Fading Opportunities

rocketroute.com

We peruse or read for various reasons. At times I look for local happenings, or world news, or for athletic scores or the Dow. Occasionally I look for editorials. In a recent edition of Forbes, I read Rich Karlsgard, a regular columnist who is also the Publisher. He told the story of a friend who had spent 40 plus years as a successful cancer surgeon who at age 67 was diagnosed with stage 3 cancer. A natural time to retire, right?

He also had a fifty-year hobby of amateur flying. But he also knew that his window of opportunity to fly a jet for hire was fading. So Rich asked him why he wanted to suffer the deprivations of being a charter pilot. He answered I'm flying a Cessna Citation CJ3 . . . flying to places I would have never gone in my own plane.

Normally our reaction could be negative. At his age, a survivor of an earlier bout with hepatitis and currently cancer, retirement would be the natural way to go. Which brings up a complex quandary. Have we missed a fading opportunity due to health, age, handicap or a window of opportunity? Did we ever have a burning desire to do something, go somewhere, fulfill a burning passion or prove a point?

What did our ancestors do before the era of retirement? Did they sit on comfortable rocking chair (or recliner) and watch the world go by? How did they spend their latter years of life in good or not so good health? Could they have assumed a new career then similar to opportunities available today? Or did they simply keep on doing what they were doing until it became impossible? Did any of them have a similar burning desire but unreachable.

In the TV news I watched a 105 year old barber cut hair in a barber shop, not in his home. In our Retirement Village which is now our habitation, we have a person, almost identical age, who no longer walks but can hardly wait until Spring to go along with his fellow residents in our Village bus on a tour of his beloved city where he nostalgically describes many nooks and crannies hidden to his fellow travelers.
Unquestionably, opportunities do fail due to age, health, desire (or lack of), or imposed restraints.

But if our dreams are doomed should we quit dreaming? Not if we want possibilities to suffer deprivation. Or lucidity (daring or sanity). Or challenges. Or . . .