By Bundi Karau
Last week, an article appeared in the Standard about the sorry state of men on retirement. Men who were previously kings in their careers and businesses now suffer silently, as children and mothers alienate them and sentence them to loneliness and neglect. It was a sobering read. In the words of one commentator, men who don't spend time with their children in their formative years end up becoming like "a rained on cat that looks like a former lion."
Most ladies who commented talked about the value of presence, and time spent with children. Accordingly, it is not the money that counts, but the time spent with kids. Otherwise you could end up spending your last years like a rained on lion.
But come to think of it; can you actually achieve a perfect balance in life?
I reckon that man was created to strive and to suffer. A man who doesn't strive misses a certain gene, a certain coding that the creator implanted in us.
Whether as a professional or a businessman, you must strive to leave a mark. I don't know of any venture where you will rise above the average without putting in time, sweat and strain.
And there's no way you will rise as a doctor, lawyer, engineer, businessman, teacher, journalist, writer etc without sweating it out.
And as you sweat it out, a certain aspect will suffer.
So, to me, life is about daily recalibration.
You strive on one end, and then realize the other is losing. You swing to the other spectrum, and as you correct it, you realize the other is suffering. It's a kind of seesaw that continues until we retire or expire.
Even as we give marks to men, we should give them a mark for genuine effort.
When you accuse a watchman of not spending quality time with kids, you would be imagining he sleeps in the cold for fun. Yet the poor guy is doing so to put food on the table and a shelter over the head.
Genuine effort should be applauded.
It is a pity that for most of us, the formative stages of our children coincide with the stage our careers are forming, expanding and most challenging.
If you're a politician in the 40s and 50s, you've got to do what politicians do to rise above the mediocre- meetings, deal-cutting, rallies, strategizing etc.
Women also do suffer from the above crisis of recalibration, though to a less extent than men. They are gifted with better capacity to multitask, and society is kinder to them.
Lastly, I've realized something about life.
Man was created to suffer.
You burst into the world in screams, in a few years you're sent to school. You struggle for 20-30 odd years to make meaning out of life. Once you've made meaning, you work hard for career significance. Before you settle to enjoy it, children arrive and you take responsibility. You hit the 50s, hormones dip, and retirement beckons. Then you are at the mercy of doctors. In the best case scenario, your health remains robust. In the worst, it is hospital after hospital. Then you become a sheep in the same house you were a lion.
You could have the money, but with cringing joints, dementia and constipation, there's much you can do with it.
The end is always grissly, however glorious life was.
We were created to suffer!
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