So what have we learned? (apart from don’t lose your concentration when you jump off a three foot rocky step with your mountain bike!) Now, being back at work, I can reflect back on those 4 weeks when I was at home and unable to do much. I feel that I learned a lot. It may sound strange but I think that I can quite easily get used to life in the slow lane. I often talk with my patients about how difficult it is for the human body to function properly in the fast and furious pace of modern life. Over these four weeks I had the rare chance to seriously slow down. What did I notice? Certainly on weeks 3 and 4, when pain was becoming less of a factor, I noticed that I sleep better, I have more energy and my concentration has improved. But there was something else beyond the physical aspect. I noticed that I can experience my surroundings much better and this has given me a real joy. I think that rushing all the time and having our attention tied up in things we need to do makes us miss a lot of what is actually happening around us.

There is a lot of beauty around that can give us a real joy if we just had the time to pay attention to it (it may sound like the morphine speaking but I finished with it a few weeks ago!). So what is life all about? Is it achieving more goals? Accumulating more staff? Or is it about the joy? Leaving aside the health hazard of our crazily fast modern lifestyle, it also makes it nearly impossible to experience joy! Real joy comes from experiencing the present moment and love.

So is anyone out there going to try and slow down a bit? I certainly am and I hope that some of you will at least try.

Good luck with it. Enjoy.

Ilan