| Anyone who finds themselves tending towards this nihilistic, fatalistic worldview desperately needs to recognise the extremely harmful predicament they find themselves in and work instead towards a life of meaning and purpose. I would further urge them to reflect on who is playing the fiddle that is leading them down this terrible path so that they can go forward with knowledge of their enemy. Children are your purpose. Not your travel or dinner dates. Not your goddamn career. Your Excel spreadsheets will not be there holding your hand on your deathbed. Your dinner dates with equally-unproductive and increasingly-ageing friends are little more than a coping mechanism. They will mean nothing compared to the memories of childish giggles over the family dinner table. You didn't come this far to just shrivel up and die. Your ancestors didn't build you a nation, defend it with their lives, bestow upon you and awe-inspiring culture and history just so that you could hit your sales projections and get drunk in Ibiza. Your employer will hire someone else, your friends will move on, your clients won't even remember you. All that matters is family. And in your children, and their children after them, you will live on forever. Just as your ancestors do in you. Don't be these forty-somethings realising they've left it too late and now have the last 50 years of their lives to twiddle away doing meaningless junk. Don't be that pitiful retired couple trying to fill the void with cruises and musicals. You know that pang in your chest when you see the beautiful family walking down the street? You know the one. Bright, happy kids full of life, parents full of the pride and joy that can only be found in love and family. For god's sake don't deprive yourself of that, not for the shallow hedonism of a pay packet and extended youth. You want that too. You know you do. |