Choosing Less

Lately, I have been feeling something I rarely experience: profound happiness and deep contentment.

The kind of feeling that only seems to arrive when you are fully present in what you are doing, where you are, and with the people around you. It appears in small moments—in conversations, in familiar surroundings, in paying attention rather than rushing ahead to the next thing.

How did I get here?

I’m not entirely sure. But I do know that over the past year I have been making a conscious effort to do less.

That feels like a strange thing to say in a world that constantly tells us to strive for more—more success, more growth, more productivity, more achievement. Yet over the past few years I have realised that this isn’t the path to happiness for me.

Instead, I have been choosing less.

Doing less, but doing it better. Returning to deeper connections that have always mattered to me. Finding joy in small moments I would once have overlooked. Slowing down enough to notice them.

It has been quiet here for a while, but life has certainly not been quiet. Summer tour season has been in full swing, and three Shetland Wool Adventures tours have now been completed successfully. In between, I also managed a quick trip back to the Czech Republic for our 25-year class reunion.

That reunion stayed with me longer than I expected. In fact, it still feels a little like a dream. Like floating on a cloud.

Twenty-five years is a long time. Long enough for youthful plans to be tested by reality, for dreams to change shape, for unexpected joys and disappointments to appear along the way. Sitting with people, some of whom I hadn’t seen for decades, I was struck not by who had achieved the most, but by how differently our lives had unfolded.

When we were young, success often seemed easy to define. More education. More opportunities. More money. More achievement. More certainty.

A quarter of a century later, the picture looked rather different.

The conversations I remember most were not about careers or accomplishments. They were about families, health, friendships, losses, second chances, and the things that matter once enough time has passed. And despite all those experiences, it felt like we had just spoken yesterday, not 25 years ago… It reminded me that there isn’t one correct path through life, and that what we value often changes as we grow older.

Perhaps that is why the decision I am about to describe feels so natural.

The tours themselves have been hard work. At times I felt I reached my limits, especially as I have been cooking most of the meals myself. Yet at the same time, I found exactly what I had been been missing in previous years: deeper connections with people and a return to the reasons I started these tours in the first place.

Over the years, the tours grew and evolved, but somewhere along the way I found myself craving something simpler. Fewer tours. More connection. More time to sit around a table and have a meaningful conversation. More space to enjoy the experience rather than constantly thinking about the next one.

And so I know that this will be the last summer of tours in their current form.

After July, I am taking a break.

People keep asking me what comes next. Nearly everyone I meet asks the same question:

“So what will you do afterwards?”

My answer usually surprises them.

I don’t know.

And that’s exactly the point.

For so much of my adult life, I have always known what the next project was, what the next season would look like, what needed to be organised, promoted, planned, delivered, improved, expanded.

This time, I am choosing not to know.

Not forever. Just for a little while.

I am going to take a few months to recalibrate. To travel. To spend more time with my mum. To tackle projects around the house that have been patiently waiting their turn. To finally learn to knit properly. Perhaps even begin pottery, something I have been talking about for years.

I want to return to photography.

I want to walk more.

I want to work in the garden and grow a few things again.

When I think about all of that, I feel excited.

There are still three tours ahead of me, and by the end of July this particular chapter of my life will come to an end.

So why call this post Choosing Less?

Because the decision to stop the tours, step back from social media, and stop constantly promoting my work inevitably means less income.

Less income—but also less worry.

I recognise that I am fortunate. For years I worked incredibly hard and lived fairly frugally. Because of that, I now know that I can manage with less.

And, perhaps surprisingly, I am looking forward to it.

Not everything is about earning more, expanding further, or driving greater profit.

At this stage of life, my son is turning eighteen and he’s starting a traineeship. That milestone has made me realise how quickly time passes. It feels like a natural point of transition—a moment to pause and ask what I want the next chapter to look like.

I feel extraordinarily lucky to have that choice.

At the same time, I don’t want to waste the opportunity by postponing it. It would be easy to agree to one more year of tours, and then another, and another after that.

But I know that if I don’t take this break now, I probably never will.

Perhaps one day I will return to the tours in some form. I suspect I will. But right now I want to use this precious, hard-earned time differently.

I want to enjoy the beauty around me.

I want to slow down enough to notice the landscape on a walk instead of simply counting the steps. I want to eat better again. I want to spend time in the garden and watch things grow. I want to create things with my hands simply because I enjoy doing so.

In many ways, I am making a very simple trade.

I am exchanging some income for time.

And at this moment in my life, time feels far more valuable.

I know not everyone is in a position to make that choice. We all arrive at different stages of life with different responsibilities and circumstances. But I wanted to explain why I haven’t been as present here or on social media, and why I have been turning down opportunities despite being able to continue successfully with the work I have been doing for the past ten years of Shetland Wool Adventures.

Where does it all lead next?

Honestly, I don’t know.

For now, I still have three tours ahead of me. They will be hard work, and I will do everything I can to make them successful, enjoyable, and memorable for everyone involved.

After that, we’ll see.

What I do know is that a new chapter is beginning.

And I feel deeply grateful—for everything I have achieved so far, for all the wonderful people I have met along the way, for everyone who has joined a tour, returned again, shared kind words, and helped make this journey what it has been.

That means more than I can say.

The future remains uncertain, but for the first time in a long time, that uncertainty feels exciting.

When I slow down enough to notice my life, I find myself feeling something rare: deep contentment.

And perhaps that is the real lesson in choosing less.

Sometimes less isn’t a compromise.

Sometimes less is exactly what makes room for more.

More time.

More presence.

More gratitude.

More joy.

And for now, that feels like more than enough.