Stop the world, I want to get off

Like most people I spend almost every working day racing around seeing people, speaking with them on the phone, rushing home at night to see the wife and kids.  This I have done for many years so much so that it has become the normal speed of things and I am always in a rush.  More recently though I have started to look at things a little more deeply and found that I don’t like all the rushing but what can you do to stop this?  The single thing that made me realise that I needed to stop rushing was when I was taking my little boy to bed, as I do most nights, and he was doing what most 5 year olds do and that was mess about.  Now Tom has not had a really normal bedtime routine since he was two before his little brother was born.  This is because little Danny was born with problems which meant we have spent the last 2 1/2 years in hospital see www.potter-tate.co.uk for more info.  Anyway, it was around 8pm and he was messing and rushing as usual I said to him “come on Tom, I’ve got work to do if you don’t stop messing then no story”.  It wasn’t till I got downstairs and sat down at my computer that in dawned on me that in actual fact what I was rushing down to do was neither that important or in fact a “real” job that needed doing.

So I am resolved that while I cannot slow down the work pace while doing on-demand work what I can do is slow down outside of work. I am also resolved to doing things different to the way I have before.  So earlier today I decided to walk to our local shop, something which I have NEVER done in the whole time that we have lived at this house which is almost 7 years.  The local shop is only about 3/4 mile away and while I going running three times a week and pass it then I have never walked to the shop.  You should try it sometime, it’s a surefire way to completely spin out your partner/wife.  I said to Julie “I think I’ll walk to the shop”, you should have seen the look on her face.  It couldn’t have been more stunned if I had said that I was catching a flight to the other side of the world!  So leaving behind a rather confused Julie I walked to the shops, the thing was I ended up looking round with almost schoolboy fascination at houses that I had seen before but never really looked at.

So if you are looking for a New Years Resolution try this, “Do something once a week different to the way you have always done it”.