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A grave mistake

Governance | Robert Ashton | 13 Dec 2011

Christmas and the new era of austerity should encourage everyone to reflect on what's really important, says Robert Ashton.

It was a beautiful frosty Monday morning so I parked by the cemetery instead of the station car park. This saves me £3 but more significantly gives me the opportunity to enjoy the walk. The cemetery is filled with dark pines from with melancholic corvids caw and crow.

Unusually, many of the newest graves are just over the wall from the road. Clean, cared-for headstones and flowers, left by those who still remember the person interred beneath. Some might find it a sobering thought for a Monday morning. For me however it prompted reflection on motivation. Why do we rush about and get so stressed when death is going to get us at some point.

That’s not to say I’m an advocate of a life of endless partying, but I am in favour of folk getting a life. After all, as the old adage goes, nobody lays on their deathbed saying they wished they’d spent more time at the office.

For me the challenge of balancing work with life has always been difficult. It is so easy to escape into the regiment of work when life’s conundrums appear too daunting. Perhaps for you as well as me, work was traditionally more orderly and predictable than parents, partners and your children.
But now the world has changed. Whilst government’s ‘Big Society’ battle cry has become hackneyed and hoarse, the underlying issues have grown. The ‘Big Reality’ that confronts us is grim; almost as grim as those graveside flowers. So for an awful lot of people, work is no longer the comfortable place they go to escape from life. Life, with all its vagaries and unpredictabilities, has become for many people more predictable than work.

Which brings me to my point; work-life balance is fast becoming work-life blend. The folk whose graves I passed this morning lived and died during Britain’s industrial era. Born, schooled, got a job, raised a family, got old then died.  That 12-word biography could apply to millions. But not to anyone living here today and yet to qualify for their free bus pass or Oyster. Life for us all is changing fast as we adapt to life in post-industrial Britain.

I’m not saying we won’t still manufacture. I use ‘industrial’ in a more holistic sense, feeling as I do that even in factories, we’re moving away from those low-tech days where thousands clocked in at eight to take their place on a production line. Increasingly we’ll be working closer to home, playing an active part in family and community life. A future of austerity means that by necessity life and work will change.

As the Christmas break forces us from work to life, in particular to family life, it gives us all time to reflect on how we spend our time each week. Work out with those you love what your priorities are going to be. Things for us all are going to change. To deny that and not prepare would be a very grave mistake!


 
 

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Who's Who: Robert Ashton