(not me, but someone else with more "Sitzfleisch" than me)
Sitting on a tropical beach in my retirement, with the sun on my back and in good company, listening to the waves lapping on the sand and enjoying the view. Was it a vision splendid such as this that made me buy that little beachside shack at Cape Pallarenda just north of Townsville back in 1981?
I had grown more and more tired of demanding overseas assignments and fixing up other people's problems. I just wanted to be like everyone else: an unimportant cog in the wheel who went to work five days a week to do an undemanding job that didn't totally exhaust me, and who on Friday afternoon could switch off from it all to enjoy the weekend.
And so I took an undemanding job in Townsville, bought a little house, both undemanding in money and maintenance, near the beach, and thought I was all set for an undemanding life. But real life isn't like that. Real life demands that you be true to yourself and do the things that you are meant to do. And so I went off again, first back to New Guinea, then to Saudi Arabia, then to Greece. Three years later I was back in town but the ease with which I used to slip in and out of jobs had left me - in fact, there was no job! - and I fled to the "Deep South". I had proven Heraclitus right: "No man ever steps in the same river twice".
Marooned in the "Deep South", I drew a line under that vision splendid and sold the little house near the beach at 3 Bay Street, Pallarenda, but there are moments when I still wonder if I have done the right thing.
Remember "Ol' Blue Eyes" Frank Sinatra's signature song, "My Way"? Its iconic opening to the second verse reflects on living a full life, taking responsibility for one's actions, and facing the end on one's own terms:
