A saying I’ve heard often in France is “in France we work to live, we don’t live to work”. I saw this image from Pascal Campion recently and, as a father of five. sons, and as one of them might say, it really “hit me in the feels”.
My first son arrived when I was 28. By the time I was 40, the youngest was 2 and I remember a moment on vacation at that time when (and this was the heyday of the Blackberry, around 2004) I was walking around a theme park but was, at the same time, trying to deal with a crisis at work via email by pecking away on the device. My oldest son gently pointed out to me “You are not here with us, Dad”.
That cut deep, as by that stage in my life I’d already made conscious choices around my career to be able to spend more time with them than, say, if I’d moved the family to a major world city instead of staying on an island where my “commute” was a matter of a few minutes drive. When my son said those to me, I knew I had more to do to “work to live”, so gradually took more and more steps towards that, as spending time with my boys is, as the picture from Pascal Campion says so well, priceless.
Money is not wealth, “stuff” is not wealth, and having the choice as to how we spend our time is true wealth.
I’m 58 now, with sons from 20 to 29 years old. The days of having lots and lots of time with them as they grew up are now gone, and, though I could have done even more, I am so glad I did (to some extent) choose time over money (work) to be with them as they grew. As I write this, at this time of my life they are all in flow, moving through education and careers and in a good space. Their life journeys will evolve and I will always make time for them, but I am also now focussing more on the generation above me, parents and other close family and friends who are now up in their 70s and 80s. Time spent with them is priceless too, such as a moment this summer when my (past racing driver) father, aged 84, drove me in his sports car with the top down at high speed around the twisty roads near his home in the Scottish Borders.
Time is Wealth, be conscious of how you choose to earn it and to spend it.