Nights off and days away

We got some time off last night where the grandparents took our daughter, because we attended a friend's 40th birthday dinner. It is pretty rare to see them as they live in Sweden, but it is always great because they are the kind of people we can just pick up conversations where we left off. We saw them in the summer for another friend's wedding, who was also there last night, and I had the opportunity to spend some time with them in Sweden on one of my trips in the spring, about 8 months ago.

It is funny how time flies, as it feels like only the other week the same group of us were sitting in this same restaurant for our weekly hangover recovery lunches to discuss the night before, but that was more like 15 years ago, 8 children less and quite a few wrinkles that were yet to appear. Although, when I looked around the table, I don't see the age of us all, just the friends that I have known.

I think familiarity of character plays a massive role in how we perceive people and it is likely why many of us have the feeling that we can still do the things that we once could, that we haven't changed that much. Then we look in the mirror, and see our parents. When I sit with this group of people I don't see their faces, the lines, the late nights up with sick children, the relationships failed or the pressures of work, career, life and the loss of those that were known - I see them as people with characters that change through experience, but don't move far away from who they were when we met all those years ago.

I don't worry much about getting old, especially when it comes to the lines on my face that will increasingly appear. What does concern me with it though is whether the life I will have lived is the kind of life I consider worthwhile from my perspective and if my having breathed has been valuable. I had no choice in the matter of my existence, but I do have some agency over the direction my life takes through the choices I make, at least at the conscious level.

When we are young, many of us have dreams about becomeing something or other but I wonder how many actually achieve them. I don't mean the uninformed and immature "I want to be an astronaut" kinds of things, but the feeling of purpose that many expect future life will have. How many of us feel that who we are is meaningful? I think all people need a sense of purpose of some kind, but I feel that the bar of what is purposeful is being lowered and redefined to fit in with the approach of the most for the least, even if the most is not much at all.

My friend was a professional hockey player all of his life and now is a fitness coach for a professional team and owns an adventure sport company, and he has noted that over the last twenty years, players are increasingly trying to minimize the effort they need to put in to achieve their goals, but their goals are lessening. I mentioned my position of the "workless wealth" aproach that many seem to take where they do not need to develop expensive in resource skills, but still can earn, the Instagram model approach. However, it appears that the more people do this, the less they earn and of course, rather than live, they survive. All ways chasing, always feeling like they are hustling - even though what they hustle for is only a fraction of their potential.

I find that there is much of the same attitude on Steem where people tend to chase low hanging fruit small amounts that require very little work, but miss the much larger values because they are unwilling to put in the effort to learn what is required, or do the work. I think that more and more are able to look in the mirror and justify their behavior, even though they aren't happy and do not really accept their position. People feel they are entitled to more in life, but aren't willing to do more for it. There are many ways to work, many ways to live, and we each tread our own path through life.

Some sleep because they want to avoid waking up to the day, some sleep because they woke up early and seized it, and now have nothing left to give. Tomorrow is another day.

Taraz
[ a Steem original ]