Beyond the Horizon
I’m staring out over the ocean this morning from my room in Bermuda. It’s a beautiful sunny morning here with billowy clouds in the sky and the ocean this side of the reef is that special azure blue that we all amaze at when we come to such places. It is hard not to think about retirement when you come to a place like Bermuda because it is such a pleasant place that has such a temperate climate. It seems like it might be a perfect place to perch. Scootering from here to there and wishing there were fewer tourists would seem to be a mindset held by many of the white-haired inhabitants around here.
Yesterday we drove past a new St. Regis condo development on the northern-most point of the island next to St. Catherine’s fort north of St. George. It sets the mind to wandering since a condo can be had on Bermuda for as little as $350k where buying a house here is now legislated for non-residents at a minimum of $3.5 million (down from $5 million, I might add). My first rule of vacations is never, never buy vacation real estate when you are on vacation. It’s just a good idea to remember that a nice vacation does not make for a nice investment or a nice second or vacation home. Nonetheless, it is nice to ponder the possibilities. Bermuda is such a lovely spot….
However, I am brought back to earth by two related thoughts. I want to plan to go up to Calvary Hospital in the Bronx later today to say goodbye to my old good friend Bruce, who worked with me in my Bankers Trust days. He was a stable and steady voice of reason in a crazy go-go world of 1990’s banking. He has an inoperable cancer and I have heard he is in hospice. I feel the deep need to go to pay my respects. These days I never miss an opportunity to be kind. It seems increasingly important the older I get. This is not paying anything forward in hopes that people will come to see me on my deathbed, but rather a cry from my soul to be kind and caring to others because it is the right thing to do and perhaps the most important thing we do in our lives. I will travel to the Bronx later today.
That also makes me remember by other friend Barry, who, like me, was smitten by Bermuda and did, indeed, decide to attempt retirement on this idyllic island. I am told he built a house here recently in hopes of retiring here after a very successful life in the finance world. Of course, that’s exactly when he learned he had an inoperable cancer and he needed to stay close to Memorial Sloan Kettering hospital for treatment. I imagine his lovely house in Bermuda pales by comparison to the precious moments he is now spending with his family and friends.
Every new construction house I see here in Bermuda makes me wonder if that might be Barry’s house. I think about how ephemeral and fleeting the concept of retirement is for most of us. It is more of a goal than an actual place. The Bermuda house issue, combined with all this news of friends facing their own mortality makes me think that it might be better to not plan such great retirement getaways. Maybe we are meant to embrace the moment rather than plan for comfort.
That issue always makes me wonder. I am a planner, presumably like half the people of the world. I think good things come from planning and that good planning pays dividends for years. But the Barry story is troubling because it so undercuts the value of planning. How do I make sense of all this in the context of a lovely mini-break we just had in Bermuda and my love for dreaming of what might be?
I am already planning for my retirement. My plan is to work until I no longer want to or can work. By “can” I am currently not speaking of any disability, but rather the ongoing viability of the business I am running. If it goes on and goes on needing me, I will probably work until such time as I decide I’ve had enough. My current landing spot is in San Diego, where we have a lovely house on a hill that looks out at the western horizon across forty miles of Pacific Ocean. In many ways it is a similar version of what I am looking out at to the east here in Bermuda. Looking out over the horizon is more than a euphemism, it is a very real feel-good for people with minds like mine that are perhaps too active and need settling.
When I was on a whale-watching boat trip in Iceland a few years ago, it turned very messy as the roiling waves tossed the little boat to and fro. Almost everyone onboard got seasick except me because I stayed purposely focused on the horizon. It keeps the inner ear steady and prevents all the bad impacts of the motion of the ocean. The horizon was my friend as it is right now.
The more you look at the horizon the calmer you get. It speaks to everything we are and want to be. I want to be the cowboy riding into the sunset. I want to be Magellan trying to look out over the horizon. I want to look east from Bermuda and west from San Diego. The horizon is not a bad or scary place, it is a romantic and meaningful place. There is much to do between here and the horizon and, I would like to think, there is plenty just over the horizon to do as well.
You see, that’s what we all fail to recognize about the horizon. It is not an end to any story. It is the beginning of the next story. What lies beyond the horizon is much more interesting than what lies on this side of the horizon. I do not need to think about what I need to do between here and the horizon. I need to contemplate what I will be doing when I get to the horizon and go beyond it. That is because we can never get to the horizon. The very definition of a horizon is that it moves away from us as we approach it. There is no end to the earth, just more and more horizon. What a wonderful thought. The endless horizon.