The rest is a bonus

Subject: The rest is a bonus.

Watching a program on the role of the men who flew the Lancaster bombers in the Second World War, the interviews with the very old survivors, men in their 90s and the sons and daughters also now old people who Dads had died on the nightly raids, one is drawn to contemplate the passage of time which marks a lifetime.
The time that passes between the birth date and the date on the death certificate is, if lucky a significant time, a time of opportunity, of missed opportunity, a time when one could have wished things had been different or a time when, come what may you are quite happy the way things turned out.
Much is about your values and on the importance you place on societal values, as much as your own evaluation of success. Success can be a small thing or a large thing, it needn't have any monetary value but it should show some sort of independent nature in that you should be able to own it. I don't mean by that that you have bought it, just that you understand it in terms of your values and that you are comfortable to be known by it.
One of the most valued successes is having the respectful friendship of others and that you reciprocate that friendship fully. Your isolation in a luxurious car and large gated house, not sure if you are liked for yourself or your wealth, especially if it isolates you, only knowing people like yourself who also have 'the trappings' and have become absorbed with keeping it and with Jones' next door.
Listening to people who had fought for their lives and survived and then come home and carried on with the hum drum, relatively mundane existence most people have, it's remarkable how up beat and savvy they were, consoled by having followed a code of living, being responsible for, not only their actions but the outcome.
It was a low profile generation,  a generation closer to reality (the war took care of that) than later and current generations. It's not to say they didn't have dreams but their dreams predate the Lottery win, predate the credit card, predates the unrealistic compulsion which advertising sows in the brain, predate a shrunken world where we are induced to think that all people are the same and have the same values.
Listening to late middle aged women on the windblown promenade chuckle about the inclement weather, determined to enjoy the walk, come what may one senses a gift for proportionality that willingness not to be governed by the weather forecast but by inclination.
The world is your oyster, even if you have never been further than Clacton, so long as you see what 'is' available to wonder and marvel at. Your health, your sight, your hearing are precious beyond belief after you have reached 70. The rest is a bonus !!!