By Francis Omejevwe Ewherido
Middle age is usually between 45 and 65 years, but my attention today are men in their 50s. In the last two months, I know a handful of people in their 50s who have died as a result of stroke, cancer, heart failure and other health complications. I do not know whether my consciousness of these deaths is as a result of the fact that I am in my 50s, or more people in their 50s are dying these days. I do not fret over death because it is outside my control, but I believe that you should not tell death to hasten its steps to you with your lifestyle and choices.
Some people are also dying due to their difficulty or inability in dealing with the challenges our “VUCA” (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) environment throws at them. Last week a list of “THE POTENTIAL KILLER OF MAN” trended in the social media. The writer listed: children’s school fees, house rents, electricity bills, medical bills, generator fuel and repairs, car fuel and repairs, feeding of family, clothes for children, sallah or Christmas and New Year bills, furniture and house maintenance, in-laws wahala/demands, own aged parents expenses, siblings’ bills, wife’s demands, vigilante bills, erecting of building, religious demands, family social bills, electronics bills, recharge cards, extended family members’ bills and community demands. He added: “on top of the above, he also faces: wife’s stress, boss’ stress at work, police stress on the way, area boys’ stress, fear of kidnappers, friends’ stress, economic stress, fear of job loss, unemployment pains, armed robbery stress, children’s misbehaviour, neighbours’ stress, bank loan payment stress, enemies stress, demonic attack stress and sex stress.”
There are some of my contemporaries who worry about virtually every item on the list and even more. If you are one of such, know you are digging an early grave. In these trying times, learn to creatively manage challenges. One, schools just resumed, if you do not have the money to pay your children’s school fees, talk to the school authorities to give you time. That is if your challenge is cash flow. But if you have a challenge of reduced income, burgeoning expenses against stagnant income or loss of source of livelihood, withdraw your children and put them in less expensive schools. Someone I know just did and reduced his burden by N1.2m per annum.
Two, there should be nothing like “friends’ stress.” Define every relationship in terms of assets and liabilities. I am not talking about assets and liabilities in monetary or material terms. A friend you are supporting financially is not a liability as long as you are doing it willingly and he is not taking advantage of you. Anything that adds value to your life is an asset; anything that diminishes your humanity is a liability. Be very ruthless in cutting off people and things that that diminish you.
Three, there is a word everybody in his 50s should be familiar with. It is called “jettison.” In everyday usage, it means “to get rid of something or someone that is not wanted or needed.” But it means more than that in insurance: “The intentional throwing overboard of part of the cargo or some piece of the ship in order to save the ship or its cargo.” In insurance, jettison is a matter of life and death and every man in his 50s should understand…
