Out of office on: Happy new year!

It’s that time if year when you send an email – to pretty much anyone except online shopping boutiques – and you automatically receive the out of office bounce back. It makes perfect sense; it’s the holidays, most people are home celebrating with friends and families and don’t require a lot of services, advice or witty banter online. Usually, I am not one of these people. As most people who know me know, I am quite a perfectionist and am what could be called addicted to my work, and so I very rarely switch off. In fact, I can tell you the last time I switched off: December 2016, for four days. But today, I’m feeling the urge to join the ranks of the rest of you out-of-officers and take myself a mini-break. Deep breath in!

You see, even when I travel, I take my laptop and I am the one who is frantically smashing on her keyboard on trains, in taxis, in the airport, on the plane. I’m the one who is incredibly frustrated that there’s no internet on board planes. And I’m the one who often misses important moments because she’s sitting in her hotel room ‘working remotely’ or ‘on a deadline’ or jumping on ‘one last call’. But let me be clear – this is no woe is me email. I like my life like this. I LOVE my work. But this time, starting from today, right here, right now, I’m going to try and step back just a little and see what it’s like on the other side.

With that in mind, I’m going to cut myself short (who knew that was possible?) for the very first time in my life, put my out of office on and go and join my friends in the pool. But before I do that, there’s just one last thing I’d like to say: Thank you so, so much to everyone who reads this blog week in and week out. Thank you to those who’ve been reading since the beginning; thank you to those who tune in and out on the occasions that suit them; thank you to the newbies who’ve only recently discovered it. I wish you all the happiest of new years, wherever you may be ringing in this new decade, and send you you all a lot of love. I’ll be back, rested and who knows, maybe even tanned, in time for my next blog and we can pick up where we left off. Have fun, party safe and remember what Ram Dass said: We’re all just walking each other home.