Key Point: What if Monday and Saturday both felt great? What if we did not live our lives looking forward to the day we “retired?” Instead, what if we lived like we aspired to live right NOW? Is this naïve thinking? Come on… Work is work… Leisure is leisure… Right? Wrong.
My mom lives in a seniors’ complex. I came through the front door the other day and this lovely elderly woman was sitting in the lobby. As I was waiting for the elevator to arrive, she explained that she was waiting to see when the lights in the atrium would automatically switch on based on the sun going down. “The other night I went to bed before they came on,” she explained. “Holy…” I thought. “Is this what I have to look forward to?”
Later that evening my wife and I watched a movie based on a true story, The Impossible, which depicted a family devastated by the tsunami that hit South Asia nearly a decade ago. I thought, “I am so grateful I haven’t had to experience that kind of event.” Thank goodness most of us are well in between the continuum of these two extremes: The total boredom of nothingness and the terror of just trying to stay alive.
So what? I think we need to be reminded to live our life with total joy each day. In just a blink of time, if we are lucky, we will be very fragile and sitting quietly in some senior’s lobby. Hopefully we will have avoided fighting for our lives through a tsunami or equivalent along the way.
Character Moves:
- Do not wait for retirement or some future day to be happy and joy filled in your daily work/ life. That day may never come. The time to be fulfilled and joyful is NOW. Think about how you achieve that in your current work role. If you can’t, find something else to do.
- Worrying about having enough money for “whatever” is practical and reasonable. But living in misery to get or stay there is not. Nothing is worth going about daily work life in a joyless way. We need to live from the “end” NOW! If we wait, who knows what will happen.
- Some jobs are inherently tough. But relationships… Being loved by and loving others, do not need to be. Like Stephen Stills’ old country/folk song goes, “Love the One You’re With.”
- Ask yourself what you want to do when you’re retired? Financially sound? Now pull it all forward and do it now… I’m serious. Do not wait to be fulfilled or happy. It’s not worth it!
Now in the Triangle,
Lorne