Independence is just the first stage of Happiness
Greater Life
As an entrepreneur over 50, your time is just beginning… Live the Greater Life
As fireworks go off over the White House and Will Smith saves the world from Aliens, it’s worth pausing this Independence Day to really consider the role of independence in building true happiness.
I’d argue (as you may have guessed from the title of this newsletter) that it is just the first stage of developing deep, true happiness. It is vital to be able to ‘stand on your own two feet,’ to ‘love yourself when no one else will’…and so on.
However, to break the word down linguistically is to appreciate that it actually means to be separate from, to be without dependence upon. I contend that neither are places we really want to be for very long. There’s only so long we can ‘plough our own furrow’…before we realise that whatever we’re growing in that furrow…we need a market where we can sell the produce, or at least some neighbours to share our bounty with.
We are not designed to be separate from each other. Across the vast expanse of human history, we have always fostered interdependence as the surest means of both surviving and thriving.
The concept of Ubuntu is perhaps the best descriptor of interdependence I’ve come across. An exact, direct translation may not be possible, but it can most closely be summed up as ‘I am because you are’. Within the cultures that gave rise to Ubuntu, they would say not ‘This child is sick,’ but rather ‘Our village is sick’
It is perhaps no coincidence to note the state of the world we live in…and to reflect on the fact that it has been built over the 75 years on the ideals of American hegemony. And now America is sick…so too is our world. Western economies printing money out of thin air, devaluing month by month the real-world spending power of the cash in your pocket, mental ill health at record highs…along with the prices of food, energy and fuel.
As we find ourselves in the death throes of a world built in the image of independence, there is a strange de-coupling of reality occurring in stock markets posting all-time highs…while food banks are used in record numbers. Companies crying out for experienced staff…while hundreds of thousands of job-seeking over 50s don’t even get to the interview stage.
What can be done?
First. Let go.
Let go of the notion that any one of us can hold it all. Let go of the notion that we do not need to hold and be held. Let go of the utter fallacy of thinking you need to know all the answers…perhaps even we must let go of answers.
Maybe that’s it. What if we let go of all the answers we think might cut it? They are, after all, fruits born of the independence tree…so sweet looking, but poisoned at their core.
Consumptive, extractive, divisive. Can we ween ourselves off their ‘wisdom’?
What if we did the opposite?
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Instead of speed…slow.
Instead of Artificial Intelligence…natural wisdom.
Instead of more…less.
Instead of maximise…optimise…synergise.
Instead of excess…enough.
And I truly believe that we over 50s are a major part of seeding this new story, especially business owners over 50. We are the largest self-employed group on the planet and our numbers are only swelling each day, as economic imperatives bite and pension funds run dry.
So share your stories of happiness, of the joy that you wish to live. You hold the memories of what it is to act simply, interdependently.
Perhaps we cannot ‘save the world’, and the independent world must be allowed to crumble, but what is certain is that in each locality, the ground where you place your feet, there, amidst all the chaos and heartache, joy and interdependence can thrive.
Be that leader. Be that source of joy. Be that firework.
Happy Fourth of July