The Campbell Academy Blog (77)

Endings

Everything ends, and that's probably a good place to start.

A little while ago, I read some fantastic research in one of the books I was reading about people's attitudes to saving money for when they're retired.

Trying to get 20-year-olds to contribute to pensions can be difficult.

But using modern technological techniques to take a photograph or even a video of a 20-year-old and then present an image of themselves in the sixties encourages people to save much more for their retirement.

It brings things out of the abstract into reality.

It brings you face-to-face with your 65-year-old self, and you want to help because you feel empathy for them.

It helps you to understand that things will end.

On Thursday nights, I have football training with my son's team.

In these days and in this weather and in the dark nights, it gets harder and harder to drag yourself to football training or plan a session from 7 till 9 p.m. on a Thursday after a long week.

And so, when football training ends on a Thursday night at nine o'clock, I'm not sad, but I can understand, and I do understand that two years from now, when football training is ending forever and the boys will disappear onto other things, I will be devastated.

Understanding that endings come helps us to behave differently in the moment.

It helps get you to football training every Thursday night in the rain.

It helps you to plan a session.

It helps you enjoy something which one part of your brain is telling you to give up so that you can sit in a warm place and watch the television.