I have found, and I am sure you will all agree, that any sort of development work requires a high level of creativity, being able to look at something from multiple viewpoints and having the ability to adapt. These are all skills that are transferrable to anything in life, whether that is your professional life, your personal life or that part of your life that houses your creative passions. We need to use these creative passions as a time simply for ourselves, to recharge and to re-invent ourselves. It is not sustainable to always be about work, as it is not sustainable to be always about ourselves, there needs to be a balance between the two and, if you get the mix right, each can feed the other.

One of my creative passions is photography, specifically nature, birds, trees, sunsets and moon rises – you get the picture (no pun intended) – and in order to stalk that perfect photo I need to spend hours standing or sitting quietly, waiting for that moment when the bird comes into view or when the moon finally peeps over the horizon or when the perfect still sunset is reflected in the lake. How many of you have gone out to the bush and just stood quietly and listened and watched? It is a moment of serenity in a world moving at a frenetic pace.