Life is funny!

[cowman]

Met this old boy the other day at a course I had to take. I would guess his age at around 60.
He told me he had 40 coiled tubing rigs hard at work and was in the process of building 6 more!
He told me about five years ago he realized he was never going to be able to spend the loot, no matter what he did! So he sold his company, bought a mansion in Scottsdale for the winter, built another at the lake and settled in to live the good life?...He said he almost went crazy! He missed the cut and thrust of business and it drove him insane seeing all the opportunities passing him by!
He told his wife he wasn't a happy camper and she told him to go back to work! Which he did with a vengence!
Now he works seven days a week and says he is happy as a lark!
People are funny?

[coppertop]

Anyone that has spent their life working will get stagnant if they just sit around doing nothing. My son's inlaws sold everything 16 years ago, bought a big fifth wheel and spent six months a year in Vegas. They came back every April and drove their kids nuts all summer hanging around telling them how to run their lives etc. not to mention visiting friends when the friends were working their butt off and really didn't appreciate hearing how great it was to do nothing !!!

They seem to have gotten a early dose of dementia, can't carry on a conversation about anything interesting, and have no clue what goes on in the real world. Plus that, they have had one health problem after the other. Every spring when they come back, after they treat us to hours of listening to the new ailments they have, they tell me how crazy I am to spend the winter feeding cows, should sell the farm, buy and RV and live the 'real life'......thanks but no thanks !! Keeping busy is the way to live a long healthy life unless some major health issue cuts it short.

[cakadu]

Finding that work/life balance is a very tricky thing to do. In both the examples that you give it sounds to me like they went from one extreme to the other, which would be a challenging transition to make no matter who the person was.

The key, I believe, is to find your passion and to follow it. I couldn't imagine working 7 days a week, farm notwithstanding, and not having time to spend with family and more importantly, time for myself. I'm finding that the older I get, the more I want to just have time for me. I'm with people all week long and on the weekend I want to have my farm, my animals and my time to myself.

It has been a rough couple of weeks as we had to let our livestock guardian go due to an illness he wasn't going to recover from. He was the best that we've ever seen at his job and an integral part of keeping the sheep safe from predators.

I believe that at times we think the grass is greener on the other side but when you get there it's just the same. I'm with you coppertop - I wouldn't change what I'm doing now for anything. I couldn't imagine just sitting around and not having anything productive to do and should I actually give up some of what I'm doing now, I would go back to spending my time volunteering.

As we go further and further into this labour shortage that we are faced with, I'm sure we will see the retirement age move to 70 or 75. Keeping the mind active and sharp is what I think helps many people to live longer lives. What are your thoughts?

[cowman]

Well I readily admit to being a workaholic...although a very lazy one!
I like to say I work all the time, but hey give me a fence post to lean on and I can shoot the bull with the best of them...for hours! Drives my son nuts!
My spouse says I am hopeless. Put me in paradise...and I will be trying to figure out an angle to make a buck!
I don't know why this happened to me? My Momma and Daddy both believed in a healthy work ethic and would probably consider me "slothful" at times!
One time a preacher asked me what I worked at? I told him hey I don't think I ever really worked in my life...it all seemed like fun and games to me! Maybe I'm crazy or something? It seems to work for me?

[cakadu]

I believe it is important to go out and have fun at life and what you are doing. If it is fun and your passion, then it never really is "work". No job, no matter what it is, is 100% fun all the time, but it should be something you can take pride in and know that you are giving it your best. Too many people go to work just to get a paycheque and sometimes they have no choice in the matter - they have to eat and keep a roof over their family's head.

Knowing when to appreciate the good things in life - and they will be different for all of us - is part of finding the balance.

It is always important to keep in mind, however, that your best may not be someone else's idea of best and circumstances play a large part in what "our best" is every day.

Right now we are praying for some very dear friends and the struggle she and her family are having with cancer. It doesn't look good for her at all as they have just found a bunch more of it. She has been in hospital the last couple of weeks and it doesn't look like she will be coming home. I and many others keep holding out hope because she has had such a positive attitude all along and is a very strong and resilient lady.

She has a very strong and loving family and she and her husband have been married for almost 49 years. There is a beautiful legacy of children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, as well as many friends to carry on her memory. That is what life is truly about.

[cowman]

You just might be right there Linda! My neices father in law is going through the same thing! Not much hope.
Now I knew him long before his son ever married my neice and he was a good and very decent guy. If ever anyone didn't deserve this garbage it was him...and his wife...a really good and kind lady.
That darned cancer is such an unfair thing? So many good people seem to get it and die from it before they should?
I like to think we are all on a journey, with the ultimate goal of getting home? The winners get to go home a little early and the rest of us have to stay here a little longer? I know that is a small comfort...but I suspect, ultimately, it is true?

[coppertop]

I lost a wonderful friend and colleague on April 30th. He had been feeling poorly for a year, had been to one specialist after the other and kept on losing weight, feeling tired all the time etc., but was told they could not find anything the matter. By the time he was diagnosed he had lung cancer which had spread into his breast bone. He lived 6 weeks after the diagnoses, but managed to get all his affairs in order, including a patent he had on a piece of oilfield equipment, and he even went so far as to help his family plan his funeral. His positive attitude to the very end helped his wife, sons, siblings and even his aging parents deal with the situation . 850 people attended his funeral in the hometown near where he was raised, a real testimony to the man he was.
Cancer claims far too many, and the only thing we seem to be able to do is provide support, a hand to hold and prayers.

[cowman]

coppertop: What you say is so true. All we can do is offer our support. Make sure we do it.

[coppertop]

I keep thinking that we can donate as much as we can manage to the cancer foundation, cancer clinics etc., but it isn't going to save many lives if they can't be diagnosed in time.