This post is inspired by a combination of three things.
First, an article I saw on Twitter a few weeks ago. I bookmarked the link with a view to read later, and promptly forgot! I’ll come back to this article in a moment…
Yesterday I returned home from a week in Wales.
It was a fun week of campervan living and catching up with friends, mixed in with fun activities such as kitefoiling behind a boat, gokarting, exploring, and early morning runs on the beach.
Once back home, as I went to pay some bills at the bank, I bumped into an ex-girlfriends dad.
We caught up quickly and, as I explained my ‘non-conventional’ path of the past few years, he smiled and told me to “keep at it, life’s bloody short, as long as you’re happy, what’s the worry”. That was the second inspiration.
I’m not saying I need encouagement to follow my own path but, the truth is, a little bit goes a long way, and it’s interesting to see shifts in peoples attitudes to the alternatives.
This morning I received a message from someone I know through social media. His name is Matt Ray. This was my third inspiration, and promoted me to sit and write this post.
Matt first contacted me a year ago, took an interest in my story, bought a copy of my book – Adventures In Happiness, and explained what he was doing – circumnavigating the world on sailing boats.
He doesn’t own a boat, but works as crew in exchange for passage. You can view his story here.
This morning he shared an article which had been written about his journey on Medium. It’s a great read exploring his personal journey and travels. I particularly liked the quote “The life of Matt Ray is a beautiful one. He’s made it so.”.
And this takes me right back to my first inspiration for this post – the article I saw on Twitter.
The upshot of the article is that life sometimes seems short, and others long, but it is most certainly finite. You have a set number of days, weeks, months, years.
Which begs the question, are you making the most of those weeks? Not only in terms of short-term fun and instant gratification, but also playing the longer game.
I.e. Are you getting a mix of enjoyment (but not always at the expense of the future). Are you creating your (or others) life (but not at the expense of enjoying the now). Or, worst case, are you niether enjoying life now, or building for the future…
This picture shows it well.
I’m not saying I’ve got it all figured out (because I haven’t) but the article served as a reminder how precious time is. It also prompted me to think we fixate on setting New Years resolutions – which are soon lost in day to day life.
Surely, it would be better to fixate on something more sustainable. Like ‘new monthly resolutions’, or even ‘new weekly resolutions.’
In my mind, that makes a lot more sense!
Have a good day.
PS. If you enjoyed this post, please take a look at my home page, or my other articles, or even a book I wrote which tells the story of what is was like to leave a twenty-one year career to follow a dream.
John Alex Clarke 