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London, it\u2019s over, and it\u2019s not me, it\u2019s you. At what point do we say enough’s enough and actually realise we’d rather live in affordable cities?\u00a0This isn’t a ‘goodbye’ though, this is just a see you later as I’m not done with you yet, not by a long shot. The problem with your dream city is that they have a habit of becoming real. You may look at London, New York or Paris as cities bustling with opportunity, and to some extent that is true, but real life problems are never too far behind. At this time of writing I have had to leave London and reevaluate what I actually want out of life because breathing smog and spending half of my earnings on rent was never going to be a long term solution.<\/p>\n
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<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\nThe universe is always sending you signals, it’s just a matter of recognising them. I’m quite an athletic person but one morning I woke up and felt truly terrible. Both physically and mentally. I cannot narrow it down to just one thing but a combination of stress, diet, personal issues and environment must have played a part. The solution was simple – change my routine, return to basics and give my body a much needed detox<\/a>. In times like these unconditional love from friends and family\u00a0is invaluable.<\/p>\n I also began listening to a lot of Alan Watts, a British philosopher\u00a0best known as an interpreter and populariser of Eastern philosophy for a Western audience. He outlined concepts of love, work and pleasure in such a simple way I wondered how I got through 25 years of life without them. Below I have transcribed one of his talks in the hope it jolts your mind into action in a way it did for me.<\/p>\n “In music one doesn\u2019t make the end of a composition the point of the composition. \u00a0If that were so the best conductors would be those who played fastest, and there would be composers who wrote only finales. People would go to concerts just to hear one crashing chord; because that\u2019s the end!<\/em><\/p>\n But we don\u2019t see that as something brought by our education into our every day conduct. We\u2019ve got a system of schooling that gives a completely different impression. It\u2019s all graded. And what we do is we put the child into the corridor of this grade system with a kind of \u201ccome on kitty kitty kitty\u201d, and now you go to kindergarten. And that\u2019s a great thing because when you finish that you get into first grade, and then come on; first grade leads to second grade and so on, and then you get out of grade school. <\/em><\/p>\n Now you\u2019re going to go to high school, and it\u2019s revving up \u2013 the thing is coming. Then you go to college, and by\u00a0Jove\u00a0then you get into graduate school and when you\u2019re through with graduate school you go out and join the World!\u00a0<\/em>And then you get into some racket where you\u2019re selling insurance. And they\u2019ve got that quota to make, and you\u2019re gonna make that. And all the time that thing is coming. It\u2019s coming, it\u2019s coming! That great thing, the success you\u2019re working for. Then when you wake up one day at about 40 years old you say \u201cMy God! I\u2019ve arrived! I\u2019m there\u201d. And you don\u2019t feel very different from what you always felt.<\/em><\/p>\n And there\u2019s a slight let down because you feel there\u2019s a hoax. And there was a hoax. A dreadful hoax. They made you miss everything. We thought of life by analogy with a journey, with a pilgrimage which had a serious purpose at the end and the thing was to get to that end. Success or whatever it is, or maybe heaven after you\u2019re dead.\u00a0<\/em>But we missed the point the whole way along. It was a musical thing and we were supposed to sing or to dance while the music was being played.”<\/em><\/p>\n I’m glad I cracked the game when I did and didn’t spend any more years chasing this arbitrary recognition or fame or whichever name one chooses to call it. My drive and determination have not diminished, in fact this learning experience has\u00a0made me stronger. There is also a weight that is lifted off your shoulders when you realise the only person you’re in competition with is yourself.<\/p>\n The most important things in life such as friends and family and social connections are free. They’re also really good for us because loneliness kills both figuratively and literally. I don’t wish to dissuade anyone from following their dreams or their heart but do so without sacrificing important things and people in your life. So London, thank you for teaching me this invaluable lesson and the next time we see each other I hope you welcome me with open arms.<\/p>\n Thanks for reading my\u00a0latest article. Give it a share using the links below so others can enjoy it too. For more check out my\u00a0latest lookbook from Paris<\/a>, street style from London Collections<\/a> or my trip to the magical city of Coimbra<\/a>.<\/p>\n As always stay classy and if you have a story you wish to share\u00a0please contact editorial@thestyledivision.com<\/strong> or tag your social posts with #DVSN<\/strong><\/p>\n INSTAGRAM<\/a> | TWITTER<\/a> | FACEBOOK<\/a> | PINTEREST<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" London, it\u2019s over, and it\u2019s not me, it\u2019s you. At what point do we say enough’s enough and actually realise we’d rather live in affordable cities?\u00a0This isn’t a ‘goodbye’ though, this is just a see you later as I’m not done with you yet, not by a long shot. The problem with your dream city […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":11249,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,7,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wellbeing-mindfulness-health-journal","category-mens-lifestyle-magazine-blog","category-photography-journal-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/antondee.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/antondee.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/antondee.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/antondee.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/antondee.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11229"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/antondee.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11229\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14108,"href":"https:\/\/antondee.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11229\/revisions\/14108"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/antondee.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/antondee.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/antondee.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/antondee.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"somerset](\"http:\/\/www.antondee.com\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/london-i-love-you-photography-things-to-do-8.jpg\")
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<\/p>\n\n\t\t\t\t![\"london](\"https:\/\/antondee.com\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/london-i-love-you-photography-things-to-do-22-768x1024.jpg\")
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<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\nYou Are Enough<\/h2>\n
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