Imagine:
A high end retirement home. And an animated, ninety-five year old blind, man talking to his buddies.
You overhear this man say to his buddies, “If only I was thirty years younger.”
You smile to yourself. You’ve heard this same lament so many times before. You might have even said it yourself. “If only I was twenty years younger and knew what I know now.”
Then you realize that this ninety five old man is talking about being sixty-five years old. And you think to yourself, ”Why would anyone waste a wish on being sixty-five?”
So you keep listening. You notice that this old man is quite passionate about being sixty-five. Now you’re intrigued. Why is this man so excited about his life at sixty-five?
You discover that he had worked for forty years at a job that was steady, and paid the bills. He had liked the job and the people he worked with.
He retired at sixty-five. He and his wife bought an RV and they travelled the country.
He got bored and he and his wife went home. And he asked himself, “Now what am I going to do?”
He noticed that some of his friends and neighbors struggled with a problem that he found easy to solve. So having nothing better to do he helped them.
His friends and neighbors were thankful. Some baked him pies, some bought him a bottle and some even offered him money.
He discovered that he enjoyed helping people with their problem so he started a small business. He found that there were many people who appreciated his help and they paid him well for his services.
He discovered the difference between working for a living and living to do your work. He became passionate about the service he was providing.
His business grew. He was in awe of his good fortune. Not the millions of dollars he earned but the discovery of living to do your work.
He also discovered that life was about the journey more than the destination. The destination gives meaning to your life but the journey is where the fun is.
At ninety-five he entered the retirement home not because his life was over, but because that was where his wife, friends and children were, (his children were now in their seventies).
All these people had been his “travelling” companions over the last thirty years.
He still had places he wanted to go.
When I first started telling this story I was fifty-five. And I thought “Wow forty years ago I was fifteen.” And then I thought “If I only knew then, what I know now.”
After indulging myself with that fantasy, I laughed at myself and thought “I do know! What I know now!”
Finally I asked myself “What am I going to do for the next forty years?”
In awe in Muskoka
Alex
