When all is gone…people are the only absolute.
A friend of the family passed away yesterday at a relatively young age, in his early-60′s. It’s unfortunate that it takes exceptionally sad moments to remember the things that are exceptionally important…
…to remember that it’s all about people…about friends and family. That you don’t win the game of life by getting the most money or toys or celebrity or victory. You win by having friends who will bring you chicken soup when you’re ill.
I’m reminded of a line from a song…in the end it all, piles up so tall, into one big nothing, one big nothing at all.
Yesterday, I had coffee with a friend who had ventured out on his own for the last year, and he was explaining how he had not had as much financial success as he had hoped.
“Were you happy doing it?” I asked.
“Absolutely!” he replied.
In life, there are some things you can’t buy with money, and many things which just aren’t all that important. That’s not what our society tells us, not what our workplace tells us, not what the hundreds of marketing and advertising messages that we’re subjected to each day tell us, but it’s more true than anything I know.
Perhaps I can say this because, relatively speaking, I’m secure. Sure…I have to work for a living, but I have a good job doing something that makes me happy, so I’m lucky. I suppose if this weren’t the case that maybe I’d feel a little differently.
I’m pretty comfortable, however, asserting that’s irrelevant. There will always be people in life with more or less material things than I have…and more or less security than I have. For me, for you, for everyone, these things will always be relative.
The people who can rely on me, and who I can rely on in return…when all is gone and we are stripped bare to the world…people are the only absolute.
