May 5 2018

THE MONTH.

Life, they say, is all about balance. Balance what you want with what you can have; balance what you have to give up to achieve what you dream about and balance the good with the bad. When you are young, for most people, you balance the money earned from a job against the damage that job can do to your lifestyle. When you are older you balance the the desire and enjoyment that having children can bring with the massive, repeat massive, disruption they bring to your lives. At as you edge through the autumn of your life, you balance you pleasure gained from being your own boss with the loss of income, and sometimes mobility, that comes with old age.

In deciding to give one more year of my life, my autumnal life, to travelling and producing something I feel is really worthwhile in the lives of others, I have to admit that I probably didn't give much thought to balance. One of my heroes, the late Bruce McLaren, once said that “it would be a waste of life to do nothing with one's ability, for I feel that life is measured in achievement, not in years alone.” I think he wrote that sometime in 1964 ish and now, thinking of it, I realise how lucky I am. My life has had both years and achievement so, to achieve one more thing while those years are still allowing me to, is, to me, an obvious choice.

For those of you who have never tried to travel to a new home each week, spend the week visiting, learning about and checking out different places, taking lots of video footage and photos and then writing of what you have seen or editing the videos and publishing the photos, can I tell you it is not easy. It is not the normal view of retirement. There are many unpredictable, indeed uncontrollable, factors such as weather, illness, the inadvertent non-cooperation of people you wish to see, coupled with the normal problems we all experience. For some, it might create stress. For me, it provides a chance to conquer a problem and gain one more notch on the belt of achievements.

There is almost nothing which excites me more. There is nothing else that stirs my creativity, arouses my imagination or fulfils my needs from life. It is not balance I need in my life, it is achievement. You shouldn't think of what you are giving up and balance that against what you may gain. You should just go for the think that gives you the chance to succeed and to satisfy your needs in life. Despite my luck in mixing Brucie baby's years and achievements, I will definitely only have one life and it is not infinite. I need to fit a few more things in and if people think that leaves me unbalanced, they are probably correct.