What’s more important- savings or sanity?

I read an article this morning about our globally projected future.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/must-read-article-how-our-lives-change-dramatically-20-delahunty

In a nutshell:

• jobs for lawyers and many others will become superfluous (scary)
• Tesla-type cars will be the norm therefore no drivers (good thing), fewer cars (also) on roads allowing people to live quiet lives on country roads (also), just staring at their phones all day long (not)
• these phones will even be able to tell their mood via a ‘moodies’ app ( I hoped that by now this is the ONE thing I would have learnt myself)
• don’t bother with saving for possible international tertiary education since everything will happen on the phone anyway- (Parys or Paris, irrelevant)
• cheap and sufficient electricity and water . In South Africa this is a highly contentious and debatable issue but it does make us feel better.
• I will probably live to 100.

Then l logged onto my emails. No connection. Phoned the ISP, took a while to answer and proceeded to ask a million security questions (including my phone number which I was phoning from …?) and had to wait for them to phone back. Frustrated.

While I waited, I logged onto my Medical Health webpage since I’ve realized that I’m a little more active than they think I am and even though I don’t plug myself into my laptop to tell them so on my little device as often as I should, I know I am ‘cos I ran one or two races recently myself. Not like others I know who pop into the gym to swipe their cards and buy the nice coffee and walk out cos that’s another way the way to earn points ( by swiping, that is, an invigorating wrist exercise)  and everyone seems to do it but no- one seems to mind and they still get their health rewards.

I want the rewards too.  And after all, a penny saved is penny earned isn’t it?  And since my earnings have fallen hugely and in direct proportion to the number of children I popped out it makes sense to appeal to the mammoth medical aid industry to spread their surplus saver funds doesn’t it?

But I couldn’t get on because my password had changed. Phoned them to sort it out because even though I am a fully- fledged person with real email identity and cell phone numbers and been on the phone to them several times before to explain this, somehow my husband  gets sent the new passwords and since my email wasn’t working, this was even proving even trickier.

Another half an hour passes. I finally logged on.

Now to try to register my activeness. This I discovered required a new registration with a new password and the next person who tells me to USE THE SAME PASSWORD for everything  I do deserves to have his toenails removed because I know and you know that some passwords require big letters, small letters, one number, one of these &^%$# , one capital and preferably my friend’s dentist’s ex-wife’s cell number (for SECURITY purposes you know) and others are MUCH SIMPLER . Like this one.

So there I go. I’m on.

Now I have two new passwords and re-registered and created my profile with my VERY LONG name (TIP for Mum : short name, Sue Poo would be preferable to mine with it’s six syllables ) but the races aren’t there to register cos they’ve been run of course which is precisely what I asked of the nice lady on the online chat but she assured me that I can still record them even 4 months later so I’m well within the time but now somehow I can’t and so I start a new online chat with people on the new site to find out how I do this.

My message says it’s been sent but I have no idea who it’s been sent to or how long it’s going to take and I don’t want to be hanging around on this website all day because otherwise I’m going to go INSANE.

I don’t know if I want to live to 100.

And I think I want to rather remain sane than save. Because it seems to me that the longer we live and the more supposed ‘progress’ we make, the more disconnected and discontented we become, the consequence of which is the constant search for less stress and more peace and love and light on the world and ‘if we just see the beauty around us in filtered frames of beach scenes and mountain streams and indeed even within ourselves’ we will be healed.

But if we weren’t so disconnected and digitalized in the first place, we wouldn’t be so needy for this illusive quiet.

Or is it just me?

‘Naaa, Spice Mom’ I hear my 19 year old son echoing in my head. ‘You just gotta keep up’.

Having just had some quiet time in the bush in the silence of animals and this in my bag, I’m wondering if I’m just perpetuating a modern myth.

What do you say ?