I Have a Dream ... well, I Had a Dream

The other night I had a dream. It was one of those "falling" dreams, you know the ones that they say that if you don't wake up before hitting the bottom, you're dead. But don't worry, it wasn't scary. And that, ironically, was the scary part. Let me explain.

The whole dream probably lasted just a few seconds. In the dream, I was in a nondescript, dark place. The only sound that could be heard was a kind of moaning chant. Over and over, I heard voices chanting, "Old... old ... ooold." The next thing I knew, I was falling. I don't remember jumping or being pushed, but I was falling... and someone, or something, was holding me.

Now here's the strange ironic part. I expected to be scared, but I wasn't. I remember thinking, "this isn't so bad." It was very restful, peaceful even. Nothing required of me, no obligations... Just listen to the chant and fall ... "Old... old... ooold"

But wait! This isn't what I want! I'm not ready to settle for this! I started thrashing and woke myself up.

Oh, the temptation we face. You don't have to do anything. Just put your brain in neutral. Settle in and check out of life.

I view this dream as a wake up call in the battle we face. The battle against complacency, comfort, lethargy. The battle that, if lost, can ultimately rob our minds and bodies of all vitality... that can cause us to waste our "fifteen good years left." The seductiveness lies in the ease, the comfort.

Let's fight this thing together. Toward that end, I've started a website for boomers who truly want to "get the best out of the rest of our lives." Check it out at www.platinumyears.net

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Benefits of Delaying Social Security

I occasionally plow through dreary assessments of how little we boomers are inclined to save and the risks that creates with our retirement prospects…. I do this reading for you, so you won’t have to :-) Occasionally a gem of wisdom will pop out, making it all worthwhile. And those, of course I will pass along. So from an Economic and Budget Issue Brief from the Congressional Budget Office, dated March 14, 2004, entitled “The Retirement Prospects of the Baby Boomers,” comes an excellent and concise summary from a section entitled “The Effects of Delaying Retirement”: "For households facing shortfalls in their retirement savings, relatively small changes in behavior can have surprisingly large effects. Because people who retire at 62 can expect to live another 20 years, each year they postpone retirement reduces their need for retirement savings by about 5 percent. An extra year of work also increases their Social Security benefits by several percent. Taken together, those effects
Read more

What if We SAVED Our "Stimulus Package" Checks?

Yesterday, I gave you a little Self Scoring "Financial Discipline Quiz" about what to do with your potential "Stimulus Package" check. Today, I'm feeling a little unpatriotic for that post, even though I'm convinced that my not so subtle nudge towards reducing your debt is solid advice. But obviously, if everyone with consumer debt took that advice, there wouldn't be much "economic stimulus," now, would there? Now I'm sure that if the President or members of Congress developed a scoring system for my quiz, the methodology would be the exact opposite, with credit going only to those who SPEND their checks. And realistically, I have no doubt that more Americans will follow their desires than my advice... but that doesn't make it right. America as a country has a miniscule savings rate - by some measures negative - especially when compared to other countries. I recently read the following on the Business Week website : "Americans
Read more

What Have You Done Lately to Pursue Your Dreams?

I don't generally watch shows like American Idol, and I don't like opera very much, but I love seeing someone pursue their dreams, and I love it even more when they achieve them. So when I came across this video of 36 year old British mobile phone salesman Paul Potts' appearance on the "Britain's Got Talent" TV Show, I was mesmerized. This clip is a little over a year old, so I apologize if this is old news to you. And Paul is not a boomer, either, although he is the type of underdog character that almost everyone loves to root for. You can easily see by the reaction of the judges, when Paul tells them what he's going to do, that their expectations are VERY low. But then, a miracle happens. Paul begins to sing, the audience is transfixed, then moved to tears, and the audience erupts by the time he's finished. If you love the underdog as much as I do, you'll be fighting back tears. And no doubt you'll also want to see how it all turns ou
Read more