I Think I’ve Begun My Second Life
With the lovely Chris Wilson aka Stckmn
I’ve been reading through some of my old blog posts lately, and it’s strangely amusing to see where my head was at over the past 12 months. It’s like looking at old photographs. You smile, you wince, you sometimes wonder what on earth you were thinking.
I’ve ranted about leaving Instagram, only to return a year later. I’ve announced a ‘no-buy 2025’, then promptly reinvented my entire autumn wardrobe. No wonder people end up abandoning their blogs altogether.
But the thing is, blog posts don't reflect how we think right now. They are a record of how we felt back then. A snapshot. A moment in time. And that is exactly their value.
We’re each on our own paths. We figure things out as we go along. One foot in front of the other. Sometimes we make breakthroughs. Other times, we stagnate. All of it is healthy and human.
Interestingly, I’m no longer embarrassed by past photographs, musings or mishaps. I really like the person I was and who I’m becoming. And I owe much of that to what happened to me on 6 January 2024 when I herniated a disc in my lumbar spine, and my whole world was turned upside down. Recovery has been slow and ongoing, but two years in, I’d say I’m about 96 per cent there.
I was chatting about all this with the brilliant Kwame Taylor-Hayford today. Co-founder of Kin and former D&AD president. He reminded me of the quote, “We have two lives, and the second begins when we realise we only have one”.
Often attributed to Confucius, it speaks to that moment of waking up. When life stops feeling theoretical. When you show up with more honesty. When you care less about the noise and more about what actually matters. And you tell those damn negative voices in your own head to pipe down.
I was telling Kwame how I feel like I’ve been given a second chance. How grateful I am for everything I have. How much more confident I am now, showing up as myself and not allowing anything or anyone to hold me back. It’s been incredibly liberating.
Sometimes I feel a flicker of anger for not getting here sooner. But the truth is, the hardest periods of our lives are often the ones that give us the most. Not all at once. But for a long time after.
This chapter of my life has been the most challenging and painful by far. Yet I am deeply grateful for it. It taught me who I am. And it clarified how I want my life to feel from here on in.
So think about it. If you truly accepted that you have just one life, what would you change? What would you stop overthinking? What would you finally let yourself go after? Who or what would you move out of your way? I have a feeling 2026 is going to be brilliant. I think I’ve begun my second life.