It’s an interesting question, and the answer may vary at certain times in life.
I was recently asked by a 45 year old what I would have liked to have known at 45, how I may have done things differently. It compelled me to go back in time, to consider my life at that time, the pressures being faced, the ambitions which were still there, the commitments made, family, finances, that sort of thing.
The question is also pertinent at the present moment, since we are in the final stages of a state election campaign and will soon be inundated with promises and argy-bargy in a federal campaign, with the various parties throwing ideas at us, policies aimed at solving some of the intractable problems we as a society, as a nation face. How we vote, the next government we choose may well be determined by the promises made, the trust we have, or do not have in the political system or the people who want to represent us in the new government, whether local, state or federal.
From a government perspective, the problems are many. We have read time and again about the ‘cost of living crisis’, and that surfaces as a major talking point as the election campaigns progress. But at the same time we see that major corporations including the supermarkets and banks are recording some pretty awesome interim profit results. Which does beg the question of who is driving the ‘cost of living crisis’. Housing is a problem, especially as the cost of housing has escalated in recent years to making it virtually impossible for many young people to even consider owning their own home, something which was a given for their parent’s generation. To make that even more of a problem, immigration and transmigration has seen demand for housing increase. Various planning departments at all levels of government have struggled to predict population growth and hence struggled to prepare infrastructure needed for a burgeoning population.
Other demands that come in to play are health requirements, public housing, crime and safety issues… the list is never-ending and the solutions hard to find. And the media will pounce on just about anything to sow seeds of discontent.
Add the little issues of national security, defence, trade issues… Life is complicated, the demands on governments are many and so much is out of our control. Trade issues which are imposed from outside, a few years ago, saw China stop buying certain products we export, and now the USA is threatening to impose tariffs on products we export to them. The seemingly incessant
Conflicts within our population, a largely immigrant population, and the effect of conflicts on the other side of the world has seen antisemitism, Islamophobia, race and religion take centre stage.
And whoever governs has to deal with that myriad of flash points.
For some, these matters of difference are of utmost importance, tools to play a ‘one upmanship’ game. To somehow lay traps to show that others are not nearly as smart as ‘me’.
I could go on and on about the various important things that need to dealt with, need to be challenged on, but that really is beyond what is truly important on a personal level.
So now we get down to what really is important in life.
The person who asked me the question about being 45 had recently had a cancer scare. He is a husband and father, he and his wife have professional careers. They have a mortgage, have all the pressures if life, the desire to have this or that, whether it is to install a swimming pool, what vacations to take, how to raise their children, what schools to send the children to, how, when faced with something as life-threatening as a possibly fatal disease, to face your own mortality, so many of the material things of life pale into insignificance.
What becomes of primary importance is to consider relationships, the marriage, to work on embracing a partner you have committed to love and cherish, to consider the time you have for the growing children, to allow them to grow physically, intellectually, creatively. To revel in their achievements, to present them with every possible opportunity to grow, that they become the best people they can be. How to adjust a work/life balance which is supportive of a healthy, loving family life.
The other thing which triggered within me as I addressed that question was how different my life may be today if I had stopped at 45 to consider my life as that young man has done.
At 45 many of us are mid career, sort of on auto-pilot, going through the motions. The hard work of training and education to open career paths is past, now it is a daily grind coupled with mortgages, kids school runs, planning their lives as best we can, but too busy really to stop and ‘smell the roses’. Too busy to really take the time to ‘know’ the kids and too busy to arrange a date night to recharge the marriage.
These things become pertinent at the end of life. I am now old, approaching 80 far too rapidly, and seeing friends and family face the end of life.
I talked with a friend who had lost her husband a year or so ago. He died of cancer, died at home, passed mid conversation. The marriage was a good one, respectful, loving with a very supportive family. The passing was a gentle drifting away if you will, nothing really traumatic, and importantly, an experience shared between a loving husband and wife and the grown children who were there at the time. Without ‘preaching’, the lady was comforted with the ‘knowledge’ that the love of her life has gone to be with his God, and that she will join him when her time comes. Acknowledging that the religiousness I see as mythology is of great comfort to her.
A friend of long standing is suffering. Now in residential care as his Parkinson’s disease and other mobility issues have placed him in need of 24-hour care. He is a very wealthy man. Has worked long and hard to accumulate wealth which is beyond my imagination. He has two sons but they have not even deemed him important enough to send a Christmas card let alone birthday greetings. The distance between them amplified by his long working hours and an acrimonious divorce. Apart from the staff at the residential complex, he has one or two visitors who call by occasionally. It is a lonely existence.
Another friend who passed away last year signed the Voluntary Assisted Dying paperwork. She had very advanced cancer but was surrounded by a host of friends who loved her dearly. As with so many who sign the VAD forms, she did not use it, but passed away with friends holding her hands, a gentle passing which befitted the graciousness and love the lady exuded in life.
I guess I am finding an answer to the question. But in considering this I did also reflect on some of the changes seen in my lifetime. Changes which affect the beginning and end of life, and the importance of how the time in between is spent, what is seen as valuable, what is seen as significant, important.
My generation of fathers was allowed into the birthing room as our children were born. In earlier times, the expectant fathers were cloistered in a waiting room, smoking cigarettes and telling tales with other expectant fathers, each clutching a cigar in case they won the lottery and had fathered a son. We were fortunate to hold the new born, sometimes even before the mother did, to rejoice in the birth of a child, to be with the wife to comfort and encourage her as she suffered the pains of childbirth. To begin the bonding with a newborn child as he or she cried the first cry, to rejoice with our wives as the parenting journey commenced instead of gazing at the newborn safely put away in a nursery, visible through the viewing window.
Another memory which disturbed me was the passing of my father. He died young, 54 years old, riddled with cancer. Years of smoking, the habit formed and reinforced fighting for his homeland which was invaded by the Germans, settling in a new country, suffering depression and alcohol abuse, life had not been good for him, and then to be shunted off to hospital, placed in a bed on a veranda, alone as he faded away. My mother got a telephone call to say he had passed away. Dealing with his passing was difficult.
So again we address the question of what really is important in life.
Yes, to have a roof over one’s head is important. But does it need to be a mansion overlooking a most desirable view which has become mundane over time? Is it to have so much wealth that the accumulation of it has severed relationships? Is it to see the far corners of the world? Is it to have power over people, to have absolute power over a population?
Is it as the politicians are asked to do, to develop an environment which pleases most but rarely every one, is it to be tough on crime, is it to generate wealth for the one per cent and provide some degree of security to the rest? Or is it to create an environment of respect, that all people are treated with respect, that all people can be who they are, whether male for female, no matter what they believe, no mater how they choose to define themselves?
Or could it be that relationships are the most important things in life? That family and friendships, true friendships are formed and valued, nurtured. That when the time comes that we are surrounded by love, that the passing is an expression of love and respect.
It’s not money or assets to be divvied up with acrimonious bickering as to who got this or that, but the person is remembered and treasured.
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What is most important in life? “To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women!” Sorry but I have been waiting my whole life to use that Conan The Barbarian quote from that Schwarzenegger movie!
When l was 45 I had deduced that voters , therefore governments would get meaner, more selfish by retiring age . So we lived frugally – which matched our environmental concerns , and saved hard while our peers partied. So now l have enough in old age to care for myself and help the young ones too , with some to help out beyond the extended family . It really was the right thinking . I also believed that this century energy would become far more expensive and this would inflate prices of essentials . Took measures there too that paid off.
There’s no single answer that trumps all others in relation to this question. Ask a dying man, and he might say, ‘give me one more day.’ An imprisoned man might say ‘freedom’. A wronged man, ‘revenge.’ A lustful man, ‘more sex.’ A greedy man, ‘more money.’ A religious person might say, ‘to know God.’ Another, ‘to know oneself.’
If my dog could talk, I think she might say, ‘what sort of dumb question is that?’ She, of course, instinctively recognises the benefit of living an embodied existence with all basic needs met; food, shelter, security & safety. Children also, at the earlier phases of their lives, live similarly natural existences, before the adult world does its dirty deeds upon them.
I agree, there is no single answer, but it is a question worthy of exploring for one’s self. And that answer changes when one is faced with their own mortality.
Then it becomes real.
How many remember the song “Nature Boy”, first sung by Nat King Cole in 1947-48 and then by many other artists. the last line of which reads: “The greatest thing you will ever learn is just to love and be loved in return”. (See Wikipedia).
Cheers JP, I didn’t expect to be one hour into the day and be looking into the life story of Nat KC, but there you go. He looks like a Man sculpted by Love.
I’ve created a couple of sayings about life:
If you don’t have a dream, then you won’t have a destiny.
Everything that has happened in your life up to today was fate. Everything that will happen in your life after today is destiny. Today is your best opportunity to connect the two.
What matters is living it as best you can.