What’s it all about?

When I was at school the poem that had the most influence on me was The Road not Taken by Robert Frost.  Everybody makes decisions in life, many at a pretty early stage, and these will often control the rest of your life. I spent four years working at an Investment House in New York and it was there that I became friendly with a couple  who’s behavior and politics in life were very different from our own. I’ll call them Joe and Marty in order to protect the guilty.
I had  been brought up to believe that what was important was to get a good education, get a steady job, buy a house raise three kids and wait for the grandchildren to appear. The Joe and Marty believed otherwise. In their minds, money was to be spent, work should be kept to a minimum and children were an unnecessary expense. A child costs you over a million dollars Joe would quickly explain when ever the question arose.
Over the years we lost contact with Joe and Marty, but recently, by chance, ran into them in a coffee shop. Jo, now fifteen years older, still wears his hair long – or what’s left of it. He goes to work in sixties t-shirts, completely ignoring the dress code that the society around him has adopted. He arrives an hour after everybody else, takes a long lunch hour and leaves early. Being paid by the hour, he isn’t going to get rich fast, but then again that is not his goal. He and his wife and oversized dog named Mutt  live in an minute apartment near the center of everything. This they can do as it is so small and the building is badly in need of a face lift. Working so few hours has its benefits as they are under less pressure and have plenty of time available for clubbing, bar hopping  and generally enjoying life.
After a night on the town with them, my wife and I went home wondering what the hell we were doing with our lives. We both do long hours, work under incredable pressure, have three kinds (and a dog) and are often too tired in the evening to do anything but curl up in front of the T.V. and fall asleep during yet another rerun of Seinfeld.
So, you ask me, would we swap our lives with that of Joe and Marty? Not a chance. We’re happy in our Bohemian Rhapsody but it still got us thinking about our priorities.