Life moves pretty fast

Today represents day one of a new year for me. As of today, for one year, I am a “gentleman of leisure”. I am officially on sabbatical. For the first time as an adult, I won’t be going to work and instead I will be focussing on other stuff. It is a chance to explore. Both the world and where I am in life.

Now I should emphasise that I am not going to be doing a “24” style count down of each day in the year in this blog, for two important reasons; one, I am not Jack Bauer and my life will not be that exciting but two, I intend to take a break.

When I say that, I have had some interesting responses from those who are aware that I am taking this sabbatical. I have had the “don’t waste the opportunity” comments and the “I don’t think I could just stop” remarks too. I should say this has been in the context of nothing but wonderful, supportive and positive reactions I have received when people have found out about my break – and for which I am very grateful. However, I have no intention of wasting my time but as the Dalai Lama said “We are human beings, not human doings”. My first intention for this time is to simply be.

I have had plenty of the envious comments as well, again well intentioned and positive in nature, but trust me, this break is born of circumstances that I wouldn’t wish on anyone. I know these are comments are not with that in mind at all, but it is those challenges connected to Jen’s illness and passing that bizarrely will be facilitating my time away. I’m simply making the best of where I find myself.

So where does this leave me and what happens next? Well, I mention intentions and the fact that this is the start of a new year above and this got me thinking about how I once heard someone say that we should make New Year intentions not resolutions. This is because intentions set us on a mindset of trying to fulfil our promise in the here and now and put a positive foot forward, whereas resolutions force us to assess whether we have succeded or failed at something – essentially judging ourselves on a future that may not have even been achievable and removing self motivation.

So what are my intentions? Well firstly, to take that break. Not to stop but to give myself a chance to rest. Then, I have a little list of places I would like to travel to, I’d like to do some writing – see if I can actually write that novel i’ve always wanted to put together, work on my model railway (see my other blog on RMWeb) and just generally be in the world. Of course there is a World Cup to be watched too!

I think this is going to be good. I’m looking forward to it.