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This week I am handing over my Pluralists Newsletter to Caspar Bowes of Bowes Wine with whom we have started a Pluralists Club Wine Offer.  Members get a wine voucher every month and Caspar will regularly attend our Pluralists Opportunity Club events with some wine to taste and talk about.  Caspar is also an expert in wine investing so his insights below will be of interest to members and non-members alike.

People embark on a pluralist life for all sorts of reasons; to have a better work/life balance, to explore new options, to pursue a passion or to give something back.  We all have different motivations and priorities but what’s interesting is that trying one new thing can so often lead to trying a whole range of other new things.  Meeting new people opens doors in so many ways too, be they educational, practical or financial.

There are all sorts of things that most of us just accept without question.  These things sometimes shift and change (the environment, political discourse, gender issues) whilst others are fairly constant (death, taxes, human nature) but for the most part, we accept those things which we are used to and only challenge new stuff. 

I won’t surprise anyone by saying that sometimes my phone is my worst enemy.  Half the icons have notifications on them and some of those notification numbers are scarily high.  Text, email, WhatsApp, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook… most of us are pretty much in thrall to these - and many more - whether it’s for work or for leisure.  We have to develop skills to manage the information coming at us so that we can deal with urgent situations, keep track of our loved ones and remain on top of everything else.

If you had your time again, what would you do differently?  Hang on to those shares for a bit longer?  Buy that property that didn’t seem quite cheap enough but was, in fact, an absolute bargain? Take that other job with the slightly lower salary but which would have been so much more interesting?  Study something else at university? Marry that person?

It’s hard to get back into gear at this time of year isn’t it?  Even if we feel fired up by our new year’s resolutions or we’ve successfully been to the gym a few times, the dark, damp, cold days, the rest of winter stretching ahead and the thought of a whole year looming in front of us, full of tiresome commitments can make it very difficult to feel enthusiastic.

Yes, I know you were hoping to relax and not think about work BUT this is the perfect time to consider what you really want from life.   Away from the usual routine we can reflect, strategize and begin to implement a new career which suits us so that, come the new year, we are ready to go.

I caught the second half of a song I had completely forgotten about the other day and was so excited to be reminded of it that I actually downloaded it.  It’s playing in my head as I write and making me feel very jolly.

It’s interesting at this time of year how easily we all start to slough off our work personas and begin thinking about spending a week or two with our families, safe in the knowledge that everyone else is doing the same.  It’s a time a of year when it is reasonable to unavailable, there’s nothing much going on and no one expects particularly urgent results.