In choosing ways of living I have always been an impulse buyer which has sometimes led to buyer's remorse but also to many there-but-for-the-grace-of-God moments as I look at people around me as well as back at people I have known.
Two "Schulkameraden", class mates from my schooldays in Germany, never left my hometown. They worked all their lives in the one job and received the proverbial goldwatch. There but for the grace of God ...
A fellow articled clerk in Germany never left my hometown either nor the firm we had been articled to. There but for the grace of God ...
Another young German and former colleague from my time in South-West Africa never left and to this day ekes out a living in one of the world's driest places. There but for the grace of God ...
A fellow accountant from my time in Rabaul never left New Guinea. Having lost everything during the 1994 volcanic eruptions and given up Australian citizenship for PNG nationality, he is condemned to keep working until he drops in his tracks. There but for the grace of God ...
An ex-boss of mine, who was worth millions of dollars when he became Australia's Bill Gates long before Bill Gates had become a household word, now lives on welfare in a bedsitter in Australia's tropical north. There but for the grace of God ...
And as I visit the local shopping centre in the Bay, I watch old men at the end of their working lives and young ones who are just starting theirs, collect shopping trolleys for a living.
There but for the grace of God go I.
