The main factor I have picked up during my short time travelling in NZ is the Kiwi attitude to life.

At home, everybody is busy, so many commitments and things to do, peoples work lives are frantic and a lot of people are under a lot of pressure. Long term, this cannot be good for us, and to me there is a correlation between this way of life and the increased need for support. It is fantastic how aware we are becoming as a nation of mental health. Are we pro-actively working to avoid mental health problems at all? I do some meditation and yoga (I’m not bendy enough!), not a lot, but enough to allow me to switch off from everything else for a short time. Even these short snippits are a benefit to me, so I highly recommend you all give something a go.

Apologies, I got distracted there for a minute, the purpose of this post is to highlight how different NZ are at this. Their attitude to life is very different and as a result their work life balance is better. We have created this lifestyle for ourselves whilst striving for materialistic items, higher pay, stature, whatever the driver it is there and engrained into us.

I feel the balance is a bit far the wrong way back home. When I am back I need to plan how I can change the balance a bit, it wont be easy as that is how we work now, but I think it is important that I try. I don’t intend to reduce my level of work, but perhaps I can be smarter about it. While I have been away there has been a fatal car accident involving a young man. This puts everything into perspective. Life is too short, we must appreciate the people around us and make more time for family, friends and ourselves. ❤️.

This is a positive learning I will be bringing home from NZ. xxx.