My Mother-in-law had been looking forward to retiring for months. My daughters we're born in late 2005, her first grandchildren, and we were living 300 miles away at the time. She spent the next couple of years doing everything right. She was saving, investing, and getting everything in order. Then came the stock market crash of 2008, and over half of everything she had worked so hard to gain was gone. She worked for the same company for over 30 years, and by the time she retired, she was practically broke.
My husband, who works in construction, goes to work 6 days a week. From 6am to 5pm, he deals with a very physically demanding job outside in the elements. What his company offers for insurance is extremely expensive, so we don't have insurance. He came home one evening and told me how everyday he stares his possible future in the face when he sees his boss, or even his boss's boss. These men are between 50 and 60 years old, weathered, terrible back problems, in need of hip and knee replacements, high blood pressure, and worst of all, they only make 3 or 4 more dollars per hour than my husband does! If, by some chance, he does not get laid off and is able to stay with the company, his future there kinda stinks.
I had a great friend I met at the coffee shop I worked at several years ago. He was an older guy, so incredibly intelligent. He had a great job at the University and really had his stuff in order. He had worked for the same company for 30 years, and was planning to retire early at 55 and travel the World, starting with South America! This was his dream, he would come in every other day and talk about it with so much enthusiasm, it was so inspiring. He went on like this for almost 2 years, the excitement growing as he got closer to his goal. He was so close, less than a year away from retirement when he stopped coming in as often. When he did that light and excitement he once had, that contagious optimism, was gone. His diagnoses was stage 4 lung cancer. Less than a year away from finally living his dream and he was given a death sentence. Several months later he died, and so did his dream.
I could not get these people out of my head. They were my friends and family, people I loved, and their futures looked so bleak. My husband and I were no exception. Our future, the future of our family looked bleak. The sad part is it's not just us. This is the reality of millions of hardworking people. You spend the best years of your life working yourself into the ground with hopes of having a nice big house, a couple of "nice" cars, and "things" to feel proud of yourself about. If you are part of the majority with us Americans, you probably don't even have health insurance. You then dream about being able to finally relax, to do what makes you happy, to try to make your dreams, whatever they may be, a reality. Good luck!
That's when I decided that I would be different. I thought back to a class I took on Buddhism. Everything in life is impermanent, including us. We can spend our best years constantly working to accumulate "things", working to be able to achieve our dreams 40 years down the road, in the uncertain future, or we can live in the present and work to achieve our dreams right now. We lose track of what's important. What we experience NOW is what's important!
The future is uncertain. You can plan, prep, save, slave, AND invest today, only to die, along with your dreams, tomorrow.
I have realized that the past and future are real illusions, that they exist in the present, which is what there is and all there is. ~Alan Watts
