Since I hit 50 earlier this year I’ve definitely had deeper, existential thoughts more often. Questioning and reaffirming to myself the career path that I’m on. Wondering about the message I carry to my clients. Considering how mine and my wife’s lives are changing as our children grow and become less dependent on us. You know, just the small matters.
Recently I heard the tragic news that a former work colleague of mine had died. Someone I worked with four or five years ago and who, while older than me, was not really very old at all. Sadly it’s not the first time this has happened through my career either. The list of hard-working people I’ve lost in their mid to late 50s is growing, rather alarmingly.
Then I read this interview with acclaimed writer and director Hanif Kureishi. Rendered paralysed by a simple falling accident in the home. Such a small things really and yet with such tragic consequences. Life is full of surprises it seems, and not all of them good.
It’s fairly natural at times like this to wonder, rather existentially, what the point of it all really is. By “it” I mean the cultural norm (and practical requirement) to commit so much of our lives to working and building careers. To climbing that slippery pole of advancement, whether in an organisation or as a freelancer.
Drawn onwards by pressure we place on ourselves, or succumb to from outside influences, the scenery changes but the need to be and have more still remains, it seems.
But the unfortunate truth is this: No matter how carefully we curate our careers and try to look after our physical and mental health, tragedy could still be just around the corner. And even if sudden catastrophe is not our lot, then a long slow decline into frailty probably is.
So what’s the point? How do we begin to cope with life while carrying the weight of that inevitability? How can we possibly plan in the face of such complexity and uncertainty?
I guess that all any of us can do is to play the hand we are dealt. To seek to control only the things we can actually change. To take life as it comes and do our best to live a good one. To be kind and to try and be joyful. To be of some help to other people.
So much is outside of our control and therefore obsessive long term planning seems almost futile. Perhaps, rather than fretting about who we want to be or what we want to achieve tomorrow or in ten years time, we should focus more on being the best we can today? And then wake up tomorrow and repeat?
Again and again.
For as long as we have.
At least if we do so, perhaps those commutative positive steps will add up to a life well-lived. That us having passed this way will have positively affected the lives of those around us in some small way. That we might plant a seed which may not flourish until after we are gone.
It might seem pessimistic for that to be our only hope. But actually if our life’s contribution to the world is to make the lives of just a few other people richer and happier, then what’s so bad about that?
Now is the only moment you have.
You are the only person you can change.
So what will you do?
Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash
That Richard Bloke 