Have you felt grateful recently?

Well, I’ve been feeling grateful and fortunate for some time now.

I feel fortunate for having have had the chance to grow up with my grandparents around and still living with them as a constant in our life.

Off late, I’ve been spending far more time with them than I have in the past decade; what with the hierarchy of education year after year. Our conversations have transformed from fairytales, mythological lessons and stories of good morals to the comfortably shared silence while reading the morning newspaper while sipping on tea, a certain amount of spiritual banter, the stories of their youth and dreams for my future.

We all struggle with finding common grounds due to generation gap and yet skipping a generation can be surprisingly very companionable. Maybe because I’m the interest on their principle. Maybe because that’s the magic of a grandparent-grandchild relationship. Maybe because they find traces of their youth in my today, and I see a way into my future through their experiences.

While the time I spend with them remains valuable for me and hopefully cherished by them; the more time that I spend with them, the more I think about a particular saying by a management guru. The quote translates to-

‘most businessmen make the mistake of not spending enough thought and time on creating the pragmatic framework for their future dream… instead they become content in being the everyday problem solvers’

Lets assume that each human being is an entrepreneur and their life is their enterprise, the legacy to which are their years post retirement. Then their life partner/ spouse becomes their business partner through a merger of sorts and together they create subsidiaries in the form of off-springs.

While many may argue that most entrepreneurs save for their now metaphorical legacies through monetary investments, by building a home with children, friends and relatives- but my question still lingers. Is that enough though- to be fed, with a shed and bed? To have people around and enough emergency funds that you cut corners for? Is that really all the investment needed for realizing the mirage of future that you’ve wanted to turn into reality as a legacy where your longest companion is the partnership; and this time without the proprietary duties. In the even longer run, one of the two usually comes back to being an independent owner, too.

Have you ever asked a preschooler or a middle school student about their plans for themselves when they grow old? I did. I tried. Their imagination seems to extend, or rather is limited, only upto higher education and occupation. When nudged a little further maybe until realizing the wandering fantasies and having a family of their own of which they are the omnipresent member. This reminds me of most feel good movies, where the curtains fall just at the happy moment, the coming together of two lovers or the achievement of a difficult target, but very rarely- if ever, do they show what happens after the protagonist has achieved their longest term goal. What happens when two people, who have built their entire life one benchmark after another, are left with all the time in the day with no tangible benchmarks to rise to?

How do you live day after day when the daily work that defined your being has been declared outdated; instead is now just a measuring tool of you past? So when I asked a bunch of people a second question about what is their plan from their now to the moment when they materialize their mirage into reality- it suddenly became a serious conversation. It lost the dreamy element. Some had a vague idea, some thought they’d figure it on the way, some said they didn’t think there was much to think about.

When I say I want to be a physically active person through my 60s to my 70s and 80s, I mean that I wish to be comfortably mobile and not bed ridden; and it should also imply that I need to start being a physically active and disciplined person today. Similarly, when I say that I plan on travelling my life’s worth post retirement and enjoy all the hobbies that I’m skipping now, shouldn’t I take the time to occasionally participate in both these areas to understand what travel means to me and know which activities I can call hobbies. With the age and the cognitive ability for being experiment being at odds, I’m not sure if I should be leaving so many untapped areas for the wrinkle days. I mean I don’t wish for the activities intended to entertain myself to feel like time killing ways.

Some say that once they retire, they will resume their honeymoon period that they had to cut short in their prime years. Doesn’t that mean that they need to start learning today about how they like each others’ company and how to make the most of it even without a to-do list and agendas to achieve for the day, week, month and year?

And if all this hustle is for a golden tomorrow, then why are we so quick to shy away from the years we’ve invested our entire life for? Why use getting old as a mocking metaphor rather than a cherished hope? Why fret the greys that’ve begun to crawl out? Why treat them as years lost while they are the years that you’ve invested in order to earn experience and growth?

Maybe there is a conditioned need to feel relevant and at the helm of everything.

Maybe there is a habit of calculating self-worth through the quanta of work done rather than enjoying the quality created through the labour of past.

Maybe because we are so used to believing that we are the controller of our life and fixer of glitches, that the uncontrollable, inevitable makes us uncomfortable.

Maybe along the way we forgot to associate being old with anything that would hold appeal to us at that point of time in our lives.

Maybe because we were so busy being young and pumped that we lost sight of the fact that time will shrink us too.

Maybe because we often keep defining ourselves through associations to our firm skin and pores and seldom spend time developing an accepting foresight of the shriveled bones and ridged skin.

Maybe because we have played an active role in propagating and strengthening the belief that not running the company is the end of the company through unintended or unconscious acts, thoughts and words.

*comment with a song that explains how this made you feel