Simply Better Living

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...

The goal of life is not merely to work well, but to live well. There is a belief, deeply embedded in many cultures, that success comes primarily from working harder. Work longer hours. Take fewer breaks. Push through the exhaustion. Sleep less. Do more. Yet a growing body of research suggests that the relationship between work and achievement is not nearly as simple as that. In fact, happier people often achieve more. That may sound like wishful thinking. Surely success makes people happy, not the other way around? The reality appears to be more complicated. Human Beings Are Not Machines One of the great mistakes of modern life is to treat people as if they were machines. Machines can often produce more simply by running for longer. Human beings do not work that way. We need rest, purpose, relationships, recognition and a sense of control over our lives. Without these things, performance often declines long before effort does. Many people know this from personal experience. Have you e...

The Family: Where Human Flourishing Begins We live in an age inclined to treat the family as merely one lifestyle choice among many: important perhaps, but ultimately interchangeable with any arrangement sufficiently loving and well-intentioned. Yet history, psychology and ordinary human experience suggest otherwise. Before the state, before schools, before therapists and welfare systems, there was the family. It is there that a child first learns whether the world is safe; whether love is conditional; whether conflict destroys or can be survived; whether authority protects or humiliates; whether they themselves are fundamentally secure and wanted. Long before formal education begins, the family has already taught its curriculum. Why Family Matters Healthy family life gives a child the internal structure from which adulthood is built: security, attachment, discipline, resilience, self-worth, emotional regulation, and a workable model of intimacy. No family can guarantee psych...

Stress in Later Life: Letting Go, Reflection and What Remains There is a different kind of stress that comes later in life.  Less urgent.  Less driven by ambition. But no less real. When life begins to change  By this stage, much has already happened. Paths have been taken. Decisions made. Years lived. And life begins to change its rhythm. There may be more space. But also more awareness: of time passing of things ending of what cannot be undone The weight of reflection With more time often comes more reflection. Looking back: at what went well at what didn’t at what might have been different This can bring a particular kind of stress. Not about the future — but about the past. What cannot be changed There is a moment, sooner or later, when something becomes clear: Much of life cannot be re-written. Not the choices. Not the missed opportunities. Not the things we wish we had done differently. And resisting this reality creates tensio...

The Eisenhower Matrix: A Simple Way to Reduce Stress and Focus on What Matters There is a particular kind of stress that comes not from one big problem, but from too many small ones. Too many tasks. Too many decisions. Too many things competing for your attention. And the feeling that everything is urgent. The problem is not time management The problem is managing ourselves. Most of us don’t struggle because we don’t have enough time.  We struggle because we are not clear about what deserves it. Everything feels important.  And so everything gets treated the same. We try to do too much and get stressed and frustrated. A simple idea that changes things The Eisenhower Matrix is built on a very simple distinction: Not everything that is urgent is important. And not everything that is important is urgent. Once you see this clearly, life begins to change. Seeing your day differently Imagine dividing everything you do into four groups. Not as a list, but as a way of seeing your ...

Stress in Midlife: Responsibility, Work, and the Pressure of Time There is a particular kind of stress that arrives in midlife. Not sudden. Not dramatic.  But constant. A steady weight you carry through your days. When everything depends on you By now, life is no longer theoretical.  You are responsible. For work For finances For others Often more than one generation at once.  And much of it cannot simply be put down. The pressure of time Time begins to feel different. More visible. More limited. Faster. Deadlines matter more. Decisions feel heavier. You start to notice: paths taken paths closed time that cannot be recovered Why it builds Because there is so little space. You move from one task to the next: Solving. Managing. Responding. And somewhere along the way, something fades: y our sense of yourself beyond what you do. What actually helps Midlife stress rarely comes from one thing. It comes from too many things — all at once. Trying ...

Stress in Young Love: Relationships, Uncertainty, and Letting Go There is a different kind of stress that comes with love.  Less visible.  Less easy to explain. But often more intense than anything else. When something begins to matter In your early adulthood, relationships are no longer abstract. They are real. Personal. Deeply felt. You are no longer just imagining connection. You are inside it. And with that comes something new: t he possibility of loss. The instability no one prepares you for Love does not arrive as certainty.  It arrives with questions. Do they feel the same? Will this last? Am I enough? And even when things seem good, there is often an ongoing anxiety: t his could change. Why it feels so overwhelming Because love touches something fundamental.  Not just your time or your plans,  but your sense of self. You begin to define yourself through another person: their attention their approval their presence Coming ba...

Stress in Your 20's: Pressure, Identity, and the Feeling You’re Falling Behind There is a particular kind of stress that belongs to your twenties. It doesn’t always look dramatic from the outside. But inside, it can feel constant. A quiet pressure. A sense that something important is happening. And that you might be getting it wrong. The pressure no one quite explains You are expected to be building a life. Choosing a direction. Becoming someone. And at the same time, you are surrounded by people who seem to already have: clearer plans better opportunities more certainty Whether they actually do is another question. But it feels real. Comparison without end For the first time in history, you are not only living your own life but you are also watching hundreds of others do the same alongside you. Careers. Relationships. Travel. Success. All visible. All curated. All immediate. And so the question quietly forms: Am I behind? A necessary re-think But here is s...

The Strawberry: A Story About Stress, Change and Being Alive There is an old Zen story. A man is being chased by a tiger. He runs and runs until he reaches the edge of a steep cliff. With nowhere else to go, he climbs down, gripping a branch growing out of the rock. Above him, the tiger waits. Hundreds of metres below, he can see the bottom of the valley. As he hangs there, the branch begins to crack. Suddenly, he notices something. A small wild strawberry growing within reach. He picks it. He eats it. And says: how sweet it is.

How to deal with everyday stress Stress: our companion to everday life We speak about stress as if it were an inevitable malfunction over which we can have no control. Something has gone wrong, and that triggers us, regardless of whose fault it is. The word stress is relatively new. It comes from engineering and means the pressure placed on a structure. Before that, people spoke of burden, strain, or simply the weight of life . Nothing about the experience is new. Only our expectation is.  We live as if life should feel manageable, smooth, under control.  And when it isn’t, we assume something is wrong. But perhaps nothing is wrong at all. It's all just a normal part of human experience. Why it feels harder nowadays What has changed is not life itself, but its intensity: We are always connected Always informed Always comparing There is no natural pause. And so, instead of meeting stress, we try resist it.  And that is where pressure quietly turns into sufferin...