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On A Path Towards Having Nothing

I work three jobs. One for a non profit organization, one for a retired couple, and the third is running my own freelance business. The other day when I was chatting with the retired woman for whom I work, she was telling me about the days of her youth and she happened to say: "I used to work for a non-profit organization, but I realized that if I kept that up I'd have nothing, so I got out of that right away..."

She is very well provided for, at least in comparison to me. She owns her own home and has stocks and mutual funds and a pension and social security. She retired early and has the leisure to do what she wants with her life, which she enjoys to the fullest. And I look at her life and I look at my life and I don't see a bridge from mine to hers. I started working for one social cause after another, have worked as an artist, or have worked helping other people in one way or another all my life. So, unlike my employer, it seems I am on the path toward having nothing.

I heard Tom Wolf speaking the other day about "Bonfire of the Vanities" and the greed of the 1980s. He said it touched not only the upper classes, but the lower classes as well. He referred to a character in his book who was a lawyer, an activist, as an example of greed as a kind of shame. The man met a classmate on the street who was wearing the $36,000 he made in a year, and for all the character of the activist's life choices, he felt envy.

My income is exactly the same as it was when I was 21. I am 38. I am statistically typical for my demographic. The largest concentration of wealth in our country is amassed by those born before 1955. Those born after the boom of babies has seen the greatest decline of purchasing power since the depression, only it's happened over a slow, twenty year slide. There is no guarantee that had I pursued the dollar over my conscience that I would have been any better off economically.

I have made a few compromises. Working three jobs is one. Not having children is another. And I now work for non-profits that serve the arts and heritage of the elderly, because the non-profits that served children couldn't afford to pay me - which is also indicative of the distribution of charitable funding in the U.S. I still work for children, but that is in my off hours.

I have very few regrets about the choices I have made with my life. I have lived by my calling most of the time. Until I think about my old age. What will I do when I can no longer work and I have no savings, no pension, no mutual funds to rely upon? What good will my service to society be to me if I become dependent on society as an indigent elderly person?

I would be happy to work until I die, but what if there comes a time when they no longer want me?

On the path towards having nothing.

I have a body of work that I a proud of. I have a community of people who love me. I have artists I have supported and students I have taught. I have the prospect of making an even greater difference between now and when I die. But am I growing up to be George Baily? All those dreams deferred in pursuit of the care of others.

Am I waiting for some angel to come and save me, in the 11th hour of my life, and tell me that it has all been worthwhile and that, now that I am in trouble, the community I supported will step in and take care of me?

Do I think my life is a Frank Capra movie?

On some level, in truth, I do. I can't take it with me. My grandmother died poor and beloved at 82. My mother died poor and friendless at 52. My mother had been chasing the dollar. My grandmother only tried to serve her community - and I am much more my grandmother's child than my mother's. This is not the story of the cricket and the ant. I have not been frittering away my time with vain pursuits. This is about trusting one's life rather than fretting over it. Trusting that, whatever the consequences are, in the end, one can live with them with grace and dignity.

When I stand at the end of my life, I will not want to look back on what I had to spend, but how I spent my hours. On a path towards having nothing.

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