Some musings on life in the here and now
I woke up from a dream a while back. It left me kinda lonely and sad.
We were sitting in a shareholders meeting. Apparently, I was a major player in this organization and we were contemplating an offer to sell the company. I was examining financial disclosures and discussing them with the two other principles of the organization. I kept bringing up that this was just financial stuff. It didn’t even come close to representing all that we had built. All the people we employed. The lives and families we’d touched.
The response I got back was essentially that the financial stuff is the only important part. People don’t buy companies based on their benefit to society, the employees or the community at large. None of that mattered. I woke up kinda dejected and uncomfortable. It brought to mind the following:
Some people are so poor all they have is money.
Now, I’m not a powerful or wealthy person. In any organization. Like a lot of people in this country, nearly all of my net worth is in a retirement fund. I’ve never attended a shareholders meeting, nor do I have any inclination to do so. But I think my reaction to that dream is spot on.
We have the responsibility to build something with our lives that is way more valuable than what can be expressed on a balance sheet. If all you have to leave the world at the end of your life is money, you are indeed destitute. An empty soul.
There is music in the very air we breathe. Love makes the leaves on the trees tremble. Real Life has no connection to money whatsoever. Except how much of ours we will sacrifice in it’s pursuit.
I’m fifty six old. Six months ago I bought a brand new van. As a project. To build myself a custom camper. Which I intend to take on the road after this pandemic runs its course. And I plan to live in this van for the next couple of years. Why? Because, like writing, I’ve always had this desire to see what’s over the hill or around the next bend. But it never called to me loudly enough to set aside other “more important” pursuits. And now, at this ripe old age I’m coming to understand that the most important things are those that give you joy or fulfill some long unrealized aspiration. Everything else should take a backseat.
Don’t let yourself become a poor rich person. Take those Tango lessons. Book that whitewater rafting trip. Learn to ride a motorcycle. Stop and talk to the old guy fishing on the pier, he’s probably got a fascinating story to tell. Become a person rich in experience, knowledge, skill, craft and insight. If you make tons of money that’s fine but it’s not a worthy pursuit in and of itself.
Thank you for reading.
Dick Millet 