Thanks man. You’re the man!
I’m 70 years old and happily married for the last 40 years. I have three daughters and five grandchildren. Physically, I feel great — the doctor just told me last week that besides the usuals, I’m going to stay here for at least 50 years more…and he wasn’t joking. There is a good chance that I’ll get to 120 and soon you’ll understand how is that even possible.
My wife and I live in a cozy, medium size, house with a pretty garden that we own. For our age, It’s more than we need, even for when the kids and grandchildren are visiting, which is at least once a month (Yes, we are blessed for that). I admit that It’s a bit crowded when my brothers (I have three of them) with their wives and kids come, but we manage, after all, we managed to have family dinners in my beloved mom’s small apartment for years.
My wife and I tend to do at least one physical activity per day, like walking or swimming or gardening. And above all, we really, really love being with our friends. Having loyal, generous, caring friends in our age is like a cure for everything. Sadly, our circle of friends and acquaintances become smaller each year that passes by.
Now, for the fun part: we travel at least twice a year for at least a month each time.
When I say ‘travel’, I don’t mean to the near town or state, no, I mean to other countries, and especially places that are not considered to be ‘the classics’, places like the ‘Plitvice Lakes’ in Croatia, ‘Angkor Thom’ in Cambodia or ‘Glaciar Perito Moreno’ in Argentina.
When you’re young, you dream of traveling to faraway, magical places, experience breathtaking places and meet interesting people from different cultures. When you’re my age, you want to actually fulfill those dreams.
The sad thing is that when you’re young, you don’t have the means and when you’re a bit older, you are too busy surviving life: raising the kids, going up the ladder of your career, provide for the needs of the family and above all make everyone happy (and try to stay sane at the same time).
I’m very happy with my life & achievements. Although I didn’t get to fulfill all my dreams, dreaming made me get this far safely. I’m aware that my situation is not obvious and I really don’t want you to think that all is amazing, not at all. My wife and I still fight here and then, I had dealt with a sudden death of a good friend of mine and sometimes I find myself in a state of fear and panic.
So who should I thank for my life so far? Is it fate? The short answer is, maybe. But to be more specific, probably not. So whom then?
— Me. Us.
I have to thank myself and my wife. We were faithful to each other, we were responsible, we did everything we could to put aside enough for the girls to get into the schools they wanted. We put aside enough to buy the house that we still live in. And above all, We put aside for us — for the 70 years old us.
I now look back and say: “Thanks man. You’re the man! You and your amazing wife, who BTW is going to inform you that you’re going to be a father soon.”
Hey, it’s me. I admit, I hear voices of an old man shouting at me every now and then.
I’m 41 years old, happily married with two girls. I’m a founder of a startup called ‘Change’ (It’s my 3rd startup so I’m much more realistic about my odds of being a billionaire.) We live in an apartment that we pay mortgage on so it’s technically not ours yet, and I hope to buy a house with a garden one day.
My weekly activities usually revolve around: preparing the girls in the morning and taking them to their kindergarten, sitting behind the steering wheel on the way to and from work and sitting in front of a computer most of the day. I see my brothers and their girlfriends every other week at my mom’s and sadly, me and the wife rarely travel because…you know…life happens.
I’m very happy with my life — I usually see the glass half full and I mostly think about how to better provide for my family and try my best to make everyone happy. One of the things I keep thinking about is — us, the future us. “Will we still be together when we’ll be 70?”, “Are we going to live forever like Google’s futurist says?”.
I don’t need to live forever, 120 years sound just enough ;)
Change develops an Invisible App that you links to bank and credit card accounts, analyzes money transactions and discovers bad financial behavior (symptoms). It then matches those symptoms with behavioral treatments that are executed through smart SMS messages (nudges).
Please visit https://www.gochange.co and register to our alpha version.
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