So, January is speeding along, here it is already the 15th, and I’m kind of worried that you maybe didn’t do much of a job on your New Year’s resolutions. You might think I forgot! I mentioned a week or so ago that you’d be looking for my suggestions. My emails have been piling up, asking where they are. Well, that maybe happened, and it may not have, she says (you know who she is!), that I often remember things that never happened.
So let’s get right to it.
And we should start with the most important thing on the list.
And it’s this: Make some plans for ’26.
Here’s how it is, and there’s an insightful saying that puts this at the top of the list: ‘Young people have plans, old people have memories.’ Why insightful? Because it highlights both plans and memories without criticizing either one. Without criticizing either youth or longevity. But we all know which one we like the best, don’t we!
Now this resolution shouldn’t be just on a small town community newspaper list; you should get one of those talented woodworking guys to carve it into a board and hang it in your bathroom, or some other such place where you’re bound to see it. You might wonder why it’s that important.
It’s that important because people who don’t have any plans aren’t likely to get anywhere. We expect the Grade Fivers to plan on passing into Grade Six at the end of the year. But when we get to be thirty-seven, we think its just fine to not have any plans. I mean, aren’t we doing okay, we have a house, a car, a spouse, three kids and a dog. What more can you plan for?
Lots.
Have you heard of those five places in the world called ‘blue zones’? Those places where somebody who is smarter than you and I have found that everyone lives extraordinarily long lives. They are: Okinawa, Japan; Sardinia, Italy; Ikaria, Greece; Nicoya, Costa Rica; and Loma Linda, California.
One of the things that seems to contribute to the long lives in those places is purpose. A purpose for living. You know how it is, there are those days when we’ve got some rotten jobs to do, and we’d rather stay in bed. But what’s worse is those days when we’ve got nothing to do, when nobody in the whole wide world cares if we get up or not, those are the days we want to be afraid of. The best of all days/nights is not wanting to go to bed till one or two in the morning because living life is so much better.
I got my first job by hanging around Seaton’s Store in Wilmer, down by Invermere, until Mr. Seaton eventually asked me to go burn the garbage. Then it was stocking shelves. Then take care of the empty pop bottles. And always, there was carrying groceries out for the ladies. It was one of my most fun jobs, and I got to know people, especially older people, like ones in their forties and up who shouldn’t have had time for a kid, except they appreciated your help.
Now, as they have passed away through the years, every customer was a memory. But that little job was one of the best things that happened to me. I made forty cents an hour, and my parents never again bought any of my clothes. I bought four pairs of sky blue pants for $3.99 each out of the Sears catalogue and wore them every day of high school. After that, I’m sure everyone else thought I only had one pair!
Then there was a 3-speed bike that Mr. Seaton brought in, and nobody bought it, so I did, for fifty bucks. That’s a lot of money at forty cents an hour, but it wasn’t long until it was paid for. I worked there for four years. One of the most lasting things that I took away from that job was that the store was never without a kid after that. After me, it was Elwood Godlein, then Allen Reid, then another. There was always a purpose for a kid after that. That was my legacy at that little country store.
Now, all of that might not seem important to you, since you’ve turned fifty-six and you’re thinking about retiring. But you’d be wrong. Just like those people in the blue zones, we need to have a purpose. And we need to have a purpose until they put us in a box. And to have a purpose, we might well need to have a plan.
And while I don’t really know what plans might work out for you, I know how some might work for me. At least one. Maybe it’ll give you a spark of an idea for you.
Since I am easily bored, I have learned that one of the things that keeps me interested in living is my work. It’s what I do. Outside of watching as many Blue Jays games as I can, I don’t do much else. I don’t hunt because I don’t want to keep my mouth shut or pick up my feet. I don’t fish because I have no patience. But recently, I think I’ve hit on something that I can look forward to. It’s partly age related, it wouldn’t be something that you would want to start planning for when you’re forty-two. But when you’re within whispering distance of eighty, it makes a little sense.
And it’s this.
It’s in relation to Durand Manor (for those of you from out of town (hello Gordon Conover, down there in Illinois), Durand Manor is the long-term care facility here in Golden.
I’ve decided that the first resolution on my list is this: I want to be one of the first, if not the first, people that are residents of Durand Manor who go to work every day.
She (you know who she is) says you’ll think I’m crazy. You might. I don’t care. I’ve got my resolutions, you’ve got yours.
But wouldn’t that be a new twist on resolutions? Planning for when we’re ninety. Have you heard it before? No. Some people wouldn’t be able to make that up.
Now I haven’t said anything about working eight hours a day, or working on those rotten, wet rain-on-top-of-ice days in February. But just having something that has some real-world to it, some worry to it, some creativity and that sort of thing. It would also probably want to be something for which I would need a desk in my room, so I could think I was still young. And I could write notes to myself, and scotch tape them to the mirror, as I do now.
So there’s my list. Only one thing on it. But one good thing is better than six dull, ordinary things.
Make a plan.
It’s about purpose.
Cherish the memories, but nurture the plan.
