Of course, what time.

One of the pleasures, believe it or not, as one drives through the wet streets of East London is that with all the activity going on around one feels a part of the huge machinery that is humanity going about its daily life.

The comfort one feels to be inside this bubble and not outside is palpable and is a relief from the feeling of insularity that retirement brings. The camaraderie of being amongst work mates and the office environment in general is a rich balm to the insecurity of being alone. The problems and the solutions of the day make being awake meaningful since they are shared with others. This constant interaction is something we take for granted throughout our lives and only when we are penned out to pasture does the view over the fence seems like another world which is getting on, just fine without us. We make so much of our own work related environment the one into which we were contributing so much effort and hard work that it is nearly impossible to imagine how the world of work is managing to get on without us. But they do and we are soon forgotten. 

Perhaps we should remember this when we sacrifice so much life to the alter of our job unable to distinguish the importance of someone else's priority, from the one we perhaps should have been attuned to closer to home. But without our sense of our own self importance, without the job title, without the boost to our ego we would not grow. The pressure of someone else's time scale and their power to inflict pain if we don't perform. The ability to stay ahead of that ultimate conflict, "your fired" leads to quite a lot of satisfaction similar to winning a race, or staying alive on the battlefield. Adrenalin is mankind's aphrodisiac it pumps the little grey cells into happy action without which we are virtually dead.
So when I get a call on the phone, "can you look at doing a job for us next week", I am happy to reply "of course, what time"!!!