I’ve got a question today.
For some reason I feel mellow and my cantankerosity tank seems empty. I know it can’t last but meanwhile I’ve still got a post to write. So today we try something new. I don’t want to rail and rant. I just want to engage our readers. Today we are doing show and tell.
One of the harsh realities of life is that there aren’t any do overs. You go down the trail once and when it’s done, it’s done. You can think about the experiences you missed along the way and imagine how different things might have turned out with alternative selections but you can never change the reality of your choices.
Tell me your biggest do over wish.
I want to hear your perspective on your life. No big generalities or conventional wisdom. Confess! We all establish priorities and principles that guide our life decisions. We don’t always honor those priorities and principles however. That is my story and I bet it is yours too.
We missed our Swiss Family Robinson moment
Sometime it’s just too hard and we take the easy path. Other times we choose the safe path; the secure job instead of the one that is exciting, the guided tour instead of the travel adventure, the challening path instead of the easy one, the sure thing instead of the big risk.
I did all those things along my life path. How much difference it made and whether my life today would have been better or worse I can’t say. I do know that the one thing I regret most is not creating a lasting memory of at least one outrageous family adventure when my kids were at home. The time with our kids was short and I was distracted by other things I thought were important at the time. If I could go back and create some kind of family adventure. I would have to fight to do it because neither my wife or kids would have gone willingly for a month on the beach in Belize or a rented boat in the Caribbean. That kind of outrageous idea never crossed my mind and if it did, I was too much a wimp to make it happen. We missed our Swiss Family Robinson moment.
That’s my confession.
No Cantakerosity from this Old Coot today. What I would like to hear is what thing you wish you had had the guts to do earlier in your life. You don’t have to be an old coot. You can be a young coot or not a coot at all. Let it out. You will feel better and I won’t feel like such a loser.
My dear Grand Duke Ralph…..I am new to this site, but I find it to be so , so, (what is the word) inviting and intriguing that I just wanted you to know that I have been nothing less than perfect all of my life(yea, right, ha) but I do remember a time in my life when I was approaching young “adulthood” and the clock was counting down to the time when I would be forced to make that crossroad decision of what am going to do( or for me what do I do now to avoid any decision that would be “hard”) am I going on to college like my siblings were expected to do, was I going to work somewhere in this universe and work at something, or would I just go ahead and marry the first guy to come along with an engagement ring and proposal? Needless to say, I couldn’t even think of staying home and doing nothing(although I can say that would have probably been my choice at the time)….so, scared, confused and not encouraged to do much, I did the next best thing I could think of….got married to someone who I really didn’t even love, much less like, in order to just DO something….Wrong decision, of course, but hey, I didn’t know then what I know now. I really miseed out on so much at 18 by making that choice! And in my “seniority status” journey, I am beginning to learn! So there, Sir Ralph, I will join your cantankerousity anonymous group!
LizzieBeth,
Welcome to the Cantankerous Old Coots. It is my opinion that any decision made at 18 shouldn’t be held against you. Nobody makes any good decisions at 18. What really matters is when you finally grow up, maybe at 60 or so and realize that you are responsible for the life you have. There is nobody else to blame.