Monday, November 27, 2023

The Quest

On a blue-sky Sunday I drove across the Bay Bridge into my favorite city to have brunch with my two youngest sons. Traffic was light for a change and I was in a good mood, courtesy of Michigan’s dramatic victory over rival Ohio State on Saturday.

We met at a cafe on Potrero Hill, a dynamic neighborhood bustling with the usual Sunday morning foot traffic. The place wasn’t overly crowded, probably because some residents hadn’t yet returned from Thanksgiving break.

We all ordered coffee — regular with cream. My youngest son is a relatively recent convert to the habit; he told me it dates from his visit to Italy with his girlfriend last summer.

“It was those little cups of espresso,” he said. “And then getting into my job back here.”

He works as a researcher for a large global media company.

His brother, who simultaneously works as a medical assistant and is pursuing an advanced nursing degree, is a long-term coffee drinker, like me.

Both boys are in their late 20s and the early stages of their careers and later stages of their advanced educations. We had a long conversation about the balancing act they seek between pursuing their dreams and earning enough wealth to be comfortable.

It’s partly about incurring educational debt and paying it off. And also about finding a way to be self-sufficient without sacrificing their values.

Talks like these ones transport me back 50 years to when I was considering those same questions. And of course the specifics of when and where a person reaches this stage of life matters a lot.

Living in one of our big coastal cities is very expensive; we all know that. Yet, if you can avoid the temptations of an excessively consumerist lifestyle, you can get by on far less than the common wisdom suggests.

Frugal living can buy time while they sort things out.

A good work ethic is a necessity. (They both have that.) Finding the types of work they enjoy is the big challenge early on. But the alternative — just taking whatever you can get in order to make money, and sticking with that, is often a prescription, in my view, for long-term misery.

Neither of the boys have taken that latter path, thankfully, and like most of their friends they have chosen to pursue their personal dreams over what some might consider more practical options. 

That’s a strength about growing up in a place like San Francisco — social reinforcement that it is okay to nourish your creative needs and find purpose in work. It’s not automatically assumed to be an unresolvable contradiction. 

Meanwhile, as we age, those of us who are parents naturally seek some sort of affirmation that the guidance we gave our kids as they were growing up will yield some meaningful results — for them and by extension for society as well.

The jury will remain out of those issues, of course, because they can only be judged over the breadth of time. And people may draw differing conclusions about what matters in the end anyway.

But after my sons and I had eaten, hugged and said our goodbyes and I was driving alone back to the East Bay, I realized just how proud I am of my dreamers. I always encouraged all of my kids to find and follow their passions, and also to think of the others around them in the process.

Also, as near as I have been able to tell in the course of my own life, money can’t and doesn’t help a person find happiness on its own. Lacking it is stressful, however, and getting enough does allow you the generosity to do some nice things for others from time to time. 

Finally, seeking to satisfy and achieving (even partially) your dreams gives you at least a fighting chance at finding that essential balance that may constitute the best proximate version of happiness every person deserves. 

That, in the end, is what you could call the quest.

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