The other day my youngest grandchild Inez asked my wife,
”What do you do all day grandma?”
She was obviously referring to the both of us, revealing her concern for two people she cares about. With no jobs to go to and and not enrolled in any school she was not only inquisitive but apparently also concerned about her grandparent` s ability to cope with what to her seemed like an empty life. I think Gunilla put her mind to rest by listing a few of our ”old people` s” activities.
A somewhat quizzical expression hinted that she didn` t fully accept that these were an acceptable substitute for her own school- life or her parents work-life. I there and then suspected she would never become an investigative journalist as she let her good upbringing get the better of her and didn` t press the matter.
This mundane everyday sort of intermezzo might easily have been passed off with a laugh but the fact is it began doing laps in my head faster than anything you might see at Silverstone. The existential questions it left in its wake had me pondering.
Is a job resting on the foundations of an education or learned skills the only true fullfilment in life? To put it simpler. Do we live to work or do we work to live? For me a job is a sophisticated form of survival honed to perfection from our days as hunters.
I have always enjoyed working if not having to get up early five days a week. Furthermore I have never been in doubt that it is the means to the end and not the goal itself even though a successful job/career quite clearly has an enormous amount of scope for personal fullfilment.
Reaching retiring age does of course deprive most of us of this and in quite a few instances has tragic consequences as many find it hard to adapt to 24/7 freedom.
Adapt is the key word here as for a period of two years the Covid pandemic curtailed some very important activities in our lives as pensioners. Travelling, traditional family gatherings and social intercourse in general. The very things we worked to be able to enjoy and that like gas expanded to fill the vacuum created by not having a job.
Covid changed the rules and we had to adapt once again. The gist of things being indoors becoming outdoors or the internet.
The pandemic would seem to be over and a return to a somewhat more normal life is a welcoming thought but the world is forever changing and with that come new challenges on our ability to adapt.
