A Journey Begins

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step" - Lao Tzu. In the case of a Blog it begins with the first post; this then is that first single step. Hopefully there will be a few more steps to come! I am sure that there are a lot of Blogs with just a first step and I aim that this one will prove an exception, only time will tell.

A bit of background then to set the scene. Back in 2016 - some 9 years prior to this post - I quit the mad world of development as a reaction to having no life and constantly being frustrated by the choices we had to make over solid solutions versus bling and buzz. It did not help that the UK voted to leave the European Union and the impact that had on the company. I had spent the best part of 23 years living a 24/7 365 days a year always on mode of life with end users / clients hassling, unrealistic deadlines and the results of a 'get it out now we will worry about the problems later' mindset. The money was good but the cost was high.

So I quit and went to work in a warehouse clocking in and out for 4 days a week on the night-shift. Less money, in fact a lot less money, but more time and more peace. Don't get me wrong, it was hard on the money front, took nearly 4 years to find (more or less) financially calm waters but the payout in peace of mind and less stress was worth it. This then was the life.

When Covid started we were pretty insulated as I was working an extra night to cope with the lock down demand for distractions. My wife works in primary education ( I think some of the Politicians were too thick to home school personally (or the kids got in the way of parties) hence they changed the rules to suit them <hmm>  so it did not take long for parents to get their kids out from under their feet during lock down and back in to schools! A vote winner if not exactly a good public health move). As a result we did not suffer the loss of income as others did, plus we had less downtime in the home than most and easy commutes to boot. The big problem, however, was the fact that things closed. One of these was a local Buddhist centre.

I was not an ardent practitioner, but the Buddhist ideas had helped me to simplify and focus. Going physically to the centre was useful as it was calm and relaxing place and allowed me to meet with others who were also in the same frame of mind. I tried to continue, but as 2020 moved in to 2021 my focus started to slip and by 2024 all thoughts of serenity through mediation and obtaining less stuff had evaporated. There was, when I think about it another factor that aided this slip, in July 2020 we got flooded after a very heavy rainstorm.

The cellar, my sanctuary was awash, my possessions unusable and those that remained were boxed up by the disaster recovery company. So I had nowhere to go and not much to do as my wife was not really happy about the 'cellar life' invading the rest of the house. At the time it was not really an issue as 5 night shifts a week meant I was glad of the 2 days rest and recuperation with my family, watching TV and sleeping. Time though moved on, the lock downs ended and the rat race resumed and I sort of went along with it by re-buying the things I could not get at and basically not thinking too much about it. The Insurance Company were messing us about - they had caused further damage to the cellar (another story) and no contractors would do the work. In the end we had to agree to a financial settlement after 4 years of haggling. So by 2024, I still had no cellar to use - but I guess that's a very industrialized west problem :)

Cut to October 2024, I had to go in for surgery and was laid up for 6 weeks at home, off work twiddling my thumbs. I had high hopes of getting much needed hobby time (I create maps for game worlds - yes very sad but it keeps me occupied and out of trouble). I'd bought a new M4 iPad Pro for this very reason, my 2016 iPad Pro was not really cutting it and I thought it a worthwhile upgrade after 8 years. Thing was a lot of things I needed were still boxed up in the cellar, so I achieved little. One thing I did come to realise was just how much the cellar contents and it's state was filling up my head in a bad way, I asked myself the question, "This stuff down there I've not used in 4 years, do I need it? I've not really used anything since it's been boxed up, yes there are some books I would like to get access to, but really is it needed?" The other issue was, until the stuff in boxes gets moved out, the work on repairing the place can't start.

This situation had an unexpected positive impact, I made a decision, as soon as possible - lets get Christmas out of the way - I will de-clutter and identify what I 'need' from the cellar and reset my life .. in the next post I will focus on the 'revelation' as I fear I have gone on a tad longer than I thought in this post.