I was just thinking about life. Not in a deep way but rather with a sense of wonder. I am alive. That is pretty sweet!! I can think and move and do all sorts of things. I can make decisions and see them play out, I can fly by the seat of my pants and hope for the best and I can choose to coast along.

Either way, I think I am in charge and of course I am not.

For the most part, I am the hero in my life. What I think, say and feel are the most important things to me. Like a great Hollywood actor, the star in this show is all me. The rest of you should all just fit in and make me look good!

I am trying to change but it is a mindset that has been built up and reinforced my whole life long. Look after numero uno! Don’t accept second best! You deserve better!

Through my job, I have been exposed to just how poor the poor are. Much has been written about how gap between the rich and the poor continues to widen and how nothing is being done to change this. Luckily in my show I have a house and sleep in a bed in my own room. I am certainly one of the rich ones. I also have a fridge and cupboards full of food. In comparison to the majority, I am super rich.

Are the poor really my problem? My bed is soft and my food tasty, why should I even care? Do we continue on down this road until a new age Robin Hood comes along and destroys society as we know it in order to find some sort of better equilibrium? Perhaps that is far-fetched but history has taught that all of the mighty empires of the past have crumbled and died. What makes ours immune?

The world trade talks have just broken down. The wealthy countries cannot agree to drop farmer’s subsidies. I mean why should the USA allow their poor poor farmers to suffer the injustice of cheaper imports from some poverty stricken peasants. Why should they suffer to relieve somebody else’s suffering?

I have no right to judge as I too continue to do what it takes to protect my families best interests. Unfortunately If you and I cannot change and put the interests of those around us first, we will get to watch as our earthly riches fade, crack, rust and crumble!

But if we can change, surely there is hope for all of us?

I was on my way home the other day, a truly wonderful thing! We had left a chaotic and fairly typical Dar at 08h00 in the morning and got back to Cape Town around 18h00. Not bad for a normal working day. I still find travelling very difficult. For all of the travel I have done, it does not seem to get any easier. Instead I seem to get more pedantic about my needs and requirements in order to have the most pleasant trip possible. Life is still all about me!

Those 10 hours of travel were filled with chaotic rush. There was nothing that I could put my finger on to say was well done or an asset to my life or somebody else’s. How sad that a whole day can go by without me adding value somewhere? Wasteful is an understatement!

I got to thinking if it was at all possible that I could take this seemingly wasteful time and turn it into something value adding? Could I change my mindset and view my useless days of travel as an opportunity to see other’s struggles and lift my fingers to assist? I have no idea how that could work or what I could possibly do but at least I could open my eyes and start to really see the people around me.

It sounds like something worth a try. Next time you see some punk helping a lady put her luggage in the overhead luggage storage or buying a frightened flyer a cup of coffee or just having a chat to some lonely airport person, perhaps you will just have spotted me.

Or perhaps it will be you!

A lot of people have been rather disappointed with my lack of blogging of late. I have been bad! Truth be told, I am a little disappointed in myself and have not wanted to admit that perhaps I have been failing on many levels of late. Blogging being one of them! I have tried to convince myself that I am in the process of adjusting to a life very different to the one that I was living only a month ago. Sure that is true, but I really could have made more effort.

The trouble is, I spent 6 months writing about life and how everyone could make some changes that would really benefit them and those around them. Now that I have been thrust back into the world at work, I have struggled to implement my own advice. The good news is that this is something that I have realised now rather than when trying to get an unrealistic book published. I quoted a friend of mine in one of my last blogs. He suggested that I take on the consulting role as it may temper some of my writing and thinking. And so it has!

So here I am sitting outside in the freezing cold in Sutherland feeling all bad about my blog. But there is a braai on the go and an amazing sunset that one can only feel inspired. And at long last I have lifted my fingers to the keyboard in a salute to making an effort. A first effort that will try and bring together my new life at work and my old life of reflection and working for the common good!

I must tell you that Sutherland is a cold place, reputably one of the coldest in South Africa. So what better time to visit than in the dead of winter? We were here last here at this time and got snowed in, a most unusual event in our country. This year though, we have seen one of Sutherland’s main attractions. The stars! The biggest optical telescope in the world resides here due to the minimal number of clouded skies and minimal pollution. This also makes it the perfect place to take photographs of star trails.

The point of this all is that I have some work to do to temper my views or to put in some extra effort to ensure that the things that I write about can actually be achieved in reality.

So keep hounding me when you fail to see my updates, I need all of your help and support to get it together!

Today has been a different day in a strange country. This past week of project #1 has been intense. Today was our first off day and pure bliss. Or at least it should have been.

An associate and I decided to do some exploring.

With windows wide open, we watched as palm trees waved lazily in the gentle breeze and an azure sea lapped gently on the shore. White sandy shores stretched along the coastline and thick dark green seaweed clung densely on the coral like rocks. Dhows floated serenely on this most tranquil sea. And all we had was time to take it all in.

One road side boasted piles of stones of different sizes, each tended by a squatting figure. There was an ancient emaciated woman who sat cross legged and beat big rocks into smaller rocks with a heavy lead pipe. I wondered if she was racing her own destiny as life beat her down until one day soon she too will just be that dust that splintered off those rocks. We were not in the market for rocks and drove on by.

With the tide well out, an impromptu soccer game started on a large sandbank completely surrounded by sea. A case of taking the opportunities that come ones way.

For once traffic was not a melange of chaos filled with cars, bicycles, pedestrians (thousands of them), push carts, motorbikes, trucks and more pedestrians. Today the city was quiet as most spent their time at home with their families. Our irony was that although the tarmac was free flowing, our families were far from us.

Feasting on all the beauty in the world, alone, is worth less than an embrace of a loved one. I am coming home soon!

My life journey has become even more interesting of late. Suddenly it has become a time of serious challenge to some of my tightly held thoughts and ideals. My last 6 months have been spent trying to better understand myself. In that time I have written about a better life on the other side of wealth, power, and prestige. I now know with certainty that the life I aspire to is one filled with family and charity and lived in harmony with my values.

And then I was offered this contract to do some consulting work in Africa.....

For most people, this would be a time of great celebration. I mean a consulting contract for two projects handed to you on a silver platter has to be the rarest of windfalls? Or is it?

I have enjoyed my time with my family. I have thoroughly enjoyed the philanthropic side of my life. And I most certainly have enjoyed my photography and surfing time. Now I need to give it all up in order to earn that distasteful thing called money. I suppose that it does not have to be distasteful. Perhaps I am still smarting from my own corporate experiences which have left this permanent bad taste in my mouth. Sure I need to give up a lot of wonderful things but there are things to be gained, like the start of a new business venture, and a major challenge to my abilities (something that I thrive on). Oh and of course they will pay me too, which could possibly support my interesting lifestyle for a while.

Of course the timing is all wrong! My book is now two thirds complete and I would really like to have finished it before moving onto this business of making enough money to support my family. My initial thinking was that I would do whatever it took to just bring in enough for our family to survive without compromising our time together and the value I can add as a father and as a husband. I suppose that thinking was pretty romantic, instead I have been presented with a different opportunity to embrace. I will need to make some sacrifices but there are many benefits too. More than that, this contract has been structured in such a way that I will be spending plenty of my time working from home. Could I get it any better?

I should be ecstatic. This is possibly the start of my own management consultancy. Yet, sitting in a corporate jet last week, winging my way into Africa and eating one of the best fillet steaks I have ever eaten for breakfast, I had a realisation. Managing my desire for wealth, power and prestige was going to be incredibly hard when once again submerged into this working world. This is something that makes me very uncomfortable as it is everything I left behind for the better and simpler life I am now living.

A friend in whom I confided my misgivings gave me some interesting advice. He said that I had been blessed with six months in which to understand the depths of my need for the things that I know are destructive. He went on to suggest that perhaps I was now being given another chance to jump back into the lions den and do it better this time. Not only that, to also influence those still in the den whose pursuit for money, power, and prestige has corrupted their lives.

And so my wife and I opened the doors to our new consultancy last week Tuesday. A whole new life has begun, one filled with new and old doors. Some to be opened and some to be bolted shut! I hope and pray that I can avoid the mistakes I made in the past and find that elusive life that will allow me to be a force for good in this world! I look forward to keeping you up to date on how it all turns out.

So here I am on Saturday morning watching a movie with my children. Not just any movie, a big wave surfing documentary. And they are enthralled! The fantastic thing is that this is a movie that they want to watch. What scares my wife is that they both think that tow in surfing on mind bogglingly massive waves is cool and something that they would like to do. I just sit back and smile as I wait happily for the day that my boys and I can enjoy our favourite sport together!

I have been most remiss with regards to my blog. Not only have some of you commented on that but I too have felt the loss. Daily writing is very much a catharsis of my soul. It is a beautiful process of clearing out of thoughts and reorganisation of ideas. Sans my writing, my life has become a little disorderly and far too busy. I know that it is time to come back to my writing to make some sense of it all. My lesson is when it gets so busy that I am drowning, that is exactly the time I need to be taking some time out to write!

Stay with me now!