Sharing

According to a recent news story, only about half of the adult population in the United States is married.  Apparently, many people live together without any formal confirmation of their relationship.

I recall an evening early in my career when I was actively soliciting new investors.  One of my best investors was a doctor at Kaiser, and he’d arranged a meeting for me to introduce about 20 other Kaiser doctors to my commercial real estate investments.  As I recall, four or five ultimately became investors.

After my successful presentation I drove home. At that time, I was not married.  In fact, I was living by myself.   I wanted to share my success with someone, but, alas, there was no one at home with whom I could share my good news.  I felt the aloneness of the moment acutely and it dampened the joy I’d felt earlier.

I sometimes think of myself as a loner, but that’s not really accurate.  In business I don’t like voting partners. But, in fact, I enjoy being a member of two groups – my extended  family at home (all six of my children live in the Los Angeles area), and my “work” family at ACF. There are weeks when I spend more time with “my family” at the office than I do at home with my wife and kids and grandchildren.

I have read that many older people, mostly men living alone, can go for weeks without talking to another human being.  That seems terribly sad to me.

I believe that most of us enjoy our lives more when we are able to share our successes, and commiserate about our failures, with a close friend or family.  So, here’s a toast to those who are fortunate enough to have relationships that we enjoy, and one in which we also find support. And here’s a reminder to those who aren’t so lucky – it’s never too late to establish new friendships. They might be the best investments you’ll ever make.

Alan

P. S. Daveen and I were first married almost 50 years ago. We’ve been living together again for several years now.  But we are officially getting married again in September.  How’s that for romance!