Ploughing a straight furrow

A nineteenth century Suffolk ploughman would walk more than 500 miles behind his horses every autumn and winter. But I doubt he ever complained. More often than not his father and grandfather will have walked the same distance, over the same fields, in the years before that ploughman was born. This was how life was in rural England, with successive generations of ploughmen, working for successive generations of farmer on the same farm.

If I compare my life now, to that lived by those men, I realise that I have total control over how I spend my time and they had very little. So why, I wonder, do I complain about being overcommitted?

As my 71st birthday approaches, and my awareness grows, that I may not have too many years of good health left, it becomes all the more important to focus on my growing popularity as a non-fiction author, and to be tough and turn away things that might look interesting, but do not contribute to my personal goals.

Some of those things that might at first appear to be distractions, for example chairing a community land trust, are in fact giving me valuable experience that will inform a book I plan to write at the end of this decade. Others, well, they are running their course and will not be replaced.

Those ploughmen lived a tough, repetitive life and many did not live to old age. To be healthy and active in our seventies is a gift not to be taken for granted, so these years are not be wasted complaining about things, but used to make a difference to our lives, and in my case, the lives of those who read the books I am writing.