I spent fifteen years in Thailand. That’s enough time to forget what seasons actually do.
Thailand doesn’t really have seasons-it has the hot season and the slightly-less-hot season, and that’s about it. Your life stays more or less the same all year. You go out when you want. You work at the same pace. The weather doesn’t really ask anything of you; it just is.
Then I came back to the UK.
And I noticed something that seemed so obvious I almost missed it: everyone’s exhausted because they’re fighting nature.
Not metaphorically. Literally.
The Thing Nobody Talks About
I’m settling back into proper British life now-proper cold, proper darkness, the whole thing-and I find myself naturally wanting to slow down. The shorter days aren’t a bug in my system; they’re a feature. My body’s saying, “Right, we’re going to do different things now.” And I listen.
Then I watch other people and they seem to be doing the opposite. Fighting it. Maintaining summer pace into December. Expecting the same social energy in January as they had in July. Same workload, same intensity, same everything. And they’re running on fumes by February.
Here’s what I’ve realised: most of us live one life in four different containers. Summer gets the same schedule as winter. Same workout routine, same social commitments, same everything. We treat seasons like they’re irrelevant, like nature’s just background noise.
But it’s not background noise. It’s a rhythm. And when you stop fighting it and start dancing with it, everything changes.
This isn’t me prescribing some grand universal truth. God knows, I’m sceptical of anyone who claims they’ve found the way everyone should live. But I’ve figured out how I want to live-and I think it’s worth sharing, not because you should copy it, but because it might make you wonder: What if I’m exhausted because I’m swimming upstream?
How I Actually Live It
Let me just walk through how I’ve carved this up.
Summer is my open season. June, July, August-that’s when I’m up for anything. I’m socialising more, staying out later, driving further. I’ll go for a hike or a bike ride without thinking twice. If the weather’s absolutely gorgeous, I’ll take a weekday off and go out. (I’ll just make up the work on Saturday or Sunday, no drama.) I’m exercising outdoors-running, cycling, whatever. This is also when I’m more likely to date, more willing to plan things in the evenings, more open to spontaneous plans. My wardrobe shifts. I’m eating salads and lighter stuff. The evenings are long, so I’m spending them outside more often.
Autumn is when I knuckle down. September, October, November-by this point, the summer’s been brilliant, I’ve had my time with mates, I’ve been out plenty. Now the weather’s noticeably darker and colder. My body’s saying, “Right, let’s go inward.” I’m socialising much less-not because I’m antisocial, but because I’m genuinely content to stay in a warm house when it’s dark and cold outside. I’m not pretending to want what I don’t want anymore. I’ve joined the gym because running outside doesn’t feel appealing anymore. I’m playing squash again. I’m working harder-real focus time. My diet shifts. Suddenly soups are everywhere. My wardrobe changes. These are the months where I’m actually happy being at home, not fighting it.
Then Christmas arrives at the tail end of autumn, and I’ll happily sacrifice any other pleasures until then because I know I’m going to properly enjoy that break.
Winter carries on into early spring-January through March. It’s more of the same. I’m not wanting to socialise. I’m focused on work. I’m saving money (because I spent plenty in summer). Squash and swimming are my sports now-both indoors, because the thought of running in the dark doesn’t appeal. My evenings might get TV, films, video games-guilt-free leisure time. My diet’s still soup-heavy. My wardrobe’s still thick jumpers and layers.
Spring is the transition. March and April-I start to feel it shifting. I’m dipping my toe back out. The outdoor running starts to feel possible again. I’m emerging a bit, but not fully. I’m still working, but the pace’s loosening.
Then summer rolls around again, and I flip the whole script.
Three-month cycles. Different activities, different pace, different energy, different social load. Same person, four different configurations.
What This Actually Fixes
I saw a client once-mid-40s, successful business owner, the kind of person who prides himself on consistency. All year, same pace. Same amount of clients. Same gym routine. Same expectations of himself. Come February, he was burned out. Not exhausted, burned out. And when I asked him what his winter looked like, he said: “Same as summer. Why would it be different?”
I said, “What if it didn’t have to be?”
We mapped out what he’d actually want to do if the seasons didn’t have to be identical. Turns out, in winter, he wanted to work on business strategy instead of client load. He wanted to be in the gym instead of running outside. He wanted fewer social commitments. The idea wasn’t to work less-it was to work differently.
By the time spring came around, his entire energy had shifted. He wasn’t fighting the season. He was working with it.
I worked with someone else-lovely woman, quite introverted-who felt guilty for being sociable in summer and withdrawn in winter. She thought something was wrong with her, like she was defective somehow. She’d push herself to be social all year because she thought she “should.” By autumn, she was frayed.
When I reframed it-“That’s not a flaw. That’s your nervous system paying attention. Winter withdrawal isn’t broken; it’s wisdom”-something shifted. She gave herself permission to be different in different seasons. She wasn’t fighting her nature anymore; she was following it.
Suddenly, when she did socialise in autumn and winter, it was because she genuinely wanted to, not because she thought she should. And when she naturally pulled back, she wasn’t berating herself. She was just… honouring how she actually felt.
The Obvious Thing We’ve All Forgotten
Here’s what I genuinely think: we’ve built a culture where we pretend seasons don’t matter. We’ve got central heating and electric lights and year-round gyms, so we act like nature’s irrelevant.
But nature doesn’t care what we pretend. Your body knows the difference between June and December. Your nervous system registers that the light’s different, the temperature’s different, the world’s different. And when you ignore that, when you grind at the same pace all year like some kind of human machine, something eventually breaks.
It doesn’t have to be that way.
This isn’t me saying everyone should live exactly like I do. Maybe your seasons look totally different. Maybe you live somewhere without seasons at all, and you need to find a different rhythm. Maybe you’ve got commitments that mean you can’t shift things around. I get that. But even small acknowledgments-“Winter’s my quiet season. Summer’s my social season”-can shift how much you’re fighting yourself.
The question isn’t: Am I doing this right?
The question is: Am I fighting nature, or am I dancing with it?
Because once you start noticing the seasons-really noticing them-it’s hard to unsee how much energy you were wasting pretending they didn’t exist.
