I’m cautious by nature. I put money in to my savings first before spending; am always early as I’m afraid of being late (actually scared of it!) and rarely say what I’m thinking if it will hurt someone’s feelings.
This is the way I am and I don’t intend to make a radical u-turn any time soon, but I do sometimes wonder what my life would be like if I did spend all my money on having a good time, turn up when I felt like it and let my hair down completely (this is obviously just a metaphor as I don’t have any hair to let down!).

So in aid of exploration, I did go slightly ‘care-free’ over the past couple of weeks. I think that I have more or less blown my paycheck with over 2 weeks until my next one, managed not to be the first one to arrive to something (this was actually really hard to do for me) and generally not follows my usual modus operandi.

So what have I learned? Well for starters, it can be a lot of fun. I had a fantastic weekend just gone. I was going from one thing to the next without a care in the world. Drinking, dancing, eating out, more dancing, more drinking, being a tourist in my own city, cricket and all with some great friends - it doesn’t get much better than that! In short, I wish I could do it every week; in reality I think that it would kill me - both financially and physically. I’m fine without proper sleep for a few days, but 3 or 4 days on the bounce and I get grumpy - definitely a sign that I’m getting a little older each year.

The other thing that I have learned, is that I like living the way I do. I feel responsible to tuck away my savings every month and to propmt (although I should probably stop being quite so early to everything). It’s who I am and it’s what I do.

It often takes for you to experience the ‘other side’ to realise that you’re happy with the way things are. To this end, when I was in school and college I knew that I defintely didn’t to work in a factory when I grew up, so I spent most summers doing exactly that. The rationale being that I would understand that I could not be doing this for any more than 6 weeks at a time and therefore work hard at school. I don’t work in a factory so that was time well spent, even if I did hate every second of it!

The fact that I enjoyed myself so much recently emphasisses that you need a balance in order to be happy. One crazy weekend every so often is nothing but good for you, so long (for me anyway) as the other 3 are a little less manic.

Everyone needs a little chnage in order to stay fresh. Some people will take this as reading a different book genre and others will jump out of a plane at 10,000 feet. Whatever your change is, find it and do it - just to still feel alive.