Petrol Heads’ Corner - Finding My Balance David O’Neill*
I have run out of time and the car dealers, believe it or not, have run out of vehicles to enable me to do a car review at this time of the year. However, looking back on the year it is unsurprising that resources are not what they used to be.
the only person on it apart from the person ahead of me and the car behind me) at high speed you can’t afford to have your attention waiver for one second.
2020 has been a year of extremes. Most barristers appear to be flat out with little or no time off. That has brought to the fore the idea of wellness and time out.
I found out to my dismay that when you do focus on something outside the car and your thoughts wander, bad things can happen. It cost me a new car in 2006 when I rolled my, then brand-new rally car, five times and wrecked it.
As editor of the magazine I was instructed/asked to write about finding balance in what I do outside of my practise of law.
I was once told by a friend who was sitting in the silly seat on the left-hand side of the car that “every corner has your name on it”. Never was there a truer word said.
Some of you play golf, some of you go sailing and others might even just read a book. Whatever the case, it is important that you balance your work with pursuits outside of work. We can’t all just sit there and work every day available just because we happen to have the work to do. In this day and age of emails, zoom meetings, texts and other forms of immediate communication it is important to, from time to time, step outside the law and go and do another pursuit completely devoid of anything to do with the law. It took me some years to appreciate that the world didn’t stop turning just because I decided to take a holiday. I know that Jim Farmer QC is a great supporter of work/life balance. I am as well. While it may appear to some that I am complete nutty about cars (they are probably right) [subed – we are definitely right] it is still important to have a way to release yourself from your practise. Racing for me has been a real outlet which has allowed me to step away from the law and put to one side communication with the office, communication with clients and thinking about cases. When I strap myself into the car, slap on the helmet and hook up the intercom system with my co-driver, it’s something that I have to do which is completely divorce myself from the law. Driving along a narrow country road (albeit I’m
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I went from competitor to spectator in the space of about 10 seconds. Neither myself nor my codriver were hurt at the time. The ache started later in my pocket when I had to rebuild the car. There is a saying in racing. There are those competitors that have crashed and those who are going to crash. There is no other type of competitor. Most competitors in Targa have crashed. Some have crashed very badly, and on one occasion a competitor lost his leg, and on another, a competitor became confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life. One’s heart goes out to those who do suffer injury of a significant nature but, by the same token, we all go into it knowing that there is a risk that something dreadful might happen. In some regard we also believe that it will always happen to “the other guy”.
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