that because of my life choices and desire for fewer technological interruptions, that I’ll be less contactable.

Those who’ve followed this journey will know that simplicity should improve one’s professional life. That simplicity is about working better, more authentically and more intelligently.

I’d like to fuse these two streams and be able to demonstrate that taking time off work, being clear-headed, disconnecting and general simplifying all contribute to improving one’s working life and benefits those clients I work with.

Perhaps as things mature and I feel confident about a regular client base, I can be bolder. There’s something to be said for holding things back rather than upsetting people with your views, but there’s also something to be said for going balls out and expressing yourself overtly. Maybe clients would be more attracted to that honesty than the corporate veil that descends into boardrooms and cubicles worldwide that strips us of our personality. Perhaps I would win many more clients by being Simpletom than by being corporatetom.

As I look out at people here in Berlin (this post was written while I was there), I’m continually impressed by the fundamental honesty in their expression, their views and their unwillingness to toe-the-line.

For now, I’ll enjoy my clandestine Simpletoming and work on ways to begin the fuse the two…

My office window when I worked in Madagascar

Simply Loosing It

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Simpletom…?!?

Are you still there?

Is that you?

Oh dear.

This last couple of weeks, it’s just been Tom. Perhaps Stressedtom, Anxioustom or even Corporatetom…but frankly there needs to be some serious ember blowing on the coals of calm to be allowed to write here as Simpletom.

In addition, it’s entirely of my own doing. No external influence has induced this mania. There’s been no health scares, external issues, arguments, loves lost, keys dropped down drains, financial disasters or mishaps. Just a healthy dollop of self-induced pressure, layered-on expectation with a dash of flagellation.

As the cool of autumn creeps into the streets, is there a sense of another year passing that is igniting a sense of inadequate productivity?

Why do we tangle ourselves in these self-made balls of stress?

I’ve written here many times that more seems to get done when you let go of things than when you try to grab at things.

I’m no stranger to the world of hard work, but I lament the modern ideology that we must work faster and harder, despite our technological advances. Are many of our environmental disasters caused not because of basic need, but the hyped sense that we’re only human if we’re continually achieving?

This week I’ve achieved much, and yet nothing. I’ve made connections, sent mails and seen some chinks of light, yet I have nothing physical to show for my many hours spent tap-tapping away at this computer and yak-yacking away on the phone. The whole week I’ve been trying to do things more quickly, while lamenting my tiredness and inability to keep up a continual breakneck pace.

I’ve remembered to ‘manage my energy, not my time’, yet it still remains a concept rather than a reality.

It’s made all the more difficult by the knowledge that I ‘should’ be simplifying and that this momentum runs counter to my instincts, conflicting with the knowledge that building a business is difficult and needs utter focus. Sadly, my new entity isn’t a kinky platform that once built will scale exponentially – instead, it’s very much a ‘you get out what you put in’ type of business. That means every hour spent languishing and laughing could, through the lens of ‘success’, be viewed as a lost hour.

These last weeks I’ve not maintained the balance. When working, I’ve felt stressed at the weight of work to do. When not working I’ve felt guilty about the work I’m not doing. I’m neither here nor there.

Stress isn’t good for me. I feel breathless. No matter how long I sleep, I still feel exhausted. I just cannot enjoy myself.

Time for some self-medication (of the simple kind):

Please Stressedtom; remember that that one’s work is never…can never be done, because there is always more. You need to expect less, enjoy more.

You need to remember never, ever to compare yourself with others. They are exactly that – others – who have an entirely different physical, emotional and circumstantial makeup, which means that many of the things you covet in others are realistic, or would damage your own existence.

You need to remember that you’re all right sometimes. Flagellation isn’t constructive for growth.

You need to remember that Rome, or even Milton Keynes for that matter, wasn’t built in a day.

You need to remember what makes you happy.

‘Tis BE – not TO BE – that is the answer.

A reminder of less stressful times - an 'average' evening spent on the beach in Goa

Simple Wealth

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Simplicity does not mean you have to abandon material wealth. I’m still a firm believer in the idea that money is important when you earn it and use it correctly. Having more money than you need is a wonderful thing, if you understand what it is good for and what it is not.

Here are a few things I would like money for:

  • Living in a nice home. It doesn’t have to be big and ostentatious – but comfortable, warm, homely and not in danger of being repossessed. Preferably in a nice neighbourhood which is lively, safe and fun – it doesn’t have to be a posh neighbourhood, one with a strong community bond is best. I’ve always enjoyed my neighbourhoods when they’ve been less wealthy, offering a mix of people from different backgrounds.
  • Adventures
  • For starting up ventures and projects that help people
  • To enable you to do what you are passionate about
  • Good, healthy food
  • Experiences – the arts, festivals, city breaks, and interacting with nature
  • Freedom – to be spontaneous, or not to earn for a while if needed.
  • Learning and courses – from language to yoga, acrobatics to therapy. To afford the time, materials and lessons to learn.
  • Health – to have enough money to afford healthcare when needed.
  • Buying time – for love, for friends, for sharing, and for being generous when people need your help
  • Going to see people who you love
  • Books, music and films

What money is not for…

  • Showing off and ostentation
  • Watches, personalized number plates – items of zero utility
  • Labels – purchases whose only means of differentiation is the brand name, rather than the quality of the material
  • Club / First class travel – if you can’t last a few hours without creature comforts, you’ve lost your freedom to explore the world as it is, rather than as you’d like it to be
  • Expensive bars and eating in expensive places with people you don’t like – when the experience is more about being somewhere, than with someone, you’re missing a trick
  • Magazines, newspapers, and subscriptions.
  • Unnecessary gadgets and applications
  • Hit men

Think back to periods of your life when you had much and when you had little. Do you remember your possessions, or what you were able to do with them? Do you remember the car you drove or the journeys you went on?

Can you remember your best holiday ever – did you travel executive class (club or first) to get there? Given what a wonderful holiday it was, would you have rather spent an extra two to three days in a great hotel/bnb on arrival and taken some unpaid leave than have spent the additional £2k+?

I was once given the opportunity to live in an $8 million house in San Francisco with seven people in the nicest neighbourhood – instead, I went to live with three people in a $500k apartment. I’m reasonably sure I had a better time in the latter than I would have in the former, purely because of the neighbourhood, the experience and the people.

Paddling down the Mangoky River in the heart of Madagascar - a priceless adventure

Simply Go Away

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Think of all the migration, whether voluntary or involuntary that’s happened worldwide.

The term ‘Irish Good-bye’ (or shamrock shuffle) is, so I’m told, a phrase coined as a result of those Irish who left their home country without saying good-bye, so as not to have to deal with the upset of their family. A good (and logical) explanation, although I’ve since looked it up and cannot find that explanation anywhere. (However, I like it, so I’ll keep it.)

If the good-byes were painful, what about the arrivals? Those months in the port towns of the US, struggling to adapt and to carve out a life for themselves. My mind boggles at the number of people past and alive today who’ve been forced to find new lives in foreign places and the untold struggles that must have been suffered along the way.

Over the last three years, I’ve lived in four places for longer than a couple of months. I’m one of the privileged few – each time I’ve felt fortunate to be moving and done so out of choice – for fun.

Even among those voluntary émigrés, I sense a hint of respect when two people share their experiences living away for some time.

Some people are such natural vagabonds, or light-footed, that each move is a pleasure. Moreover, I’ve friends who’ve slid in and out of war-zones, dust bowls, refugee camps and chaos with alarming nonchalance. They are clearly made of sterner stuff.

Nonetheless I’ll stick by the belief that moving to a new place, especially alone, is not easy. Sure, it can be a incredible, unforgettable adventure, but there are lows as well as highs. Most people who’ve woken on Saturday morning in a foreign city without a single friend, a plan for weeks or return flight booked, will admit moments of bleakness, no matter how gregarious.

In San Francisco, the first of my moves, I struggled a little in the first few months. Speaking to those hardy adventurers mentioned above about my surprise at finding myself alone, I suddenly realised this was something they all had to deal with regularly. Often without complaining, or turning to e-mails, Skype and Facebook to allay their isolation.

Here in Berlin, two places later, the move has felt much, much easier. To make things work I suggest the following:

  • Sharing apartments with several locals
  • Buying a bike in your first few days
  • Saying yes to everything –however incongruent to natural inclinations
  • Asking friends to connect you with people they know in your new place
  • Learning to lean on new friends somewhat more than you would at home
  • Taking a friend or lover with you
  • Being happier alone

My point, if I have one, is that for all the glamour associated with jetting off to live in a faraway place and the Facebook stream of photographs of women and hot tubs, is that there are bleak moments of self-awareness.

These moments are good.

They remind you who you are when your circumstances and your life’s backdrop change. They cannot be gained by just going for a month’s holiday, or staying with people. In a changing environment, with various cultures, smells and rhythms surrounding you, you learn who you are. Sometimes a desire for change prompts such a move and that change is often a desire to ‘be different’.

If I’ve learned anything from my moves, it is that I’m the same wherever I am. Moving doesn’t change one’s insecurities, self-esteem, confidence, abilities or happiness. Perhaps there are temporary blips, blooms and blots, but eventually, the gravitational force pulls you back to you. No running away then. Your problems are faster than you are.

Many of you who read this are fortunate enough to have had, or have, the opportunity to voluntarily move abroad, knowing that there’s a base to return to. Think for a moment of those who haven’t. Then book that ticket, head away and enjoy the highs and the lows as a vagabond for a while.

You’ll never forget it, but you’ll never forget you.

Here's a photo of the deliciously delirious Dolores Park, taken on my first day in San Francisco