Google eMailed me earlier with my travel stats for 2023 and I am left blinking at a mess of contradictions.
I’ll get to the numbers in a bit – scroll down for graphs! – but not before I properly fret about the messy interplay between the state of Momma Nature, providing for the family and my sanity.
As any self employed/gig economy person is all too painfully aware: no work = no money. So you take care of your health, make good choices, strive to keep clients onside and – personally, with a side of bitter irony – burn yourself out in the process. I always feared it would be an Ian Beer failing that would lead to a breakdown in household economics, instead it was a global intervention. Pandemic. When the world locked down, my income vanished and I didn’t see it coming.
Of course there were contingencies – rainy day savings in lieu of tempting shiny things – but these were not geared for the kind of business interruption faced.
The upside? I cycled, walked and stayed put more than ever. The glorious side effects including weight loss and a shrunken carbon footprint.
I made do with virtual work via Teams et al, but the cost of living crisis meant this wasn’t going to cut it forevs. So when BAU returned in 2023, my world expanded to became the world again. A confluence of scrambling to replace lost income on the one hand, satisfying client demands on the other.
What I am trying to say that most of my work is now accidentally overseas with 2023 travel being (largely) a by-product of lots of discrete, disparate variables.
And this is what bakes m’noodles: how do I make 2024 more environmentally friendly, wealthy and healthy?
Mitigations
- I should point out that – sound effect: rare moment of IB acknowleding own worth klaxon – there are customers who are prepared to gather people together so that I might teach them. They consider this worthwhile.
- To run any face-to-face event requires travel and efforts are put in place to rendezvous at the most efficient location. So IB long-haul travel is offset by dint of the audience nipping round the corner to the venue. Mo’ to the Mountain and not the other way around.
- May I also say that pre June 2016, clientele were a UK majority. Since Brexit, people invesment in UK PLC has radically shrunk: I have been forced overseas to find meaningful work in my field (so to speak). Brexit has not been of any benefit whatsoever in our household. Quite the opposite.
- I have also been on holiday. (How did that get there? What’s the opposite of a mitigation?)
All of the above points to the images below and the mind boggling fact that I have lapped the globe over three times in the last twleve months, been to 11 countries and 562 “places”.
2023: Sweden to South Africa, India to Iowa.
The following is shameful. I have hardly cycled*.
Yes I have walked and taken lots of trains but OMFG have I flown!? And driven**…
*And to think I used to consider myself a keen cyclinst.
**Driven in fuel efficient cars. And taken scheduled flights on latest (current) technology aircraft. Plus complied/exceeded corporate client demands for offsetting.
It does make one wonder if having a 100% green electricity supplier, diligently recycling household items and compmosting food waste is worth it… [audible sigh]
EPILOGUE:
January 2024: am not going anywhere, no work, no plans.
Am already a bit bored.
aroundtheworldin84days 