Life is too short for the wrong job



"Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary." - Steve Jobs

It's five years to the day since I left the UK to live in NZ in instead. It was Christmas Day 1999 when I decided to move back here, after walking away from a wrong job situation. I'd always known that I'd come back to live in New Zealand one day, after growing up on tales of these halcyon islands. Where the grass really was greener, and the men looked like warriors off Xena.

I have not been disappointed on either of these things, and it has got so much more to offer than beautiful people and pristine beaches. New Zealand feels like a country full of promise. A place that's just waking up to its full potential. Every day I remind myself how lucky I am to live in this gorgeous place. But it hasn't been easy.

It's hard leaving pretty much everything you have known and loved behind. Then having to a build a new and hopefully better life. It took a plan and a lot of determination to emigrate here, but it can be done and it really is worth it. It can be hard to get your first job, and you may have to take a dramatic paycut. Just because you earned 30K in London doesn't mean you'll earn anywhere like 90K NZ whatever the current exchange rate. But you do get to live on island time near to a beach, and wake up to blue skies for the best part of nine months where I live.

Check out the recent adventures of of new Kiwis Eric and Amber with pictures at their blog of their recent trip to Devonport. They used tolive in New Orleans before Katrina hit. Now this is the stream at the bottom of their West Auckland garden: