Life without a blackberry - a prologue

I thought it may be slightly cool to record what happens in my new life in the next few months now that I've quit my lawyer job - a life without timesheets, workload capacity emails, security tokens, endless passwords, logging in and out of phones and, best (or worst, some may feel) of all, my blackberry!

Of course it's also a life without the handsome salary, the perks, the I-work-in-the-City prestige, the free gym (not that I ever used it), the dream holidays, and the corporate speak I find myself missing a little! I also miss those crazy lovely people who work so hard, with whom I shared many late nights and weekends working on the same or different projects.

Before I left A&O many of those well-meaning crazy lovely people expressed their mixed feelings of envy, admiration and horror at my decision to jump ship. I'm still not entirely sure what kind of ship this is but no doubt it is a very different kind of ship from the old one.

Perhaps reality has yet to really sink in, but I am feeling rather liberated and excited about the future. Somehow the prospects of the future unknown (and the lack of incoming cash flow) seem slightly less menacing now that (I think) I've overcome the money hurdle in my head i.e. that I will not be having the kind of life that I was going to have in material terms if I had chosen to stay on in the legal field.

It is way too early to assess whether I will have any regrets choosing the life without a blackberry. I'm sure things will get tough at some point. My plan is to try and always remember two of the things that have helped me get here in the first place:

first, what Richard Nelson Bolles said in his book How to Find Your Mission in Life, that there is really another dimension to life than the materialistic, and

second, what Rob wrote in an e-mail to me when we first met which he often quotes in his school presentations - "Don't ask what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive..." - John Eldredge, Wild at Heart,

and hopefully I will press on!

PS Happy Christmas to all!
PPS for my A&O friends: I know I'm not following the A&O house style... it's okay... :)