Many of our clients come to see us because they are concerned about what happens if they die young. Unfortunately,that does happen. Depending on your stage of life, this may be your most important concern. But as your children leave home, you pay off your house, and you look more toward your second half of life, you start thinking about what happens if you live a long time. Tax efficiency, family harmony, incapacity planning, and asset protection are all important issues that we help people with every day. But how you spend the rest of your life is more important.
If you knew you had a couple of days left, you probably wouldn’t worry about your life insurance, your 401K, or your medical expenses. If you have regrets, they will be about relationships you didn’t build and experiences you didn’t have. People with strong family relationships and deep friendships often have good estate plans because they have a good handle on life in general. They want to ensure that they protect their financial resources for the people they love. But they also want to leave their values, wisdom, and memories. You can have better, longer-lasting, more meaningful relationships with your friends and family if you stay healthy and live a long time. I believe that we can gain a lot of insight from Havilah Babcock, a man who wasn’t healthy and didn’t live a long time.
Dr. Babcock was the chair of the English Department at the University of South Carolina in the 1940s. He described himself as moody and irritable. He said that his digestion was so bad that he paid dearly for “the slightest dietary indiscretion.” He wrote that he could not get a good night’s sleep because of nightmares. He described spending many hours each year in doctors’ offices reading out-of-date magazines. He said his medicine cabinet was filled with “strange nostrums in ill-assorted bottles.” Dr. Babcock died in December of 1964 at the young age of 66.
I am sure that he wrote some important scholarly papers that were read by a few students and university professors. But there is no doubt in my mind that his most lasting and important writing was My Health Is Better in November: Thirty-five Stories of Hunting and Fishing in the South. It was first published in 1947 by the University of South Carolina Press.
Havilah Babcock’s passion was quail hunting. He recognized that the first frost brought with it a noticeable improvement in his health, and that he was a “new man” when the quail season arrived. I don’t know what caused his early death, but I wonder what life would have been like for him if there was something like quail hunting that he had to look forward to every month.
If today’s farming practices created the same quail habitat as 1940s agriculture, I might have been a bird hunter myself. I love the idea of walking through fields on a cool day in the fall and watching the coveys rise. But the last time I went was about 25 years ago. Two of us walked through Sampson County all day long behind a well-trained Brittany Spaniel and found two singles. It was a nice walk. But I didn’t really need to carry a shotgun.
My health may be better in October. The days are still long. Leaves begin to change colors. I look forward to the sights, sounds and smells of the midway. Crowds have left the beach, but the water is warm. The air begins to cool. The skies seem to be clearer and the sunsets brighter. My wife celebrates another birthday. Waves break. Fish bite. Life is good. My health is definitely better in October.
According to the Office of the Chief Actuary of the Social Security Administration, at 45 years of age, I am far beyond middle age. My life expectancy is somewhere around 34 more years. That means I may have about 34 more Octobers. Of course, that is not guaranteed. This past October could have been my last. Or I may get to experience a few more than 34. I recently read a letter written by the singer Charlie Daniels titled “This Sunday, I Turn 82, and Here’s What I am Looking Forward To.” In his letter, Mr. Daniels talks about the importance of family and other relationships, being productive, loving where you live, and his faith. I hope that I am as healthy and content as Charlie Daniels when I am 82. I hope that I will get to experience the first days of fall of 2056. I probably haven’t made the best use of my first 46 Octobers. I must squeeze all I can out of those I have left.
But now it is November. I may only have 34 more Thanksgivings, 34 more duck seasons, 34 more chances to put up Christmas decorations. Then comes December. My son’s birthday. Then Christmas. Then New Years. Then the late duck season. Eventually the last freeze gives way to signs of spring, the shedding of wetsuits, the feel of sunshine on bare skin, and sand between your toes. Bluegill start biting popping bugs over lily pads. Then I turn another year older. Then it’s my daughter’s birthday. Then July 4. Then the first cool morning in September and the promise of the autumn to come. Perhaps my health should be better every month. Or maybe every day. I have the opportunity every day to experience the solitude of early morning, watch the sun rise, smell freshly ground coffee, and revel in and give thanks for all of these things.
Perhaps our physical health would really be better if we actively chose to experience the good things of life every day. The birds in my back yard sing no matter what the stock market is doing. Political winds don’t affect the breeze on my porch in the morning. When I spend the first few moments of my day with the birds and the breeze, I definitely have a different mindset than when I check email at 6:00 a.m. But that is probably not just a psychological issue. There is biochemistry that I don’t understand. I think that under those circumstances, my physical healthy is really better. An extra dose of cortisol and adrenaline when you wake up and read emails may not be a big deal one time. But if you avoid that for years you may be a different person.
Havilah Babcock’s mindset could have been temporarily changed because he was looking forward to something. But maybe he really was better. Although he predated the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, he spent November practicing the first habit of being proactive. One of Stephen Covey’s points in that book is that our actions are based on our decisions not our conditions. That is psychological. But by making good decisions – like getting outside, taking breaks from work, going on long walks, and doing something he truly enjoyed – Babcock changed his conditions, even if only temporarily.
Could we all change our conditions by making the choice to soak in the good things around us? I know of one man who has done this for almost 100 years. He finds joy in every day regardless of his circumstances. He somehow found good in having shingles.
While all of this is just speculation, one thing that I am certain of is that we do not get to be here on this earth for very long. I have already used up between half and all of my allotted time. I would like to fully experience the days I have left. I have a great estate plan in place for my family. But I plan to leave them a lot more than property.