Tag Archives: Boomers

The Road to Diamond, Day 277: The Labour of Love, at Quarter Century

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, impediments, Inspiration, Personal Values, service, Social, Spiritual, Striving

September 1, 2025- A friend was clearly shocked, voice breaking, whilst reading the message from a mutual friend, which indicated that here were two people talking past one another, regarding an act of service in which they had spent most of yesterday-and were pondering how to complete the job today.

We “Boomers” are in situations, quite often,in which two or more people get involved in helping a destitute, or infirm, friend-and find selves reaching own physical limits. I am fairly robust, at just shy of 75, but many of my contemporaries are not. I stand up for them, when they have to back off from work they find too onerous, given their physical state. The friend I first mentioned above is one of those who has every right to set limits. So, too, is the second friend, who is, in fairness, selfless to a fault. At some point, very soon, I hope that is realized.

I have to be very transparent, of late, about my own limits, which are more financial (preserving the means to reach my goals and to provide in the event of unforeseen emergencies) and temporal (not being able to spend time with certain folks around Home Base I, as I will be away for a good part of the rest of this year, and next),than physical-for the foreseeable future, anyway.

What my friends and I do is sincerely out of love. Favours, though, cannot be expected. In the past day or so, I have had to let two people, for whom I care deeply, know that they are not entitled to have me at their beck and call. This is as much out of regard for their own dignity and worth as it is for my own. I had to learn this the hard way, several years ago-and am grateful for the lesson, both as giver and as receiver.

We give of ourselves both in gratitude for those who gave to us, back in the day, and out of love for those who are at wit’s end. We offer a hand up, rather than a hand out, as much as our own means allow. Happy Labour Day, all!

Moving Seamlessly

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Posted by on in Personal goals, Social

The young firefighter described his, and his unit’s, work, over the course of a year, as moving seamlessly from one set of tasks to another.  This is what I admire most about so many of those who have taken on difficult, dangerous and often thankless, unappreciated tasks as their life’s work.  The unit in question works under an administration which seems to neither understand nor care much for those under its charge.  That administration is getting a rather long overdue education today and tomorrow.

I have said in the past that, even as I have good friends in every living generation, I am finding I relate best to Millennials.  The sense of commitment to a better world is just below the surface among all ages, yet nowhere is the energy and drive to truly create a functioning and equitable global society stronger than it is among teens and twenty-somethings.  Gen Z (those fourteen and under) seems just as promising, so this could be a confirmation that the world, towards which so many have striven,  is on its way, even as so much that is rotten needs to be cleared out.

We may not move forward with absolute seamlessness, and there are plenty of non-angelic types among the younger generation, but as I move about the city of Prescott, around Arizona or across the country and to other parts of the world, I sense there is a purposeful mien among the youth.  It goes beyond idealism, which, if left to stand alone, becomes cynicism and gives way to creature comforts, drug abuse and paranoia. Maybe, with the current younger generations, the lack of time-honoured opportunities which many of us enjoyed as youth, has forced self-reliance, group action and innovation to the fore early on in their lives.  Certainly, technology has helped greatly, in that regard.

I have come under a lot of fire from many of my fellow Boomers and from several Gen-X’ers recently, for my past few posts.  I can’t share their cynicism, though, and while contemplating the rest of my life, I can only see good things for the human race, in the aggregate.  Those of my contemporaries who agree with my assessment have been equally vocal, so maybe I, too, am moving seamlessly from one day, and one set of tasks, to the next.