Midpoint in our life

Half-time

Some will feel trapped. On the surface there is a lot to be thankful for. A reasonable job. A respectable house. A partner and kids - all with smiles on their faces. And a realisation that this is as good as it is going to get. Only downhill from now on. Less and less flirting. Would an affair liven things up? Maybe, but that will only provide a brief respite from this flat peak. Let’s get rid of the flab anyway as nobody is going to want me like this. Let’s do something positive. That’s the spirit. Go chase those higher forms of enlightenment.

You may be the one everyone leans on, and the one person people assume has everything sorted. Inside you are in turmoil. Prospects of promotion or expanding the business are slim and that wouldn’t really help much anyway. In your formative years, you had lots all mapped out. You had plenty to look forward to. Now that most of your wishes have come to fruition, you feel vacuous, empty, unimpressed. Has it come to this. The sum total of nil. Nothing outstanding, all average. Best of all nobody seems to give a damn. Too busy, too many trivial problems of their own. Oh well, poor you. You pity those in ill health, pity the poor buggers in a cardboard box under the highway. I am at least fortunate in most respects, we muse, but hollow inside. Some feel they have done everything right in life, adhered to the rulebooks and played it all straight. Yet it hasn’t brought the bounty they expected. The cardinal rule is to keep advice to a minimum, so that leaves it to you to figure it out. You decide what to do from this point onwards. Ignoring that, I say, be selfish, yes be selfish. Do something for yourself for a change and all else can wait until you accept your irrelevance. Real freedom. Get back to what you are good at.

If you are struggling to achieve a certain meaningful goal, have a go at visualising what you want. The visualisation goal-getting-technique works best with a visual reminder. Place a picture of what you want on the wall in your bedroom. It will remind you every time you wake up. You see clearly what you want. You think about it all the time. The more you think about it, the more you find the impetus to do something positive towards that goal. The visual reminder stops us procrastinating. It stops us finding excuses for failure. It helps us strive to overcome a hurdle. It can work. Sometimes - so long as what you want is realistically achievable.

Time reigns supreme in the game of life. We might get the estimation of how much time we are allotted quite wrong. We may die tomorrow. It doesn’t matter if we die tomorrow though, for two reasons. Firstly, we are going to die at some point anyway and secondly, we enjoy planning our future today regardless of how long we live. Whilst the end of the game comes quicker than expected for some, for others it is not soon enough. Days drag slowly. They find themselves withering by the wayside with dreary repetitive routines. Sometimes the mind is willing, but the body isn’t. The only challenges are the daily grind of dealing with an ever-growing list of ailments. You can only chuckle at the wisdom of the quote, “Don’t get old”. You might be one of the lucky ones that reach a ripe old age in good shape. Satisfying yourself with simple pleasures, right up to the end with a swift departure during a peaceful last night. You might not. You might exist for years with discomfort. Ever more confused. Ever more drained. Ever more hapless. Few want to live forever like that. Living forever is infinitely more appealing if we remain in good health.

There are simple things we can do that aid the probability of staying healthy. These simple measures do not absorb much of our time. However, some devote vast amounts of their time and money on things they believe will give them a chance of living much longer than average. Is a life a bit misdirected if one does that? Is the winner the one who lasts the longest? What is more important to you, quantity or quality. It is glib to mock these people whilst we use up lots of our time on semi-absurd things; Maintaining the best body, building the best house in the street which you then sell to someone else to enjoy, gambling, painting tin soldiers, writing books that few will bother to read.

Some don’t think of this game of life as being something with a start, middle and end, but one where it continues forever in a different dimension. You may believe you will live forever in an afterlife of sorts or believe that you will create a legacy that lives on long after you are gone, but there is just this game of life, nothing more. No returning to play again. No other board to play on after and your legacy is a mirage. I hope that helps. I hope that makes you look at the estimated time you have left in a positive way. Living forever here on earth might not be a golden dream anyway. The longer we are set to live the more cautious we may become. I suspect it would be unenviable being a beginner in a world of long living people. The incredibly rich and powerful won’t get be so handily unseated by their inherent perishability.

There you are sat in the front row seat, inside a large auditorium. A dapper man stands before you. He makes an enthusiastic motivational speech. You become enchanted by this speaker and what he has to say. The speech rouses the audience with tales of his success and the bounty it has brought him. All you need do is make some changes, big changes to how you live your life. However, he pays no heed to the trade-offs. Seemingly positive changes bring downsides too. People are manipulative. Are they helping or are they getting you to do what they think is best? They may be proud of their 100-hour working week, but disregard how unsustainable that can be. Success requires sacrifice.

Most of us in the game of life will be spectators. It is numerically impossible for it to be any other way. A thousand in the stands for each one on the pitch. As a supporter we make an invaluable contribution by adding to the atmosphere in the football stadium or providing vital support to businesses and the community. All contributions count as every one of us has an impact even if just an ethereal interference. We don’t have to do something outstanding to feel successful in life.

We may find success at something then be faced with a dilemma; do we rest on our laurels or quit and start some other game? Having mastered something, we might be inclined to find a new challenge. We have shown our mettle in one arena but may not make the same mark in another. How do we measure our success anyway? Is it measured in how famous we become? Or how wealthy? Or how happy or contented we feel. Do we have to achieve something exceptional? We might want to question our motives sometimes. Notoriety in particular is not a panacea. The job of running the highest office in the land may be enviable, but it is also restrictive. There is a trade-off between privileges and responsibility with freedom to do what you want anonymously at any time and on any date.

There will be many outside influences vying you to use the same scoring mechanism as them. Some measure progression by knowledge gained. Others value the creation of a family or position in a society. Many count the amount of material possessions amassed. If you walk around a graveyard, do you inspect the ornateness and size of the headstone or respect the age attained. Do you investigate the amount left in the will? Alternatively, do you sit and count the number of visitors to a plot and remark upon the freshness and quality of the flowers abandoned there.

Few people will rip up the pitch and knock down the goal posts when they retire from the sport. In fact, there seems to be a desire to ensure that the club is left in a better state than when they joined. Many bequeath a little for the enjoyment of future players and future spectators. They want their club to march forwards and hope that it will continue to succeed when they are no longer around. Such acts of generosity make them feel good about themselves and we can be grateful for it. A tree is planted for the next generation to look upon with awe.