Operation Make My Mama Move (aka Operation 4M)

I have well and truly made advances in my quest to get my mother to move out to our town and quit her job. Shock! Horror!
I may have thrown out the words "stroke", "pulmonary embollism" and "brain aneurism" a few times - as in "if you stay in this job, chained to your desk, taking on increasingly high workloads, you will have a stroke/heart attack/pulmonary embollism etc - and no one will even know because they will assume you are not in your office because you are running around putting out fires because that's what you do all day and no one will even know you are dead on the floor behind your deak and you will be eaten by alsatians!!!" Or something to that effect.

After the "oh you're such a drama queen" comments, a thoughtful look crossed her face and I swear to god I think I saw a light go on above her head.
She had a late start to getting her financial life arranged. She divorced my overbearing (but very wealthy) father 16 years ago and had to start from scratch. At the age of 40 she had to re enter the workforce, save enough money to buy a house, put me through school and raise me up good, and completely rebuild her life.

We left my father with a suitcase of clothes, my bed and 2 coffee mugs. He kept (and sold) everything else that we owned. She literally started from scratch. So it has been very important to her to pay off her house and live without a mortgage. So much so, that she has no regard for how much of her life she is wasting by spending upwards of 16 hours a day in this here office!

I am painting the picture for her of what her life might be like if she follows my simple 3 step plan (1) sell house and buy near us (2) quit stupid stressful job (3) live happily ever after.

I mean if you had the choice, would you prefer your life to look like this:


Or like this:
And in all honesty - that first image, is very much what she looks like on a daily basis. She is loyal and hardworking and people take advantage of that fact by giving her 5 times the work anyone else has. She is paid highly but what good is that money if you have no life?

I'm getting there. I'm really getting there. I have found her a house in our area that she actually loves and she may even go to an open inspection there soon.

So to any of you out there working ridiculously long hours - I get that you think it's important (and it may well be, I'm not dismissing your need to work) but it is not everything. Money isn't everything. If there is one thing I have learnt from losing people I love, it is that you never know how much time on earth you have. Why work like a dog to have nice "stuff" if you can never enjoy it? Work nearly killed my mother once (literally). Don't let it kill you.