A spoke with a colleague the other day about his new house. At some point he mentioned that his wife had completed the adult life bingo (“Grote mensen bingo”) this year. They had gotten their first kid, moved to a new house together and she landed a dream job. Their life was good and he was visibly happy.
How do you win adult life bingo?
His comment made me chuckle, but also triggered some thoughts about adult life bingo. What is on this bingo card? Or what should be on this bingo card? My guess is that the bingo card for people that aspire FIRE might be somewhat different than for most people in the rat race. Not hindered by any knowledge, here is my attempt for the adult life bingo card (feel free to give it a go for you or people you know):
Did we win the adult life bingo?
So I turned to our own situation and made the conclusion that we also had also won the adult life bingo.
Loving partner, offspring, have our own home, became rich, cannot tolerate alcohol anymore, traveled the world, go to bed early and gotten our first grey hairs: all check! Still miss the fancy car and receding hairline. But I still consider this an overall adult life bingo win. But does it mean anything? Don’t get me wrong, I like winning as much as anyone. But is it a good thing in this case and what’s next?
What’s next?
Great, so one wins the adult life bingo. Awesome! Now what?
Yes, it’s great to become accomplished and/or rich. Have a nice house and fancy car (plus some grey hairs) is cool. It is fun to travel the world. But not all these items enrich you as a person. Freedom to make choices is important too, probably more so than the house or the car. Doing something valuable or meaningful with your life might be overlooked, especially if you already struggle to survive daily life. And with this bingo card you can win and still loose at the same time.
I’ve bumped into this lack of doing something meaningful with my life lately. Maybe this is my actual midlife crisis! But I’m in the process to develop plans and ideas how to add more meaning to my life and potentially leave a small legacy once I kick the dirt. Unfortunately, this takes up quite a bit of time and putting it on paper is ever more time consuming. But also necessary for me to organize my thoughts. Anyhow, more on that in future posts.
How are you doing on the adult life bingo?
Looks like I tick 80% of the boxes too. Maybe add “thinking about if you have a bullshit job” or does that fall under midlife crisis? 😉
Please file under midlife crisis 😉
If your offspring get into the teenager age, sometimes you wish you had chosen the band instead….
I guess I have ticked (some unfortunately) all the boxes except maybe a clear midlife crisis. Or maybe it isn’t just clear to me, but it is for everyone around me.