Chapter 1, Saturday is every day

The alarm sounds. He is already awake. Anxiety eating away at him. He arises from bed, heads to the bathroom. Whilst there he scrolls through facebook posts delaying the day ahead. In someway he is just distracting himself from thoughts about the day ahead. The 6 and a half hours of sleep was enough to get by but is never enough to be truly at peace. He moves on to the process of showering and getting dressed for the day ahead. Clothes are prepared from the day before because he knows that he can't trust himself in the haze of early morning to find everything he needs. In robotic mode he showers and gets ready for work. Then he puts on the kettle and grabs cereal for breakfast. He weighs the cereal and milk into the bowl, somehow convincing himself that he is still on the diet that had helped him lose 15 kilos a year ago. Once he had got his weight where he wanted it the bad habits had slowly crept back in. Now he was back where he started. He felt overweight, overwhelmed and in need of change.

The switch of careers had seemed a good idea at the time. Life is like that. You make changes to improve yourself. Chase your passions. You love cooking at home. You spend your train trip home from the office job thinking of nothing but what you will cook for dinner at night. Why not throw it in and become a chef? Open a cafe? Seemed like a good idea. Now ten years on work is hard and anxiety filled. Sure it's with food, but a job is a job. Maybe it's time to quit. Start out on his own. Open that cafe. Don't let fear hold him back. But, there is always a but. Does he really want to commit to a business? What about travelling and a more balanced life? Is it just a dream? Is a balanced peaceful life just an illusion? Is it really possible? He certainly hopes so.

    He is not alone in this Monday morning struggle. In this city of over 5 million people you can bet that half of them are facing an uphill battle on a Monday morning. He is most definitely not alone. I guess what separates him from the others is that he wants and believes that things can be different. Will the future prove him correct or a fool?

Bradley Pickering ducks back to bed to hug his wife of 3 years for 10 minutes that always turns into 15 minutes before he gives her a kiss and heads out the front door of their two bedroom unit in Southern Sydney. He regrets the feeling that his day has already had it's best moment. It won't get better.

He looks at his phone. The weather app says 11 degrees Celsius. A jumper, a jacket, a beanie, woollen gloves and thick socks will keep him warm until the heater in his 14 year old Toyota Camry starts to kick in. Probably take half of his 20 minute drive to work. At least he works in a kitchen. Once you turn everything on the room will heat up and the weather outside won't be relevant until it is time to go home. He wears headphones on his way to the car so he can listen to a pod-cast or an audio book on the way. He gets in the car switches to the Bluetooth speaker he got from his wife last Christmas. The radio can underachieve when you leave for work at 6am so a couple of years back Bradley switched to pod-casts for his driving listening. At times they can be motivational. Of late the advice is falling on deaf ears. Last month he listened to the four hour work week by Timothy Ferriss, a book on lifestyle design. How to get more time to do what you want to do and less with other members of the rat race. How he craves but as yet has not achieved.

The fog is thick for the drive in. It doesn't affect visibility but you'd much rather be in bed recovering from the weekend than out here heading to the nightmare that work has become. No winter trip to Thailand this year. Saving up for Europe in 12 months time. The goal is to get 12 weeks a year to do as he pleases. Maybe the 1st year the 12 weeks would all be travel. Over time he tells himself he would invest his time in other pursuits. Perhaps a month long meditation retreat to escape the rat race completely. Slow life down. Absorb every moment, live as Eckhart Tolle says "in the now". Think not of the future or the past. Be in the moment. Feel every movement and worry about nothing. Worry will not change anything. Bad will happen, good will happen. Just be. A month of quiet solitude seems right now to be a million miles away. Simplify my life he tells himself. One day.