The Purpose in Life..?

My 14-year old son and his friend were talking dads. Apparently, my son’s friend’s dad earns a living by selling Dollar and buying Euro, or buying Dollar and selling Euro. I didn’t quite get what my son thought I do for a living or how I am spending my time. But my son found the other dad’s job positively boring and asked his friend: - but what’s your dad’s purpose in life?

Not that I wouldn’t sometimes want to fast-forward to my retirement, or that I can’t help having a particularly vicious thought. And perhaps we do take ourselves sometimes too serious, and sometimes not enough. 

But I think we can consider ourselves privileged to have a job that – in the eyes of some children - can double as the purpose in life.

(26 December 2003)

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