As I sit here watching the sun struggle up through a layer of cloud over the Coromandel Peninsula, I’m grateful to have the opportunities that lie ahead for the day. My kids are still asleep, ready to wake and get to school, my wife is working at NZ Fashion Week and the cat and the dog want feeding. I am charging into the manuscript for my 3rd book, have plenty of speaking and clinical work coming up, and Spring is here. Not only that, I am about to buy shares in my own plane based on Waiheke Island. Have a speaking job in Methven on Saturday in the South island to a group of Doctors on “Healthy Thinking”. Taking my 13 year old son and Co-pilot and we then have 10 days in a Camper van around Wanaka and the South Island. We will be walking in Primeval Forests, looking for Greenstone, catching up with friends and exploring Lord of The Rings Countryside.

Life could not be much better really. Some of you may be thinking “Lucky ……….!!”

Well I have to inform you that luck has not had much to do with it. Plenty of blood sweat and tears in fact. Many years of study and sacrifices in libraries, exams, writing books, speaking in all sorts of places to all sorts of audiences. Things that have not gone to plan. Computers that haven’t worked, travel plans that have come unstuck broken limbs, all sorts of crazy stuff that makes life what it is. many hours learning to fly, more exams, medicals and evading dodgy weather!! Wouldnt swap it for anything.

As I sit here typing, looking out over the Hauraki Gulf, the day cant decide if it going to be grey or fine. I am not sure it has much choice as sheets of low cloud laden with moisture start to fill the horizon at speed from the South West. As I sit here I cant help but think of a friend who passed away about a week ago. Having worked plenty of shifts at the hospital as a doctor in recent months you get to see a lot of sick people who have terminal illness.

I am grateful to see this day. To have the opportunities it will bring and the challenges I will face. I remind myself that Happiness is a State of mind and of my old school motto, Carpe Diem, ”Seize the Day”.

Not only is it good to be breathing, its good to be happy about it. So get out and get stuck into it yourself.