
Hello, we are Hayley & David and we are recovering
stuff-aholics
So there we were.
Mid 30’s, with everything we were told we needed for ultimate happiness. Big house, 2 cars, big telly, nice holiday every year, etc - you get the idea, the classic western picture of ‘success’
But guess what? We didn’t feel successful.
In fact, with every new box we ticked, we got more and more concerned that we’d been sold a big fat fib.
The dream house with 2 great jobs was meant to signal peak happiness. Some sort of utopian panacea where all our issues would dissolve and we could just drift along in uninterrupted bliss, enjoying the spoils of life…
...but it didn’t, and it got us talking.
We’d completed the so-called ‘happiness tick-list’ and according to most sources, we had a dream life, but we quickly spotted 2 big problems, 1) Happiness isn't a destination, you can't 'get there', happiness is just a series of fleeting moments & 2) That was never our list to begin with!
It’s a list, obtained via osmosis, mostly from the media, that keeps the capitalist machine marching on. We’re trained to think we never have enough, to keep us on the corporate hamster-wheel, so that we can ‘finally get a TV as big as the ones on the adverts’... one day - what a crock of shit.
So we sat down, wrote our own list, started working out how we give ourselves the time and space to embrace those fleeting moments when they came, and started Be The Sunshine.
Our very own, intentional, operation happiness, and spoiler alert - it doesn’t involve having the best house on the street, the newest car in the garage, or the ultra stressful job that pays you more than you’ll ever need.
3 years later, and 95% lighter on possessions, we left the UK in search of something different.
We didn’t want to just exist within some imagined framework, we wanted to start living. We wanted to start living on our own terms, where the only boundaries are the ones in your own mind.
So here we are, 2 humans, currently living in Bali, trying to do things a little differently.
And this is our story...

Name: David
Age: 37
Home town: Swanage (Dorset)
Dream place of residence: at least 3 countries per year
Current occupation: Data and analytics geek
Dream occupation: Music maker or preacher man :)
Favourite books: Sapiens (absolute game changer), Trainspotting, Team Human, Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas
Favourite podcasts: Under the Skin, Team Human, Guardian Football Weekly, Hip Hop Saved My Life, Wolf & Owl
Mastermind Subject: Wu Tang - 36 Chambers
Favourite Films: Pulp Fiction, Inception, Matrix, Goonies, Trainspotting

Name: Hayley
Age: 39
Home town: Brighton
Dream place of residence: Anywhere with turquoise ocean, white sands and lush green forest
Current occupation: Cyber Security Business development
Dream occupation: Teacher, conservationist, DJ or full time travel blogger
Favourite books: The Secret Garden, anything Enid Blyton, Thousand Splendid Suns, Sapiens, The Fault in our Stars
Favourite podcasts: Russell Brand Under The Skin, Happy Place, Jay Shetty, Metaphysical Milkshake, Rich Roll and Crime Junkies
Mastermind subject: Trance Classics
Favourite films: True Romance, Labyrinth, Never Ending Story


