As the evening started to close in yesterday, I looked out onto the garden to witness a cloak of low-lying mist shrouding the grass and lower branches of the trees. I don’t know much poetry, but it did evoke memories of my favourite poem, Ode to Autumn by Keats. In turn, that memory prompted a reminisce of my English teacher, Mrs Clarke, saying that she guaranteed that we would always recall the opening stanza of the poem for the rest of our lives. I thought that highly unlikely at the time, but it would seem she had a point.
In talking about autumn, I appreciate I am jumping the gun from an astronomical perspective but claim justification from the meteorological definition. In any event, the point of the blog is not so much about the season, rather the changes we see on a cyclical basis through life. I have just passed the anniversary of my company’s first year of incorporation, so I am embarking on the process of financially drawing the line under one year as I move forward to the next. These sorts of events, like the passing of the seasons, give us pause to reflect. For me, the reflections range from how I initially felt about establishing a company, what it would mean from an operational and financial perspective through to the commitment to a particular path in my life. It was almost as if the formality of becoming incorporated cemented the route of self-employment, or rather being the sole employee of the company.
Over the past month or so I’ve had several conversations with people in a similar position to me. Those who have taken the plunge and decision to forgo the security of employment and, instead, ventured out on their own. Although nobody I’ve spoken with has regretted their choice, the degrees of confidence about future success have been varied. I think partly this is a function of what is being sought from going it alone – is it a step to achieve a better balance between life in work and non-work or is it borne of an entrepreneurial ambition to succeed, albeit in a solo venture. Personally, I am pleased with my choice and feel certain that it is a path I shall continue but have no doubts there will be wobbles and conflicts of thought along the way.
Continuing the theme of reflections, I decided to look back through my prior blogs and have just realised that I’ve used today’s topic before. I wrote a blog in December last year entitled ‘Seasons of mists and mellow fruitfulness’ (I must have similarly agonised there about using the quote as it was written in winter!) In it I reflect on the cyclicality of investments – what is the latest thinking and what is out of favour.
So, I get to the point in the blog where I always spend the most time and usually produce the least in terms of words. The ‘so-what’ test – what does this blog say and what are the lessons? As with so many of my blogs, this is just another stream of random thoughts. So if you’ve reached this point, thank you and sorry there is nothing in particular by way of life lesson. Perhaps if there is, it is that we should use the signs of change around us to pause, reflect and think before moving onto seasons new.
