The Fallacy Of Preparing For Life

Would you take financial advice from a member of Pink Floyd?  Well, maybe not direct financial advice, but how about sage advice that directly affects how you think about money?

Recently I was watching a documentary about the Pink Floyd album Dark Side Of The Moon.  For my money, Dark Side might just be the best album ever in the rock genre.  Shots fired!

It came out in 1973, almost 50 years ago.  Yet It still sporadically appears on the Billboard top 200 charts!  The album has spent 962 weeks on the chart as of February 2022.  That’s a total of 18.5 years.  Insane. 

If for whatever reason you have never listened to this gem, do it.  There’s a reason a 49 year old record still makes it on the charts.  It’s that good. 

Time

Tired of lying in the sunshine, staying home to watch the rain
You are young and life is long, and there is time to kill today
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun
– from “Time” by Pink Floyd

The documentary I was watching is on Amazon Prime and called Pink Floyd – The Making Of The Dark Side Of The Moon (Classic Album) (<– affiliate link).  It’s currently free if you’re already a Prime subscriber but even if you’re not and you like the album you should watch it. 

At exactly 20:50 into the documentary Roger Waters was talking about the genesis of the song “Time”.  He said something that hit me like a ton of bricks and that resonated with my life story tremendously.

I certainly realized that year that life was already happening. I think it’s because my mother was so obsessed with education and the idea that childhood and adolescence and, well everything, is about preparing for a life that was going to start later. Then I suddenly realized that life wasn’t going to start later. You know it starts at a dot and it happens all the time, and at any point you can grasp the reigns and start guiding your own destiny. And that was a big revelation to me, I mean it came as quite a shock.

Life is now.  It’s already started.  Shit, it started a while ago if you can read and comprehend these words.  If you think you are still in “preparing for” mode, what the hell are you preparing for? 

Retirement?  What, when you get to 65?

The preparing part is your life.

it keeps ticking….

Shorter Of Breath And One Day Closer To You Know What

And you run, and you run to catch up with the sun but it’s sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in a relative way but you’re older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death
– from “Time” by Pink Floyd

In my drinking days when I was escaping life and my traumatic childhood I had the same feeling that Roger Waters described.  It was mostly a subconscious feeling, but it was there nonetheless. 

I had a sense that my current situation was just something I had to get through until I started being an adult and “doing” real life.  It’s fair to say I thought I was still preparing for real life, and pushing through turbulent waters that were thrust upon me through no fault of my own.

What I didn’t realize is that I was living my real life.  It had already started.  And besides being financially smart and successful in my job I was royally fucking it up everywhere else.

Half A Page Of Scribbled Lines

Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over, thought I’d something more to say
– from “Time” by Pink Floyd

Every year is still 365 days, but damn if they don’t seem to be getting shorter and shorter.  Nobody seems to be able to find the time for anything, their dreams, their passions, or their kids soccer game. 

Time. 

That elusive concept that we’re all pushing through, but that we can’t make more of.  You can prepare for retirement, but remember that the preparing years are still your life and you can’t get that time back.  Make those years great. 

Don’t suffer in a job you hate just to financially prepare for a future thing called retirement.  Life is now.

There is no preparing for life, there’s only life. 

Important Note – I realize Roger Waters is very politically active and is currently on a tour meant to encourage political activism which has garnered lots of media attention.  He has every right to do that but I don’t care about his politics and am a fan of him as an amazing musician.  That said, I will delete any overtly political comments.