There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke
But you and I, we’ve been through that, and this is not our fate
So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late
Bob Dylan
Decades ago, my wife was a social worker advocating for nursing home residents. One resident she got to know well was Mr. Foley, who took a liking to this vibrant, pretty, young professional, who in turn found him to be wise and kindly. At some point in their acquaintance, he told her his life’s tale, which had all the makings of an O. Henry story. His experience would subsequently impact the life she and I have led.
Mr. Foley described his marriage and the choices he and his wife made. They decided early on that he should throw himself into his work to set them up for a future of blissful retirement while she took care of the home, as was the mode. They raised a family and did all the conventional things, but they denied themselves pleasures when they were younger so that they could save for their dreams of the future. In particular, they both loved to travel, so they planned to see the world once he was done with work.
A fantastic effort has failed, a repetition
In a repetitiousness of men and flies.
Wallace Stevens
You can guess the upshot. Just as Mr. Foley prepared to retire at the conventional age, excited for the adventures he and his wife had put off so long, he suffered a devastating stroke, which is what landed him in the nursing home. Soon enough and sure enough the nursing home had drained them of all their savings as well as their lifelong dreams.
He ended this story with a moral:
“Live now. Don’t put off your dreams since you never know what will happen in the future.”
There it was. Mr. Foley’s regret of a lifetime rolled up into one wise platitude. My wife and I call his advice the “Mr. Foley Rule,” but we could more ungenerously have called it “Foley’s Folly.” You may recognize the Mr. Foley Rule as a variation of carpe diem or seize the day. My wife and I have invoked the rule often and have savored many adventures as a result.
That brings us to the present. Recently, my wife joined (and then quickly departed) a Facebook group that consists of people who are planning for their retirement. Most of the participants are younger, in their thirties and forties, and have decided to make sacrifices now so that they can live large later on. They — even more so than the Foleys — deny themselves pleasures, some going so far as to limit their very diets to save for the future. I don’t mean they don’t go out to restaurants. I mean that they subsist on ramen noodles, Dinty Moore, and other cheap and dodgy dorm food, all in the belief that what they save now by scrimping will be there for them down the line.
I hope these people are not disappointed the way the Foleys were. I hope they don’t live out their own O. Henry ironies — for instance, being done in prematurely by the very diet they adopted to economize for retirement or finding that their greatest life desire is actually free of charge. I hope that they get to relish their dreams all the more because of the sacrifices they are currently making. Sadly though, their self-denial is just as or more likely to lead to bitter regret as it is to well-subsidized bliss. There are simply too many variables that they have no control over — more than I could ever enumerate — and it remains no less true for being trite that there are no guarantees. I have previously written about the futility of human control in the context of perfectionism.
Brought on by a simple twist of fate.
Bob Dylan
Let me be clear. I am not endorsing the devil-may-care or come-what-may or fiddly-dah or go-away-and-don’t-bother-me-now-I’m-busy attitude toward life planning that apparently comes naturally to us humans. In fact, I am a living example of the virtues of early planning. I can feel secure in my retirement outlook because my wife and I started preparing nearly two decades ago, and I trust you are doing the same, whatever your age or circumstance.
The thing is, with life planning or any such good, you can go too far. The Foleys went overboard in their anticipation of the complacencies the future would offer. You can limit and mitigate happenstance to some extent, but you cannot control or eradicate it. Accidents happen. Sickness happens. Jobs end. Relationships end. Lives end. Carpe diem!
So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late
Bob Dylan
To be fair, though, I always found the concept of carpe diem a bit overwhelming. How do you seize the day, making the best out of every moment? Doing so itself seems exhausting. But as I age and age and age, I understand how much of life I have missed by not seizing it. One platitude that has always struck me is the observation that no one ever lamented on their deathbed, “I should have spent more time at the office.” Personally, I could have done better, particularly early on, to take that sentiment more to heart, but it still has had a significant impact on me and on my behaviors. Frankly, our culture worships in a cult of overwork, and the consequences are spectacularly devastating.
I am not big on meaningless regret, though, and I am still training myself to abandon the habit of worry, which, as I have written, are two sides of the same coin.
As a result, I have become more resolved to seize the day — at least as best one can during a global pandemic. I long that my wife and I stay hail and hardy well into the future, but we cannot count on that. We can only hope for the best, prepare for the worst, and expect something in between.
The lessons of mindfulness — drawing on Zen Buddhism — and the wisdom of Stoicism hold a similar message. The past is gone. The future is uncertain. We only have the present for sure, and there is no time like the present.
How do you — the present you — view the future? Are you prepared mentally and otherwise? What is your relationship to the balance of the rigors of work with the contentment available in your life?
Now is the time to set yourself mentally for the future while enjoying the present, and I can help. Click below for your free consultation.
Share your thoughts on this topic or participate in a discussion by leaving a comment below or by contacting me directly by email:
You must register with Substack and sign in to leave a comment, which is painless and free.
Please share this post on social media.
And don’t forget to click subscribe to have Tools + Paradigms sent directly to your inbox. I look forward to hearing from you.
Share this post