One year ago I quit my well-paid, very secure, flexible job of 25 years to do something else. Specifically, the something else I spent most days of the last 5 of the 25 years thinking about doing. If I was going to give so much of my headspace to planning to do other things in the mountains or being other places every day on my bike, then why not do them and what was keeping me at that desk? I didn't want to keep being at the end of abusive calls from people who were dissatisfied with somebody else's actions while breathing recirculated air under harsh artificial lights and staring at a screen, so why was I still sitting there? I ran out of answers and excuses, so I stopped.

At the same time I stopped, I also made a new plan. I secured a place on a full-time course to become an outdoor instructor, plus a place on a university course in sports science which would follow on from that, which was also in an area that would allow me easy access to lots of climbing and other sports, eventually leading higher instructor awards in mountaineering. I was going through some athletics coaching awards and entered in some big adventure races. Edel then took the summer off so we could head to the alps and other places to climb as much as possible and she also started the outdoor instructor course, so we were out kayaking and hillwalking together almost every day. As starts to new plans go, it couldn't have been much better.

Then, cancer. Then, diabetes. I'm sure you're as fed up hearing me mention them as I am saying them, but unfortunately they have become the central factors in all my plans, or the lack of them.  I can still do some work towards salvaging some fitness and also tick a few boxes on my way to some of the outdoor instructor awards, but it's limited and uncertain.

Since the diagnosis, I've joked with former colleagues that I would have stayed in the job if I'd known things would go this way. I'd have been paid for my time off, had access to good medical insurance schemes, still been racking up pension contributions and other benefits, but in truth, I wouldn't want any of that at the price I was paying and the decision is still the right one.

Health-wise, if things get so bad I eventually have to stop pursuing my passions, then I'd have wasted my last able years at a desk. If things get even worse than that, then all the pension points and medical insurance will become irrelevant. If things improve, then the plan is back on and the last place I need to be is back at that desk wishing I'd taken the chance. So, the decision to quit is still the right one.

When I first thought through that review of the decision, it sounded like I was just rationalising it to myself. But I asked around in my internal monologue and it turned out it was true, I am still happy with the decision, because however it works out I'm out there trying, I took the chance and that's been reward enough in itself. It's cliched to say it's better to regret the chances you took than the ones you didn't, but I can tell you it's turned out to be true for me.

I'm still scrambling to get plan B together, but it will probably turn out to be the elements of the first plan that I was most looking forward to and I'll have to drop the secondary parts, or the ones beyond my control so that I use my time pursuing things where nobody but me can stop me, but that's ok, maybe I was overplanning anyway and having to get on with a simplified version is no bad thing.

So, one year on, nothing has gone right, and that's fine. I'm still here keeping the faith and still fighting to make it work. Sometimes all you can do is all you need to do and that's plenty for now.

See you in the hills,

Kevin.