I chatted to a guy on the train home today. It turned out that he had an operable brain tumour, (and probably lung tumours too). The conversation summised the problems of time and money.
I’ve had a belief for a long time that throughout your life you either have time, or you have money, but rarely both (unless you’re very lucky and win the lottery, for example). He agreed. At the moment he has plenty of time, off work sick, waiting for operations. He wants to travel, to see the things he’s always wanted to see, but he doesn’t have the money because he can’t work and he doesn’t have savings. He’ll probably go, and borrow the money and be damned (and why the hell not?)
He explained that when you’re in your 20’s and working you enjoy earning money, and you work to get hold of the cash to buy the things you need when you’re young, and you set yourself up in life. Often you’re looking forward to the weekend, and then the weekend goes too quickly for your liking.
In your 30’s and 40’s you work harder because you’re raising your children and looking after your growing family. You earn OK, but you spend much of your time away from home and your kids think you’re a stranger at times, they see so little of you.
When you reach your 50’s maybe you have a little more time, as the kids have flown the nest, and the mortgage is manageable (if you still have it), and maybe work pressures are reduced as you’re settled in your final job and ambition is not what it was when you were 25. Is this the point we’re working towards? Are we working towards the periods in our lives when we are plentiful in free time, in our 60’s and 70’s? The problem then of course is that your health is also not what it was when you were young, and again the increase in free time comes with a pension in your 60s, the size of which depends on how prophetic you were when you were 25.
This guy was in his 50s. Time hopefully hasn’t run out completely for him, but you can maybe envisage where he is in his life. We plan and plan, but the best of plans often go to shit. What am I trying to say? Maybe I’m just trying to put the point across that work and free time need to be balanced throughout one’s life, and don’t plan in too much detail. Do stuff sooner rather than later. you might not get a warning.
These aren’t novel concepts, but we still fall into the traps we set for ourselves. I for one am particulalry bad for it, but I do love my work, which helps. But maybe I’ll take a bit more holiday this year than I normally do.
