These are trying times. With many people either in lockdown or under the conditions of the virus measures, this is a major drain on our mental health.
Even when life hasn’t changed that much, like Tom’s and mine, it is obvious that the mere fact we can’t do as we please causes discomfort and confusion.
Is true happiness possible in times like this? I think it is, but let’s be honest and realistic – it asks for more effort.
Effort? Isn’t being happy not just something you are or are not?
Tom and I celebrated our 45th anniversary in 2021. For a long time, we hardly celebrated our anniversaries, which isn’t very smart. Because if we don’t celebrate our successes and acknowledge them, we diminish them. That’s one of the secrets for a happy marriage: celebrate!
Being together for such a long time and still being curious about each other and loving and respecting each other can be marked as quite an accomplishment.
This year was special because we had to deal with a Fase 1 Flexibilizada lockdown and its restrictions. We used to eat out on our wedding anniversary day, but during the lockdown, the restaurants were partly closed. They were only allowed to open the terrace, not the inside, and we don’t want to be on the terrace with smokers all around us.
We did go out though – we went to the bakery for bread and en passant we took tea with cake in a corner.
The most interesting question I ever got was “How old are you going to be?”. There had been a vague notion in the back of my head, but until then I had never put an actual number on it.
The importance of life expectancy is huge. Not just for life insurers but especially for your personal situation.
Why? Well, let’s say you will live to be 100. And that you retire at age 67. That means 33 years of not having a job and maybe more costs because of declining health. Which in turn means that you’d better have made preparations while you were still working.
As you are aging you will have thoughts about your finances. Hopefully these are only positive thoughts, because there is a relationship between a negative attitude and being poor. Yet, positive or negative, it’s good to have a grip on your finances.
This article has 2 perspectives. On the one hand to be actually poor or rich, in terms of money. And on the other hand to be rich or poor in your view of wealth. In other words poor mindset vs rich mindset.
We all have a different view on what wealth is. For some people it means having a lot of money, for others being content and happy is more important.