Life Lessons

How To Live Your Best Life

There's one thing you need to do, and it's not to get rich

In 1979 my father passed away just shy of his sixtieth birthday. He was fifty nine years old and didn't look a day over eighty. In those days life expectancy wasn't what it is nowadays. In my father's case a life of hardship, which included a long stint as a World War II prisoner of war in Poland, had taken its toll on his health. Thankfully a lot has changed since then.

These days we have better living conditions with a better diet and better healthcare. Those of us who belong to Generation X, or the Baby Boomers, are the living proof of the efficacy of a better lifestyle and the advances in modern healthcare. In Japan, which is where I live, life expectancy for men is now 85.03 (88.09 for females). Which means that all being well I still have a good twenty years to go. And fortunately I have enough money to last the rest of my life, until I buy myself a coffee in downtown Tokyo.

So, the question is what am I going to for the next two decades? Full time work is out of the question due to one or two chronic health issues and a distinct lack of desire to put myself through the mill of the rat race of going out to work all over again. Besides, there is a very strong undercurrent of ageism at play with potential employers shying away from anybody over the age of twenty one. So sixty seven plus is not going to cut it.

For the younger generation I am expected to drop dead any time soon which kind of makes me un-investable. And anyway, in my experience nobody wants anybody better qualified and experienced as they are. Us mature employees are not so easy to have the wool pulled over our eyes nor be pushed around by snappy little ankle biters. Far better to just put us out to grass. So here I am having the time of my life enjoying the freedom to do exactly as I please and answerable to nobody. I can't tell you how good that feels.

When I look back at well over fifty years of working I do wonder how on earth I ever got through it. Having to rise at sparrows fart and go out in the cold and the rain to spend the best hours of my day having to deal with life's arse holes never was my idea of fun. I have had the pleasure and the privilege of working in dark satanic mills and factories not fit for human habitation even if was only to manufacture a few trillion widgets and grommets. And it was all done for a pittance well below the minimum amount needed to keep a mouse alive.

From those dark days I moved on to places a darker shade of black in the form of office life. Never had I met such a bunch of demonic self seeking egomaniacs who resorted to all sorts of shenanigans to get on. Lies and backstabbing, thieving and treachery. I saw it all, usually from the receiving end.Of course, I am a firm believer in karma and saw a great many of those type of people crash and burn. I am not a vindictive person by nature, but I did on occasion drink a toast to one or two bastards less on this godforsaken planet.

And now here I am, feeling for all the world like I have survived a life long obstacle course or an evil fifty year game of snakes and ladders. I am not rich, very far from it. But I am solvent and debt free, and that counts for a lot in my book.

I suppose what I am now doing to keep my brain occupied is downloading a lifetime cv for the perusal of anybody who cares to read it. Hopefully it may serve as some sort of guidance to those who wish to avoid some of the pitfalls I fell right into. And if I can save just one person from making just one of my most fatal mistakes, like giving a toxic narcissist a second chance, then my work is done.

And so for now, for as long as I am able, I write a little, I take a bike ride along some country lanes listening to the wildlife and smelling the flowers. I take my lovely wife out to lunch at the Blue Frog restaurant and still take a lovely glass of red wine every night before I go to sleep. It is not incumbent upon me to do any more than that, though I do have some general plans to do more when travel becomes more do-able.

At last I have the life I always wanted and thought that I could only get by becoming very rich. In a way I am very rich in living the life that I have without needing a small fortune to have it. I am finally living my best life and only wish I had started to do that a lot sooner. Still, better late than never huh.

As for how to live your best life.............................live long enough to get old.

https://readmedium.com/last-night-i-died-dce7ea2a4585?sk=9d064dd9678a08deea78a826dae4e146

Dr Mehmet Yildiz Aldric Chen Rebecca Stevens A. Esther George Carol Price Stuart Englander Terry Mansfield