Simply Better Living

Staying positive in the light of life's events   Something goes wrong. We lose a job. A relationship ends. A flight is cancelled. We don’t get the house we wanted. An illness or injury interrupts our plans. And almost immediately, we give the event a label: Bad. Sometimes the opposite happens. We receive unexpected money. We get the promotion. We meet somebody new. An opportunity suddenly appears. Good. But there is an old Chinese parable that suggests we might be a little too quick with our labels. A farmer owned a valuable horse. One day, the horse ran away. His neighbours came to console him. “What terrible luck,” they said. The farmer replied: “Maybe.” The following day, the horse returned — and with it came several wild horses. The neighbours were delighted. “What wonderful luck!” The farmer replied: “Maybe.” Soon afterwards, the farmer’s son tried to tame one of the wild horses. He was thrown from its back and badly injured his leg. Again the neighbours came. “What terrible l...

NVIDIA and the Danger of Settling Too Soon I am not expecting many readers of SIMPLY BETTER LIVING to start a semiconductor company this week. Nevertheless, the extraordinary story of NVIDIA has something to say to all of us, especially those reaching an age when life is supposedly meant to be settling down. NVIDIA began in 1993 when three engineers met in a booth at a Denny’s restaurant in California. They believed that computers were going to become increasingly visual and that this would require a new kind of technology. It was a bold idea. Unfortunately, their first attempt was based on the wrong technology. The wider computer industry moved in a different direction, their expensive new product became almost useless and the young company came dangerously close to collapse. Even its important contract with the Japanese gaming company Sega was built around the wrong system. This is where the story becomes particularly interesting. Jensen Huang, NVIDIA’s chief executive, told Sega th...

The Five Pillars of a Better Life (Part Five): Stay Connected     Looking after ourselves was never meant to be something we do entirely by ourselves. When I first thought about this series, there were only four pillars. Eat well. Move more. Make time to reflect. Sleep well. It seemed a pretty good recipe for looking after ourselves. Then I realised something rather important was missing. Other people. We can eat perfectly, exercise every morning, meditate every evening and sleep for eight glorious hours, but human beings are, whether we like it or not, social creatures. Most of us need to love, talk, laugh, argue, share, help, touch and simply be around other people. So my fifth and final pillar of a better life is social connection . The fact that it should have been there all along is a reflection of one my personal flaws: I think I can get by on my own. Wrong. Relationships Are Good for Our Health Friendship can sometimes sound like one of life's optional extras, or, if we...

The Five Pillars of a Better Life (Part Four): Sleep Well Sometimes the most productive thing we can do is nothing at all. We've eaten well. We've moved our bodies. We've made time to stop and reflect. Now we come to perhaps the most underrated of my five pillars of a good life . Sleep. We spend roughly a third of our lives doing it, yet sleep is often treated as the expendable part of the day, the bit we squeeze between everything else. "I'll survive on five hours." "I'll catch up at the weekend." "I'll sleep when I'm dead." Perhaps we should turn that last one around. Sleep well while you're alive. Sleep Is Not Wasted Time While we're asleep, our bodies haven't switched off. Sleep is essential for our brains, hearts, immune systems, metabolism, memories and emotions. A good night's sleep helps us think clearly, concentrate, make decisions and regulate our mood. Poor sleep, meanwhile, doesn't just leave us y...

The Five Pillars of a Better Life, Part Three: Make Time to Reflect We spend so much of our lives doing. Perhaps we should spend a little more of it simply being. In this series on the five pillars of a good life , we've looked so far at eating well and moving our bodies. The third pillar is rather different. It's about stopping. Modern life is extraordinarily noisy. We wake up and reach for our phones. There are messages to answer, news stories to read, jobs to do, appointments to keep and endless little demands competing for our attention. Even when we're doing nothing, we're often scrolling. But our minds need rest too. I call this third pillar time for reflection . And there are many ways of finding it. Meditation Doesn't Mean Sitting Around Saying "Om" Meditation can seem rather mysterious from the outside. You might imagine sitting cross-legged on the floor, chanting "Om" for two hours while desperately trying not to think about what's...

The Five Pillars Of Life, Part Two: Exercise Four years ago, I hardly recognised myself. I weighed around 85 kg , was frequently tired, drank too much alcohol, ate out far too often and spent far too much time sitting down. I was taking Ramipril every day and my blood pressure averaged around 100/90 . I had quietly accepted that this was simply what getting older looked like. Today, I weigh around 70 kg . I eat far more healthily, I've given up alcohol completely, I exercise almost every day, and I wake up looking forward to life instead of merely getting through it. Most importantly, I feel grateful. I was already in my sixties when I decided to change my habits. There is nothing remarkable about me, and I'm certainly not naturally athletic. I hated sports lessons at school, and yes, I was that boy who got chosen last for every team sport. What changed wasn't my genes or my luck. It was my daily routine. If I can do it, many other people can too. It isn't always easy,...

Good health isn’t everything. But without it, almost everything else becomes harder. When I first started Simply Better Living , I wanted it to be about something much bigger than moving abroad or retirement. Those topics matter, of course, but they're really only part of a much larger picture. Over the coming weeks, I'd like to return to what I believe are the five pillars of a good life : Good food Adequate exercise Time for reflection Sound sleep Social connection None of these is revolutionary. We all know they matter. The challenge is that modern life constantly tempts us away from them. As we get older, however, these five habits become less like lifestyle choices and more like investments. Every healthy meal, every walk, every good night's sleep is a small deposit into our future well-being. Our Greatest Assets People often say that money is our greatest asset. I disagree. Our greatest assets are time and health . Time cannot be bought back, and poor health has a way...

Why moving abroad means more than changing your address. When Spain played France in the recent World Cup semi-final, I had a choice to make. Living in Torremolinos, I could easily have watched the match in one of the many British or Irish bars, surrounded by people speaking English. It would have been familiar, comfortable and effortless. Instead, my husband and I deliberately chose a small bar filled almost entirely with Spanish supporters. For the first few minutes I wondered if we'd made the right decision. Before long, the group sitting at the next table spotted my football shirt. With great enthusiasm — and even greater amusement — they explained that I was wearing entirely the wrong jersey for the occasion. There was plenty of laughter, a little gentle teasing, and then something rather unexpected happened. During half-time they bought us a drink. By the final whistle, after Spain's victory, they invited us to celebrate with them. We had arrived as strangers. We left fee...

What nobody tells you about homesickness.    If you've been following this series, you'll know that we've already talked about starting over, learning new languages and building a life rather than simply planning a move. There's one part of moving abroad, however, that almost nobody prepares you for. Homesickness. Not the dramatic kind you see in films. The quiet, unexpected kind. The kind that sneaks up on you when you're least expecting it. Mine arrived one ordinary evening in Berlin. After a long day at work, I came home tired and hungry. Without really thinking about it, I suddenly found myself craving my favourite comfort food from childhood. Baked beans on toast. Not just any baked beans on toast. Toast spread generously with Marmite, topped with a slice of mature Cheddar cheese, and then covered with hot baked beans. To most of the world, that probably sounds completely ridiculous. To me, it tasted like home. There was just one problem. Back in...