50 years… 18,261 days… 438,264 hours… 26,295,840 minutes… Time passes quickly doesn’t it? Except perhaps when you’re waiting for something. Like when you are 10 and you’re a week away from your birthday, then each day feels like a month. You get there and the whole day passes in a blur.
One of the things that I’ve learnt from doing these posts, which are in part me telling some stories and hopefully also some of the things that I learnt along the way, is what I value most. They are the things that over the passage of all that time I can still remember, mostly happy memories.
As you get older though, some of the things, and in particular the people that made those memories with you pass on. I’ve noticed that a lot of the famous people from my youth have been passing on with increasing rapidity over the last few years, no surprise really given that they were 20 to 40 years older than me at the time I was watching / listening to them.
I’ve also been looking through a lot of old photographs recently and that’s been triggering particular memories of when certain photographs were taken or of certain people. Coincidentally I’ve been reading and listening in other places that life shouldn’t be about working until you die, but about enjoying it while you can.
All of this had left me thinking a lot about my own mortality and life path - both past, present and future. The Stoics would have you remember death - Momento Mori - and not seek to put off until tomorrow what you should do today.
I’m in the relatively fortunate position to have very little debt, in part because of work related decisions that I’ve made at various times, which looking back weren’t made on the basis of enjoyment but from a position of financial benefit. I’ve sometimes said if I was able to make those decisions over again with the hindsight that I have now I might make different decisions. Of course in doing so I’d be in a different position in life both personally and financially. So those decisions were made for the best reasons at the time, based on the knowledge and information available and I am where I am now because of them.
That said decision going forward now could easily be made on the basis of different reasoning and I think looking back at those enjoyable stories - I doubt I’ll tell any of the horrible ones, although I wouldn’t rule it out - means that seeking enjoyment and happiness is more important now than perhaps financial gain is. Do I really need more money? Well it’s nice to have but not essential, although there is a recognition of at least a basic level of income. Do I need a happy life? Absolutely.
I’m cogitating a lot on this and thinking about what I want so that it can underpin future decision making. If fifty years worth of decisions have taught me one thing it’s to learn from each and everyone of those decisions, even if at a later point in life you think you wouldn’t make the same decision again if you could go back and change it.
Ultimately there is never a wrong time to change direction if that’s what you want to do, but as time passes some of the options become limited due to age, illness or for other reasons. Making decisions when you’re older may mean that you have more information and knowledge to draw on, but you still might not get the answers you want.