Thursday, June 25, 2009

Command and Control

One of the desperate feelings that grips me from time to time is the feeling of loss. More so loss of control over life's directions.

When I was around 40, I told myself that I need to plan for my retirement. So I mull and pondered over all the possible options. Now more than 10 years later, I find myself not any closer to any answers.

I love coffee, photography, and food. Operating a small corner coffee stall, like a mini starbucks, was one idea that I know will be wishful thinking - but fun to think about. I am not cut out to be a serious photographer - eyesight not too great and shaky hands. Food? My wife is now a better baker and cook than I am. She has overtaken me leaps and bounds. When we first got married - I was the chef. She was good for the rice, fried eggs and fried vegetable. Today, I only good for fried eggs. Even at this, my youngest does a better job!

Coming from a line of administrators, I never expected a great career where I will be high and mighty in some multinational corporation. But life do have surprises. I had my fun times - like getting aircraft manufacturers to admit that they screwed up on some technical designs and then getting compensated!. Had a chance to be a "mighty connected" executive with blackberry. I gave up the blackberry a few years later - time alone was more precious than the false promise of prominence.

Being in the "post 50" stage, what should I do? Retirement is just round the corner. I would like to quit my job and work in Ikea - wearing sneakers, fixing shelves, moving about, getting sweaty - but I am not finanancially independent. Guess I will never be ......

So now at the twilight years of my life I am caught. But over the past weeks I come to realise that in life, there are always options. And each option has a cost to it. Not quite a "zero sum game" situation but similar. In all choices, we lose some and gain some. However I had difficulty in selecting choices because I did not change my mindset - like in management gurus' term paradigm change.

And so at the twilight years of my life, I realised I needed to change my worldview of life itself. Life basic needs will always be there - but the issue is how much should I be reacting towards meeting needs. More crucial now is, has my life purpose change?

In some degree it has. I seem to see more clearly now what I want to do because I am now less distracted with many of the concerns of life. Age puts dampers on distractions!

By God's grace, I am looking forward to these coming years. I want to put much effort in helping the next generation. Now I am a wee bit satisfied that I still in some control of my life.