Last week I was a few minutes early arriving for a meeting and on the spur of the moment I walked into an office, now empty, which I used to work in with eighteen other people.

In a re-organisation a few years ago, our team were scattered into many different organisations during a period of great uncertainty for all of us.

As I stood in that vacated empty space, I became aware of echoes from the past. I could hear the voices of all my colleagues as I remembered them by dwelling momentarily at their old space within the office.

The noise of laughter and chatter and of my colleagues shouting over the desks for information and updates but also the fun times and the gossip all came flooding back.

I then became aware, quite suddenly, of all my old insecurities, which are old in the sense that they were of that time, and I was able in a very unique way to see how many of my fears at that time had been based on futile expressions of my lack of confidence, fear of failing, fear of being ridiculed, fear of losing my job.

I felt, in the echoes of that vacated space, of how secure I had felt in that team, despite my fears and I was able to reflect on how I have had in the past a great propensity to fear the future for so many years of my life.

The nostalgia I felt in that vacated space moved me, but at the same time helped me to realise that a morbid focus on the “what if’s” of tomorrow has caused me real harm in the present as I have journeyed through.

My current journey of self-discovery and self acceptance has enabled me to acknowledge the future but to live in the now. 

My next blog will be:  Desert Island Discs

William Defoe