We All Grow Old: What Will or Should Be on Our Minds?

We All Gow Old: What Will or Should Be on Our Minds?

Life is a One Way Trip; What should we do with it that really matters?

I was in my 40′s before it dawned on me that there is no ‘reset’ … ooops, screwed up on that; Where is the reset button so I can get my health/life back? Crap … that’s only in games on my computer!

Damn … wish I’d figured that out earlier! … might have done some things differently … or not at all!
Best thing I ever did, and it was entirely intentional, was to become a parent!! My parents enjoyed doing it, even though my two sisters and I presented some frustrating ‘challenges’ from time to time!

My father taught me, or tried to, many things as I grew up … but I knew better … I was young and he was “old” … what the hell would he know about MY world; “today’s” world?

Turned out, over the years, that he knew a hell of a lot more than I thought he did. Honestly, I experienced many occasions when I had to admit (being honest with myself) and HAD to accept that my Father’s advice was right. Hindsight is always 20/20 as they say.

My Father taught me, by example and otherwise, what a man must do … the stoic, hard-working things of a husband, Father, provider and protector. I grew up feeling safe, confident and also ‘vulnerable’ to accepting and adopting the wonderful examples of my other parent … my Mother.

She made it easy for me to learn about the power and benefits of love, nurturing and compassion … things of equal value, importance and meaning to the strong, stoic and persistence lessons from my Father.

It was easy to see that, because each day was a new example from them for me to see … Love for each other, working together and making sure we, the kids, were healthy, safe, loved and fed with good quality food … no matter how difficult to do so at times. But they did it.

Those were the ‘every day’ lessons by example. But there were other lesson-examples from them … less tangible things from times before I was born … things I had to learn by reading & studying history because they didn’t talk much about those times … and that passion for history remains with me to this day.

My Grandfather spent the remainder of WW2 in a concentration camp … not because he was Jewish, Gypsy or anything else the Nazi occupiers of Denmark disapproved of. He was interned because, as a police chief, he refused to order his constabulary to assist the Nazi roundup of “undesirables”. (“deplorables” in more modern parlance!)

My Father was a member of the Danish resistance (as a teenager!) and was part of smuggling Danish Jews out of the country to neutral Sweden. Clearly he had bigger things on his mind than the latest gadgets or sneakers … unlike today!

My Mother, some years younger than my Father, was a young girl who was often ushered into underground shelters in London during bombing raids … not knowing if the home she ran from would still be there afterward.

Having said all that … what’s my point?

Simply this: Mothers, Fathers and History.

If you have no family or history to be proud of; What do you have to guide and motivate you? What ‘compass’ guides you? Who’s compass guides you instead and is it a good compass?

My Parents taught me … there are no “free rides” … they proved it.

And when your ‘life-train’ pulls into the final station … what side of the tracks will you, your legacy and your history be on?

Will you be remembered as a ‘compassionate patriot’ … or a ‘self-serving coward’?

You chose … it’s your life to make or waste when the curtain comes down after your performance on the stage of life.