A few years ago, we bought some woods in Yorkshire. Just a few acres. I couldn’t name half the trees.
Yesterday, on Easter Sunday, lying by the campfire (given that I spend much of my life lying down these days), with my kids eating bacon sandwiches we cooked ourselves, my wife tending the fire, and our Labrador having the time of his life — I realised: this is as good as life gets. Bliss-tastic, but always with a few menacing thoughts about the future creeping in.
I took a photo — but no camera could really capture it, certainly not what I was thinking about as I took it
And today, it’s got me wondering.
About why we strive so hard for future glories — as I do — when maybe the greatest pleasures in life are lying by a fire with your family, in some forgotten woods, with nowhere else to be.
I wonder whether, before the agricultural revolution — perhaps the moment when humans first started worrying about next year’s crops — life was simpler. Maybe even happier.
Maybe we were better at just living in the moment, because there was little else to think about.
Even yesterday, lying in paradise, part of my mind was ticking away: business, finances, the future.
Simple pleasures can be so easily ruined by future-thinking.
It reminds me of the story — which has done the rounds online — about the American executive who loved fishing.
While taking a break in Mexico, he advised a local fisherman to expand, hire workers, and build a business empire.
“Why?” asked the fisherman.
“So that one day you can retire, relax, and fish all day,” said the executive.
The fisherman smiled.
“But I already do that.”
And yesterday, lying by a campfire with my family, I realised:
I already have everything I’m striving for — though, in truth, it was all that striving that helped get me here!
