… but I don’t mean the UK. I mean the place that really feels like home in the South of Thailand. After a very quiet and relaxing few days in Chiang Mai and the surrounding area and a detour back to Bangkok to see a new member of the family (she is only 4 days old and beautiful) we are flying back home where Kan will be going back to work and I’ll have half a day everyday for the rest of my trip to get stuck into some work again. I am really looking forward to the routine. An early start, some vipassana, breakfast, some reading, a run on the beach and then work until the mid afternoon.
Many things to do and all of them fun!

I have to say that my interest in agloco has somewhat dropped to almost zero, which is why I have taken the link off this site. It felt out of place here for me for a while anyway. I think they may have difficulty being taken seriously when the launch date remains unconfirmed and seemingly forever in the future.

I do like carrots, but they lose their flavour when they are dangled on a stick in front of you for too long if you get my drift.

Anyway, good luck to those who stick with the scheme. I think I’ll do better coming up with my own big idea, which is what I am doing.

Here is another sunset picture, for a change! This is my favourite one so far.

Well I have an internet connection for a few days. I have spent the last week in the South of Thailand living close to the jungle with geckos and mosquitoes!

My experience since I have arrived has been extremely varied since I arrived in Thailand. I have been in a house on the beach in Phuket, a house in the South surrounded by trees to meet the new family (very lovely people). I had the honour of being the wedding photographer at a very big traditional Thai wedding. I was busy all day and I loved every minute of it.
Now I am in Bangkok on the 55th floor of The Lebua Hotel in the State Tower with an aerial view of the city and the Chao Praya River. High speed internet is included with the room, so I don’t have to endure any internet cafes. It is a lovely 5-star hotel suite and absolute luxury. A very different environment to the last week.

On 24th we will be flying to Chiang Mai and after a few days we will meet up with our honeymooning friends. I have never been to Chiang Mai before, so I am looking forward to it greatly.

I think soon I will put up another sunset picture here because the photos I took at Phromthep Cape in Phuket were lovely.

OK. Time for some tags. I’m so slow on all these terms, but it seems a few people have tagged me and it looks like simple adding a link to their site. Seeing as some people have been very kind in that regard to me I’ll do the same here in no particular order of preference…

Maria - The Good Life
Robin - Fortune Watch
Albert - The Urban Monk

I have just added a review of a product that has made a big difference to my way of thinking and living, which I am really happy about. This is the first review on this site and if you have followed Leave The Office from the beginning you will notice how things have evolved here.

Please feel free to read it. Once I get time I will structure all reviews in a review section that will be easier to navigate.

I will not be reviewing anything that I have not experienced myself or that I do not feel provides any value to anyone. I just don’t believe in wasting anyone’s time including my own, which is why I have taken the time to review this product. I believe it will provide a valuable contribution to anyone who engages with it.

Wealth Beyond Reason Review

Oh no! Not another sunset picture!

Yes I’m afraid so. If you care to look and if you are lucky enough to find yourself in such a place you will see that every sunset is different from the last. It is a reminder that everything is recreated from scratch in every moment and that nothing in our world can be taken for granted. I reserve the right to post as many sunset pictures as I like.

Every waking moment is a gift, so don’t spend more time than is necessary asleep.

This morning at 6am I stepped out onto the beach for Vipassana and so far today has been a perfect day. running on the beach and being tossed about by the waves in the sea.

Wow! It is a great feeling sitting outside my room with a view of the ocean and the beach, writing this post. The last couple of mornings I have woken up late, maybe due to the re-adjustment of the time difference, but I still found the motivation to go for a run on the beach after breakfast. Admittedly I didn’t last long doing that, but I went for a swim in the sea instead. The sea looks calm here, but the waves pull you right out and then wash you right back again, such is the power of nature.

The biggest bonus of all is that if I sit outside my room I am able to pick up the wireless internet connection from a nearby hotel, which is just great. so now you can see in the picture my new "office".

The flight from Heathrow to Bangkok was the most comfortable one I can remember. 11 hours seemed to melt away to nothing, which is always welcome in such a situation. Not sleeping too much during the day prior to the flight after my nightshift helped I think. I was able to get a good 6 or 7 hours sleep and the rest of the time was spent eating and watching movies.

I really welcomed that heat hitting me in the face as I stepped off the plane as it confirmed that I was in the right place. That feeling is amazing. You know you’ve arrived in Bangkok, when you feel that hot, humid air! In no time I was through immigration and in the domestic terminal waiting for my flight to Phuket and at about 6pm I was emerging from the terminal at Phuket airport with my bag to find her there waiting for me.

The anticipation was enough to put a smile on my face, but the feeling I had dropping my bag and picking her up was pure joy. "That’s living alright" I said to myself. We got to our destination just in time to see the sunset over the sea and then enjoyed a sublime dinner, in one of our favourite restaurants on the beach. Thai food is the best and I am so very grateful to feel like a very wealthy man indeed.

I have less than 4 hours of my last shift for 38 days!

In about 17 hours time I will be unattached to English soil and speeding my way to the Land Of Smiles.

That excited, holiday feeling always hits me when I board the Heathrow Express train at Paddington Station in London. I take a seat and the sound of the advertisements and travel montages on the TV screens in the train give me the feeling that I am already somewhere more exotic. It is guranteed to lift my mood even more than it is right now.

After that I anticipate my mood being lifted a further 3 times. The take-off from Heathrow where I really will be on my way, the landing in Bangkok, where I will get that warm feeling again being in a country I truly love and the biggest lift will come after walking out the exit of the domestic arrivals terminal at Phuket Airport where the person I call teerak (my love) is waiting to greet me.

The sun will be preparing itself to fall in the sky and the first thing we will do on arrival at our destination will be an evening stroll on our favourite beach. Then I will know I have arrived for sure.

I am happy.

What does the phrase "Leave The Office" say to you when you read it?

Do you think of getting away on holiday… or vacation?
Do you think, as I do about leaving the 9 to 5 behind and living a life of relative freedom?
Do you have a more abstract idea of what it could mean, like the concept of developing such a joyous relationship with work that the office is no longer experienced as "The Office"?

Comments please……

Leave The Office is changing…

Well actually it would be more accurate to say that it is evolving as I have mentioned already in a recent post Don’t Fight The Process

Since I started this blog I have experienced some profound changes. Through people and things I have discovered on this journey I find myself in a very different place to where I was in November 2006 when Leave The Office started.

After several failed attempts to fulfil my ambitions around my passion for music over the last few years and finding myself repeatedly back at the beginning of a cycle each time I think the Universe itself had had enough of my way of being, bringing about a change that I had no control over and ending the most memorable and educational chapter of my life thus far (see the statement at the bottom of this post).

LTO was born out of a desire to be free from a life of routine that I felt I had experienced enough of, especially after I had seen something of the world that ignited a new fire inside of me. I became inspired by people like Laptop Hobo and Working Nomad , who are out there travelling the world, dancing with life and making their living from website revenue. I whole-heartedly recommend you visit these websites if you have even a passing interest in either travel, money-making or both.

I dreamed of making money whilst not being fixed in one place, essentially not having a typical job and since October 2006 it became clear to me that my life vision includes my girlfriend Kan, who is too magical to describe with mere words, so in November 2006 LTO was born.

Where am I going with this post? What’s my point?

Well seeing as this always was an evolutionary process, it has dragged me along as it finds it’s own direction and that direction is becoming rather distinct. The discoveries I have made in the last 4 or 5 months are too big to ignore and so my writing, reporting if you will is going to reflect that.

As I stumbled into the void of creating my own lifestyle when I started writing this blog I had what I thought was a clear vision of what I wanted, although in truth it was confused, not certain and not really with any specific direction. The work I have done on the way here has created for me a truly clear idea of what I want to do with my life and by documenting it here, re-affirming it and honing the details in words, right here I believe will cement my vision and focus my intent in a more powerful way. It is still my passion for music that drives me, but I feel very different about it. Certain of it’s success in making me happy, but emotionally unattached to how it happens or whether it happens at all. The only emotions I intend to involve in this process are joy and gratitude when things are presented to me

I am having fun learning to live with my ego instead of as my ego, which is the hardest part of all. I am waking up to myself and it’s both hilarious and empowering.

Now despite all the above I don’t want to get all serious. This really seems like a much more fun way to explore life. I want anyone reading this to laugh at my mistakes as much as I do and believe me there will be plenty of them! I explained in an earlier post that the Law of Attraction may become a fixture at Leave The Office and I believe that now it will and, seeing as this is an exciting subject for many and that people are discovering it all the time I believe that here is a good place for people like me, like you, whoever you are reading this to encourage and train each other in designing our own lives and having what we truly want at the expense of nobody.

I stand here for everybody who chooses, to have absolute abundance in their life without exception. Why not? Wouldn’t it be better if everyone was just, well…… happy? I am considering inviting people to post on this blog as and when they wish. I’m not sure yet quite how to do it because, obviously I want quality original content, but this is in an effort to create some kind of unified voice. If you’re interested contact me. I’m open to ideas about how I can manage the content of posts and the conduct of posters.

To finish off this post I have a statement to make.
To those people who I have got to know, work with and create with (and they know who they are) I express my sincerest gratitude to every one of them for everything they taught me and I pray for their happiness and success in the fullest sense.