Simplify

Hello again,

It's a complicated journey to learn how to live a simple life. I don't mean a materialistic simplicity. For me that was the easy bit. Hire a skip, throw nearly everything in it and be left with the basics. I did that, all I had left was a holdall, a backpack and a suitcase with all my worldly belongings in.

I'm not bragging or being flippant, I've just never held any big emotion to items in my life. The important things for me are my memories, places I've been, conversations I've had with interesting people, books I've read, these things are carried in my head and in my heart.

Without realising,  I've been slowly stripping back my life, getting down to the real soul of it. Seeing the beauty in small, inconsequential stuff that is all around us. Photographing butterflies, watching people laughing, walking on a sunny day with no destination in mind. I could go on and on.

I spend a lot of time on my own, I'm content, never lonely. That's not to call me anti social or a loner or anything. I'm not. For me, to be comfortable walking into a pub or a restaurant and just doing my own thing, that's a sign that I'm happy as a person. I'm secure.  I don't need the crutch of a crowd to lean on. I see people performing in the pub to their friends, loud, so loud, laugh laugh laugh. Good luck to them, it's just not me, that's all.

I know I'm not working and that has given me time to slow my life down and focus on myself. But we should all begin with ourselves. How can you be nice to others if you don't think about yourself first, and work on being a better person?

As my life becomes more simple then the more the stress falls away. Rethink what is actually really important and discard the other stuff. Look after your health, challenge your mind. For me that is running, walking, eating healthy, trying to take better photos, reading books that are not usually on my radar.

These are all simple things that you can do that, collectively, they can help you to grow.

I was walking in the hills yesterday and a guy came over and we walked together, he was 80, his first hill walk in 18 months due to a bad back. He told me his life story, I listened. We laughed. He told me I was so laid back and that he enjoyed my company. Put a price on that if you can.

I'm not a guru, nor giving advice or pretending to be something I'm not. Neither am I judgemental about others and how they live their lives. I'm just trying to document how my life is changing and what I feel is important to me.

Everyone is different and long may that continue.

But, it doesn't matter how much I strip my life back, you'll never see me in a pair of Crocs, I'm not that simple...