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...

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,...

Why I Switched from Apple to OPPO My Review of the OPPO Find X9 Pro & OPPO Watch X2 After nearly twenty years in the Apple ecosystem, I made a decision that would once have seemed unthinkable: I left. Partly this was practical, partly philosophical. Concerns about data privacy and my own private unease about the direction of the United States pushed me to start reducing my dependence on American tech giants wherever possible. That led me, somewhat nervousl, into the Android world. And to my surprise?  I have been genuinely delighted. My new setup is the  OPPO Find X9 Pro  paired with the  OPPO Watch X2 . T ogether they have proved to be one of the most impressive technology combinations I have ever owned. The Phone: OPPO Find X9 Pro The first thing that struck me was the  camera . It is, quite simply, phenomenal. Photos are sharp, rich, and beautifully balanced, often to the point where friends have asked whether I was using a dedicated camera rather than a ...