Wake Up and Change Your Life

I've come out of town for a few days to get a break from the hustle and bustle of London and down here by the ocean things look very different.

Today I saw surfers out before breakfast, at lunchtime and then through the afternoon until it got dark.  I suspected that many of them might be 'new locals' who relocated here from cities around the UK to benefit from a different routine so I checked with a few of them as they came out of the water.  Sure enough there was a graphic designer, a financial adviser and a journalist who had all quit the rat race and set themselves up with a schedule where they work around the tides and no longer feel the stresses and strains of city life.  

It got me thinking.  It may not be practical for you to completely move your life to a new location, but what can you do today, tomorrow and for the rest of this week and this month that will help you feel that things are a bit more balanced?  The people I saw today, all work hard, but balance this hard work with surfing, cycling, walking, running, swimming or just looking at the sea when the mood takes them.  They wake up knowing they changed their life for the better.

So what's your equivalent of hitting the surf?  And when can you do it next?

Photograph by G a r r y (Flickr)