Evan’s 25th Reunion, Part IV of III (Waxing Philosophical)

Welcome to the fourth installment of my trilogy. I suspect that, unless you’re a regular reader of my blog, you didn’t think I could drag things out this long. The secret is to think like a politician… use a lot of words to say absolutely nothing. But enough of that. Let's talk about the reunion.

Friday night, my classmates and I all met up at a bar we used to frequent in our younger days. Many of us hadn’t seen one another for decades, so we did what comes naturally in this type of situation… we played catch-up. But how do you cram 20+ years of life experience into bite-sized chunks… and do that several times in the same evening? You talk about common stuff... marriage, kids, employment and so forth.

The problem with talking about this kind of stuff is that some people think of it as a competition. “Yeah, we both have jobs, but who makes more money? We’re both married, but who has a trophy wife?” We’ve been taught from a very young age that success has a relatively narrow, quantifiable definition, and too many of us allow ourselves to be defined by others. I’m going to use two examples…

I hadn’t seen Mike C. for a very long time. I know that it had been 15+ years, and am reasonably confident that it had been 20+ years. We used to run around in some of the same circles, so I was genuinely interested in hearing a bit about his life. He looked and sounded a bit embarrassed as he told me that he still lived in town, and was an exterminator. I could sense his self-consciousness, but was unable to put him at ease. The conversation was short, and we both moved on to speak with different people. What he didn’t seem to realize was that I was genuinely interested in hearing a bit about his life. I wasn’t there to compete and brag.

There was another guy there that I didn’t immediately recognize. This wasn’t a deterrent to me. I walked up to MANY people throughout the course of the night and re-introduced myself. Duane, however, beat me to the punch and said hi to me. I would never have recognized him! But what really struck me was how he carried himself. Duane was obviously a man content with his lot in life. There were people there who had “better” jobs, or more children, or whatever, but Duane didn’t seem to care. It appeared Duane was at the reunion because he honestly wanted to catch up with people from his past.

If you ask me, Duane’s approach to is far superior. The idea of competing in life can only lead to stress and despair in the long run. This is because in any given competition, there can only be a single victor. And, taking the occupational competition as an example, not everyone is cut out to be a rocket scientist or professional athlete, and not everyone wants to be a rich banker or brain surgeon. Maybe I misinterpreted Mike’s apparent unease, but from my perspective, if he’s happy with his lot in life when nobody else is around, then he’s a successful man.