One of my colleagues is in the brink of retirement next month. He is sixty plus, one of lunch companions. He holds second highest position in the office, yet he is down to earth. Every lunch time he will share his stories of life, he likes jokes and always fascinated with email forwards. Yah, we receive any kind even the crappiest type of forwards from him through office emails. So he is more to fun kind, the most optimistic person on earth that I’ve known probably.
He looks forward to his retirement as he plans to make numerous trips or just enjoy his spare time. All that me and my colleagues can do is to count how many thousand years left before our retirement age..
By right, yah, by right, human life should be defined in few stages:
First stage is when you are born and young, everyone loves you, everyone take care of you. You spend time playing ,crying, and do whatever you want. School is play, play is school. Anyone who share the same interest, do the same activities, dress the same, or just being with there with me are friends. We cry when we sad, we laugh when we are happy; we play when we are bored. We kick tantrum when we are angry.
Then goes the stage of realization that life is either more beautiful or shitty. You start to change, physically, mentally, emotionally. Suddenly friends can stab back or become enemy, suddenly hormone kicks, the other gender is not just annoying dirty kids playing and mocking on you. Suddenly you discover feelings, more feelings, discover certain things you like to do more or less. Discover the idea of what you might want to be. By right, with enough support and motivation, you go through phase of learning to be a responsible adult, learning what is right and wrong, learning the complexity of human being.
Embark into adulthood, we have to become a person who provide and support us in earlier phase in our lives. Stand on our own feet, carry others and help them going through everyday lives just like how they help you as parents, probably carry offspring and protect them the way we were protected when we were young. Things are not the same. We discover more about passion, spirit, life motivations, the beauty, the ugly, and learn to be super strong, because we need all the energy. Things are getting ore complex than ever. Sometime we have to laugh when we are sad, sometimes we have to hide the deepest feeling, smile when we are angry, or cry when we are happy and be strong when you are dying inside. Some things are inexpressible and some things are unbearable. But there we are at the strongest point in our life, I can’t say It’s the most challenging because at every point in our life, everything seems challenging depends on where we are. But this phase of life is definitely the one with the most things to do, where you are detaching and attaching, where we learn the hardest effort to stand on our own.
And then next step is when we are in the old age. Saggy skin, deteriorated health, when we no longer have all the power to do anything that we want because our bodies take turn to command us. This is supposed to be the age while what we need to do is to enjoy and relax, harvest the fruit of hard works, having all the philosophy and precious life experiences. This is what is ideal, just like what my colleagues is doing now. He has bunch of friends, activities and purposes in life that await him.
But, how rare is ideal world, even in prosperous country like here. We see elderly on the street, collecting cardboard and aluminum cans to support their life. They barely can stand straight, and their knuckle is swollen and beaten from the joint pain. People at my age have yet endure the dramatic body discomfort, but from occasionally back and joint pains I can really tell how uncomfortable and agonizing it is to work hard in that condition.
A lot of these elderly bear sad stories. Many of them sacrifice their good life to provide for their children, but yet they are abandoned where they are no longer capable and when it’s time for the kids to take care of the parents. I just read one heartbreaking story few weeks ago. An elderly couple give their son the house as the present for his marriage, the house they have live in all their life. When the ownership changes, the son sold away the house and bought private property without accommodating the parents. They have to stay with their daughter only to find out one day that she changed all the locks in order to keep them away. Now they are homeless and living on the staircase somewhere.
Good parents are angel. How can it happen..?
I guess life will never be fair.
If there is one species that nobody can really count on, is human.
I’m just feeling happy that my friend is the lucky one. Survivor of heart attack and cancer, he is standing strong to enjoy the fruitation of his hard work.
Let’s hope each of everyone is that lucky!
