Mere Mortals

Boomers have gone from tinkering with their bucket list plans to pondering whether or not they will kick the bucket all together.

What a difference a few months make. The camping trip is off. The summer beach booking is in jeopardy. The trip to deliver a loved one’s ashes cannot be taken. You cannot proudly watch the daughter’s graduation. A lot has changed.

Maybe a vaccine next year will get us back on track, and yet, it’s a year lost while many boomers are wondering how many years they have left.

Are boomers better off than younger citizens who depend upon jobs and income to keep a roof over their heads and food in the pantry? Absolutely yes. It’s the reason so many boomers are donating to food banks and urging their representatives to vote yes on legislation to help those thrown out of work.

Still, we can’t help thinking we’re just one missed handwashing or sanitized countertop away from buying the farm. When you’re on the downside of the teeter board, it’s natural to see the lost time as a true loss. It’s also a reminder that mortality is a lot more than some hypothetical event in our future.

And what if some of the futurists are correct that the pandemic, this one or the next one, makes the risk of illness a constant in our lives. Are we ready to live with reduced mobility and socialization as a constant? Should we take our chances and get the virus so we can move on? Is that really possible when some experts are unwilling to predict that those who get the virus will not get it again?

No wonder everyone is experiencing more anxiety. We cannot predict or plan for what’s ahead at exactly the moment in time that we hoped we would be living the good life. It might be time to lower our expectations for how we define the “good life.” Or we could roll the dice and go for it like there’s no tomorrow, because there may not be one. I don’t appreciate Mr. Hobson, but he’s left us his choice.

Jay Harrison is a graphic designer and writer whose work can be seen at DesignConcept and at BoomSpeak. He's written a mystery novel, Head Above Water which can be purchased on Amazon here. You can also visit his author page here.

To-Do List?

I’ve heard that some baby boomers feel like they should be winding down things on their to-do list, and I just want to emphatically state that it’s not going to happen in my world.

What? Winding down because you don’t want to add any new tasks or goals to your life? You want to coast the rest of the way? You don’t need the distractions?

I call bullshit. You do what you want but I think it’s important to keep adding things to the list rather than letting it atrophy. I’ve got places to go, new things to learn, more books to read, people to meet. I want to expand the to-do list not shrink it. If you’re finally at a place where you can do some of the things you always wanted to do, winding down the to-do list is totally counterintuitive.

Make no mistake –– I’m not against occasionally sitting back and contemplating my navel. I’ve earned that privilege. Maybe an end-life of contemplation made sense when life expectancy was a lot lower age than it is today, but if you’re going to live to 100 do you really think it’s rational to loaf all the way there from age 65? That’s a lot of downtime.

I thought baby boomers were going to be different when it came to retirement. Golf and shuffleboard were on the way out and personal improvement and a more hyperactive lifestyle were on the way in. No gold watch after 30 years of service with the same company, and that was okay because our varied worklife was more interesting and rewarding. Once again, boomers were going to make different choices from what our parents did. Slowing down was not going to be the goal of our retirement.

While the idea of just wasting time may sound like a plus if you’ve been a striver all your life, this striver thinks it’s exactly what it sounds like. A waste of time. You could be trying to learn a new language, taking a welding course, fusing glass, or getting better at Scrabble. In fact, it’s time to create a bucket list, not time to shorten your to-do list

Jay Harrison is a graphic designer and writer whose work can be seen at DesignConcept and at BoomSpeak. He's written a mystery novel, Head Above Water which can be purchased on Amazon here. You can also visit his author page here.

Bucket List Conundrum

A relatively recent fad, the bucket list appears to be growing more and more relevant to baby boomers. Naturally, that’s because we are on the downside of our life span so it’s time to get some things done before we kick the bucket.

And therein lies the problem for me. Making a list of things to do/places to go before you die is an inherently pessimistic proposition. Would I like to travel to some destinations that have always interested me? Yes, definitely. But do I want to get to these places because time is running out, the clock is ticking, it won’t be long now, and just about all the sand has fallen through the hour glass? Not so much.

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve got things I want to do but I hate the idea that I’m supposed to play beat the clock. I’m no procrastinator but I don’t like being pressured to do something before I think it’s time or I have the time to do it. I have to catch myself when tempted to say I’m doing something or going somewhere because it’s on my bucket list. Rather, I like to think I’m self-publishing that book or visiting that country because I'm lucky that I have the time/money to do it…and dying before I get to it does not enter into the equation.

A bucket list is almost like saying to yourself that you should be nicer to friends and family now. After all, your days are numbered and you want to be remembered as the kind person you think you are (or wish you could be). It’s a cynical gesture to make friends and family think you are (or were) a better person than you really are. And it’s all about getting it done before you buy the farm, check into the Horizontal Hilton, take a dirt nap, leave the building, play the harp or sleep with the fishes (more on that later).

Still, from the number of times I’m hearing people mention their bucket list, I may be the salmon swimming upstream on this one. Which reminds me, I’ve always wanted to swim upstream with the salmon. It’s on my net list.

Jay Harrison is a graphic designer and writer whose work can be seen at DesignConcept and at BoomSpeak. He's written a mystery novel, which therefore makes him a pre-published author.