‘Do what you love and you’ll never have to work a day in your life.’ Or so the story goes. But can you still enjoy what you do when your perception is being distorted? In focussing so much on the 9-5 (or rather the 8.30 – 8), perspective is lost and work becomes a distraction from the rest of your life. Before you know it, 4 years have passed, and whilst some goals have been ticked off along the way, you realise this isn’t exactly how you’d planned it.

A couple of months ago, I went home to the place I grew up, which I hadn’t been back to for quite some time. The only way to describe it, for me, is an absolute sanctuary – the one place I can go to relax, unwind and gain some wisdom. Opening the door to a room in  which I spent many a moment in, I took a seat and came face to face with an old friend. There was silence and I was nervous as I shuffled on the seat a little. But once the music started, and once I heard the sound from the keys, all that was familiar came flooding back. It transpires that being reunited with your piano can be quite an emotional moment, especially when you realise you leave very little time to do what you love these days.

Music has always been my number one passion – played instruments,  I spent hours singing, composed songs, I listen to music constantly and often take inspiration and motivation from song lyrics. A Musical soundtrack is my main companion in the office after hours, and I have even been known to sing my presentations during my MBA residentials with the Open University. The first was re-writing the lyrics to Abba’s ‘Dancing Queen’ to reflect the story of Fairtrade Coffee from ground to market…’Friday night with the lights down low, You’re looking for a coffee to go…’ Yep, Björn would be proud! And then there was a second occurrence where I needed to explain the economic crisis in Greece at that time, and what better way to do that than to write a new version of the theme tune to ‘Grease’ the musical – but for one day and one day only it was ‘Greece is the word!’

Anyway, the simple and obvious point that has been reiterated to me lately is to do more of what you love because one day, you won’t be able to do it anymore. The Buddha’s quote ‘The trouble is you think you have time’ seems even more hard hitting as the end of another year approaches. I have had a similar conversation with a couple of colleagues and friends over the last couple of weeks where the following question was posed: ‘If you knew the world was going to end in 12 months, what would you do?’ You’d no doubt travel, made sure you ran that marathon, be less scared of the karaoke machine and step outside of your comfort zone a bit more often in whatever way that means to you. If you knew the world was going to end in 12 months, would you continue to spend more time focussing on work than doing the things you love that would enhance and enrich your time on this earth? Probably not!

At this time of year, reflection is prominent and once Christmas is over, the talk of New Year’s resolutions commence, but why wait? In the spirit of Advent, I plan to have an alternative advent calendar (My Alternative Advent) in that I am going to attempt to do one thing a day which I enjoy, and enables me to take some time for myself, however big or small that may be. The build-up to Christmas, whilst enjoyable, can sometimes feel chaotic and it’s easy to forget to look after ourselves whilst we’re still working hard, and focussing on the spirit of giving. If nothing else, it may just help to leave work a little earlier! But just out of interest, what would you want to do/achieve if the world was to end in 12 months? I will leave you with that little something to ponder…