At my age, I expect to live for another 30 years or so.

30 years ago, the country I lived in was in grips of the deepest socialism. If anybody had told me at the time that a mere 2 years later the Iron Curtain would fall and that I would eventually end up living, working, having a family and a repaid mortgage in a rotten Capitalist West, I would have called an ambulance with some nice men carrying a straitjacket.

Around the same time, my grandparents, still alive at the time, decided to split their life savings among their five grandchildren, yours truly included. It looked like a large amount of money at the time. Just a few years later it was worth next to nothing.

Lessons like these have taught me never to make plans for longer than a couple of years ahead. Equally so, they have taught me never to make judgements like, "it won't happen during our lifetime".