I’ve just returned to England after more than two years living in the Maldives.  I could’ve probably timed it better:  there are concerns that with climate change the Maldives may be under water in 40 years, but with the current flooding it feels as if England could disappear by next weekend.  Even so, it’s good to be back.

Working in hospitality can be an easy way to lose sight of your authenticity, and living and working on a small island that is nothing but a resort means you have to always be ‘on’.  You can’t go to the pub after work and moan about your day because the people in the bar are the same people you work with.  And of course you’re always surrounded by guests who quite rightly should only see the polite and positive you.  With approximately 600 staff from more than 15 different countries serving 500 guests, it’s an environment that exaggerates everything, a fishbowl of humanity living under a microscope.  Sometimes it felt like the prettiest prison on earth.

Don’t get me wrong that’s exactly how it should be.  But it’s an environment where I found the soundtrack in my head jarring more and more with the face I presented externally.  And the more you aren’t able to be true to yourself, the more important it becomes.  How easy is that, really, though?  I don’t think you need to be working on a small island in the middle of the Indian ocean to feel that sense of disconnection between who you think you should be and who you really are.  Old Will may have rightly said ‘To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man’ but that’s easier said than done, huh.  Most of us face daily challenges to live up to this.  That’s my main motivation to write this blog:  how easy is it to be me and what does that even mean?  I’m already confused.  It could have just have easily been subtitled ‘a year of living mindfully’ as I think it starts right there, with an awareness of how we move through our days and questioning what’s true.

So here goes.  Whatever challenges the real world brings, I hope to meet them honestly and truly.  As honestly and truly as I can, anyway.  And I’m really looking forward to not having to dress for breakfast.