There are different ways of living.
A surprisingly scenic ride out of Athens, a spot of island hopping (over Salamina) and I’m onto the coast road that takes me to the Corinth canal – across which is our home in Epidavros. One short flight + one bike ride but a world away from city life, in London.
I love it here. I have an immediate sense of welcoming calm.
I haven’t worked forty hours in an office for a long time, but I can’t escape the feeling it gives me in London. I wish I could, but I just always feel that between 9-6pm Monday to Friday I should be working, productive, always achieving something. And being locked to a mobile or screen being the only way to achieve those things.
It’s what I was raised to do - to work hard, buy more stuff and be happier. it’s hard to escape that self-inflicted demand but here in Greece I meet adults that were raised differently - raised that family is the most important thing – that friendship and health are a close second, that work is what you do to pay your bills. Work to live, rather than live to work.
Within fifteen minutes of cycling into town I’d seen more welcoming faces than mobile screens. Peter who organises all the local running and triathlon events, Emiljano getting his new restaurant ready for opening tomorrow and Ageliki baking the best Easter cakes in town. In London I could have sent 20 emails in that same time.
Mental health experts agree happiness can only be achieved if you can ‘live in the present’, not worrying about the past or planning the future. A mobile is efficient for work, but it is also certainly efficient at taking us away from any present moment we get to live in.
Being mindful of how we spend our time, rather than how we spend our money. It feels that in London I am paying for my life with my time, here it feels like time stops still.
Originally there wasn’t a word for work, there was just the stuff you needed to do to feed and clothe your family, and whatever that may be would often be dictated by the weather and whatever produce was in season. It feels a little like that here still. Yesterday’s big news was the amazing rainbow that arched over the port.
It’s always worth questioning whether you need to follow the demands you put on yourself, whether they are universally right or whether they are right for you. There are different ways of living.