An interesting scenario was talked about today on Oldies 103.3 with Zito and Karen Blake.
I didn’t catch the story from the start but as I listened I gathered enough to understand that apparently a gentleman had recently been laid off from his job after 20 years. I’m not sure what he did for a living but apparently his severance package was decent enough for him to want to use half of it and take his wife on a dream European trip.
I guess this guy wanted people’s opinions of what he should do because he himself wasn’t so sure. So the listeners began calling. Most everyone said the gesture was certainly sweet and that he must love his wife a lot. A lot brought up the fact that he didn’t know what would happen in the future and should hold on to the money. I didn’t get to throw my two cents in while they were talking about it, but I will now.
As the Nike ad says: “JUST DO IT”. First of all, you only live once. Money is money. You cannot take it with you. But if you or your wife died tomorrow you would regret it for the rest of your life that you did not take that trip. You don’t have to go all out on a trip to Europe. Just budget it.
Secondly, a trip may be just what you need after working all those years. You will return with a breath of fresh air in your lungs, a new lease on life. It will prepare you to take the next step in your life, whether that be retirement or seeking another job somewhere else. Both you and your wife will be better people for it.
Two analogies/stories to sum this up: A woman took a cruise and while on the cruise she encountered a very loving, elderly couple. She struck up a conversation with the couple and learned that this was their first cruise. They had worked all their lives and were always too busy to take a cruise. Money had never been an issue. Just with their lifestyle and raising kids, running here and there and working, the cruise just left their minds. Until the husband was diagnosed with cancer. Then they decided to take the cruise before it was too late. Although they were finally taking their dream trip, unfortunately the man was too sick to fully enjoy it.
My own personal story: two weeks before I was to marry, my husband-to-be called to tell me that the day before our wedding day he was going to be laid-off. After working at this place for ten years, this facility was closing down.
You cannot imagine the panic in me as he told me this. But I knew I couldn’t just tell him the wedding was off simply because he lost his job. There was a part of me that felt like telling him maybe we should forego the honeymoon to save our money because who knew what the future held for us once we were married.
We did get married. We did take our honeymoon. And you know what? It all worked out in the end. We were gone for two weeks and when we returned, my husband had several messages waiting for him on the answering machine from one of his old bosses who wanted him to temporarily work at one of the company’s other facilities. To us, that was a Godsend.
Twelve years later we are still together, living much different lives than back then. We both have much better jobs. But imagine if we had never taken that honeymoon simply because we thought the money could be used for other things? We would’ve missed out on two weeks of very fond memories and probably would never have taken an actual honeymoon.
Once money is gone, it’s gone; but memories live forever.
bunchesofos