what next

It’s funny how I am seeing myself age. Life priorities change. Your vision for the future changes. You start thinking about surviving peacefully as opposed to do lots of crazy things. It’s amusing for me to see how my mental model is changing as I grow older. When I shifted into this current house 10 years ago I had limited budget and lots of dreams and a world view that said – we will figure. Right now let’s focus on what’s important and build that.

So thanks to the small family that we were (we still are, I guess), we created a small house. We had almost no furniture and two cupboards and one bed. We spent the most, 60 thousand bucks, on the kitchen and made a small house for the small aspirations that we had. The idea was simple, we will figure as we go along the way. Slowly as we progressed as family, we did more renovations in the house. We got it painted, we added a dining table, a TV, we extended the house a bit, we got arm chairs and more cupboards. It was a lovely beautiful experience in building the home over ten years. I would give that up for anything. I really remember how small and cute and minimal the house was.

When we had money we bought a gymkhana membership. That too was bought with a sole intention of growing up with the gymkhana life with Jispa. She would do something, like swimming or badminton or tennis or something. It was an important and significant purchase for us.

Now after 11 years, as old as this blog, we have decided to move to our new Chembur house. This is a two bedroom kitchen and this is being done with a different mindset. Now we are doing up the house with a lot of focus on how it will be the same for a long time to come. We don’t have the attitude that we will figure. Let’s move into a nice home with all the amenities and the furniture sorted. So let’s have all cupboards, let’s have Jispa’s room sorted, let’s have the hall sorted, lets buy the right appliances, everything. Now the focus is not on the journey but to be that the destination has arrived.

I realize that at 42, possibly, just possibly, this is the house that I am likely to retire in and die in. I will not be able to remodel this again and again. Most of what we want should be done and made. So we are using good carpentry and good material for the home. Things that should last us for a long time. Now is the time that we are not looking for change but for permanence. So now what all can I invest in so that it will last a long time.

Next to the Chembur house is a gymkhana – Chembur Gymkahana. Jasmine and I were discussing the gymkhana membership and I urged her to come with me and see it. We liked what we saw and we saw that this looked affordable. But we have one membership, didn’t we? My argument to her is simple. We are likely to retire here as empty nesters when Jispa goes away. We are going to be oldies with little to do and lots of time and less income generating capacity. What will you do then? You will go to the gym and walk, go for swim, try and play a game or two and sit with your friends in a gymkhana. I am not even sure as we grow older if we will have the ability to drive up to Matunga gym and worse, you don’t want to waste money going there. I don’t know. But when you have this gymkhana sitting right here waiting for you to just hop inside, then that’s the ideal thing for the idle oldie.

Possibly when you are retired gymkhana politics or service, handling the affairs of the gymkhana is also something that you can do. Retired people work best as secretaries of housing societies and Gymkhanas where they spend their time doing honorary service, feel important and spend their time. It requires experience tact and time, which is what an old person would have. Hah. So we are now considering buying the membership for no other reason except – old age.

It’s a far cry from the action oriented unbrindled optimism of ten years back. Want to do something, want to live for the present, want to figure things out as they come. Now it’s a way to do least harm. I play with my knee in mind, with my back in mind, with a simple thing that tells me to manage myself or I going to be in trouble. I remember that my dad was only 45 years old when he got his first heart attack. I am 42. My immediate next goal – survive the next 3 years without too many issues. The fun bit of marrying early is that by the time I am 45, my daughter will be 18. I was 10 when my dad got his first attack. Hopefully first milestone will pass soon enough, without too much stress.

So that’s my ikigai for now – I am trying to create my ikigai when I won’t have any ikigais. That’s an interesting new time for me. Lets see.