Well time goes by fast and it’s been a year since I last wrote in this blog. 

So, what’s going on?

I lasted 11 months in the crappy little job, until it all got too much for me. That’s the trouble with dull, soul-destroying work, you do have to keep turning up for it week in and week out, no matter how much it is draining your creative energy and sucking every spark of joy out of your life.

The job was toxic. I had one illness after another during the last few months; my body was screaming at me to get out of there.

So one day I walked out, finally galvanised into action by the What’s Up group from hell, that meted out ritual humiliation to anyone and everyone. 

‘You should never stay anywhere where other people don’t see your value’, I read. And it resonated with me so much that within a week I had left the crappy job and was reimagining my future.

The job was offering me nothing in the way of competitive salary, or pension, or even anything in the way of general life satisfaction. There was no incentive to be particularly good at it even. 

It was supposed to at the least offer me a safety-net of money, whilst allowing me to continue doing the things that make me happy. Instead it became all encompassing, taking over my life and leaving me no time or energy to do anything else.

So now I’m back on the content mills churning out listicles for the attention-span challenged. You know the kind of things: Ten fashion trends from the 2000s we’d like to bring back, ten things you should always remember to pack for your next vacation, etc, etc. 

Freelancing is as frustrating as it ever was; whatever skill I try to sell there’s someone in the Philippines offering it for $5 an hour. And don’t even get me started on my online stores. Every product I try to sell there’s someone in China offering it for £1.27. It’s hard to compete in the global economy when you’re living in a country charging £16 for a bottle of olive oil. 

My life is changing. Brighton and I are preparing to part company.  It’s hard to remember the enthusiasm I felt when I first moved here back in November 2019. The lockdown years changed the city considerably, with so many people moving their huge London salaries down to Brighton. Increasingly the crowds, the cost (and scarcity) of housing and the whole ethos of the city has started to grate on me. Then add two really terrible jobs into the mix and it becomes clear that Brighton is no longer working for me.  Well, I tried. Half the battle is recognising when you need to give up, move on and try something new. 

I am going to keep this blog online. It still gets a lot of hits, even a year after I last posted anything. My posts from Western Australia and Bali have been particularly popular this last year.  You may however notice some adverts appearing, since I have changed to the free version of WordPress, which is supported by advertising. 

I am migrating some of my travel content over to Medium now, where I will be writing about the transformative nature of travel. This will feature  articles exploring cultural immersion and self discovery, using travel as a tool for personal growth. That’s the theory anyway.  It is my intention to monetise it in the future.

This blog will remain, left as a testament to the last ten years of my life (yes, this blog turns 10 in a month) and I will be adding to it from time to time over the coming year, where we will discuss things such as (but not limited to) happiness, books, personal growth, house moves and art, along with some pretty weird hippy stuff.