No One Ever Told Us That: Money and Life Lessons for Young Adults

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

LIFE LESSONS: DON'T LOOK BACK

You will be invited to special events that will involve travel that can be a pain in the neck and inconvenient. And you'll say no because it is inconvenient. Then you hear reports from people about how great the event was and how it should not have been missed. For years, I would take the lazy way out, refusing various invitations, preferring to stay home and not bother. When my wife, Susan, died, and travel became solo, I literally woke up one day and said, “Never look back on anything that sounds special and say, ‘I should have gone to that concert,’ ‘I should have gone to that play-off game in Dallas,’ or ‘I should've gone on that theater tour in London with fellow nonprofit board members.”’ Because going to pain-in-the-neck destinations can not only be illuminating but also change your lives in interesting ways.

In the last year I was invited to a black-tie dinner at the Hearst Castle in San Simeon, California, hosted by the Hearst family. This involved flying to San Francisco, driving or puddle jumping in a plane to a town near the destination, and renting a car there. To me, traveling 3,000 miles for a party is a pain in the neck, particularly when a 45-minute flight from San Francisco to San Luis Obispo turned into an 8-hour logistical nightmare. But I traveled with a man in his midforties who told me stories of his generation, the anxieties and fears about challenging times in careers and relationships, and his hopes for ...