The ship’s warning siren blared out. Sara hauled herself from her chair and scrambled towards the mess hall. Misfunctioning sirens, again. Only it wasn’t.

Armed and armoured guards stood at the entrance to the hall. Joss and Chu, it looked like, but she was waved through before she could say hello. As she looked around, everyone seemed to be in a similar state of disarray to herself. Some had clearly got out of bed, or the aquarec tank.

Ginko sat in the middle of the room, propped up on a large crate like it was a throne. She looked to be in charge of proceedings. The air crackled with tension. Despite the ominous feeling that this was some kind of mutiny, Shar was there, at the side, with the usual piles of manifests. It was as if Captain Kya-dono had received word that the usual all hands meeting was too dull, and had drafted Ginko in to give it some pep. On the other hand, there was that ominous sense of mutiny.

“Sara?” Ginko’s was curt. “I think that’s the last.” Kya-dono was, also ominously, not present.

Ginko turned slowly to survey the gathered colonists and started what felt like a pre-prepared speech.

“One hundred years yesterday, this ship left a small blue-green planet, known as earth. We all have the digitoids of families that still exist back there, ancestors we will never be reunited with.

“Our mission is a bold and brave one. We have been sent to rescue a dying species. The thrumbo lives for hundreds of years, and they are getting weaker with each successive generation. Who would have thought that a rare herb found only on Earth” - her tone was odd as she spat out the name of their Mother-world a second time - “would  be the one thing that could stop the rot and start the next generation of thrumbo back on the road to genetic recovery. And on hearing this from the Oomazhi, our ancestors rushed to volunteer to help, out of the follow-love we have for all galactic life.... and the chance to get our hands on advanced mech tech by getting into the Oomazhi’s good books, of course.

“Our great-grandparents set off one hundred years ago yesterday, in these stifling conditions that so effectively reduce our live span. They trained our grandparents and our parents as they started to die off. We were born on this ship, into this life, to carry on the torch so that our children’s children can be the ones to deliver the cryo-preserved root to Taoro, into the mouths of the next wave of baby Thrumbos.

“So here we are on our historic quest. Only” she paused a long time for dramatic effect and drew the next few words out “no-one asked me if I wanted to save a takking Thrumbo.”

And then all hell broke loose.

I’ve learnt a new meditation idea. We are upset when reality doesn’t match our expectations. This seems to be pretty straightforwardly true - I’m upset when my dog dies because I didn’t want it to be dead.

So why am I upset when I am tired in the evening? I think this has to do with the joy of waking up to a new day with many creative projects to undertake, and deferring them until the evening after paid work is completed. Imagine! I think, How Delightful the evening will be when I can work with wild abandon on whatever I like. How I Will Enjoy My Life Then.

And then the evening arrives, and I am tired, too tired to even cook myself dinner, and I feel that the day is gone and all I have to look forward to is a repeat of this tomorrow. (Until The Weekend!)

This reminds of the oft-cited challenge of retirement. We spend our whole lives looking forward to it, and then it is slightly boring and too much all in one go. The solution to retirement is to spend your money, and time, earlier and more frequently and, similarly, the answer to Fix My Evening Issue is to enjoy the day more, not bemoan my bemoaning of the evening.