The writing on the wall

People write a lot of things on the walls of a public lavatory. Some consider this to be vandalism. To me it's occasionally a source of inspiration.

This morning, while in a sedentary position at our office's facilities, I came across the following message:

Think about the future

I'm not sure what the person was thinking when they wrote it, but it got me thinking about a lot of things.

Firstly, how often we think about our future really depends on our age.

If you're in your 20's you probably don't think too much about your future; you're too busy spending money to worry about not having enough of it once you get older.

If you're in your 30's you're probably thinking about nothing but your future; who you're going to be with and how much money you're going to need.

Once you're in your 40's what you do tomorrow is as important as what you're doing today.

In your 50's the future is now.

In your 60's the past has caught up with you.

Above 70 and you're enjoying the moment like you were 21 again.

You're probably going to live a very long life; at least until you're 70, hopefully longer.

You don't know exactly when you're going to die and that's a problem.

It's a problem because you don't know how much you're going to need to see you through. Given this dilemma people tend to overcompensate and put a 'little extra' away. How much extra is determined a great deal by your culture.

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After reading the message on the wall I also though about how much we should be thinking about the future.

Should we always be thinking about the future? Probably not.

Should we never think about the future? Not unless you're over 70.

What if we don't think about the future enough? What then?

I know I don't think about the future as much as I should. But how do I know that? When is it enough?

I fear that it will never be enough. It's hard enough to manage my life right now, let alone my future as well.

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My future is becoming increasingly important as each day passes and so the less I think about the future each day the more costly it's becoming.

I should probably do something about it. Maybe tomorrow...