Do you constantly look forward

[Bill Bumface]

I'm 23 right now and I think I've hit the absolute peak of my life. Things have never been better for me. I'm kind of the opposite, I'm not living my life looking forward to anything, I'm living my life hoping it can stay the same.

I'm sure it will change eventually, but for now I know I have about 7 more years of the 'good life' before it all goes downhill

[Cowperson]

Some quarter century ago one summer in northern Alberta, near Grande Prairie, I went out to see a family of a husband, wife and three smaller kids of various ages in various states of undress with no shoes, all living in a tiny travel trailer on the edge of a field in the middle of nowhere.

He was a farm hand. He used to be a cashier at a gas station but couldn't keep the job because of his disability that made reading numbers impossible for him.

She was also mildly mentally disabled and basically a stay home mom.

The worry was the farmer wouldn't need the husband as a hired hand much longer and they'd be on the move again, without the trailer as that was the property of the farmer. A scene right out of the Grapes of Wrath.

In spite of their poor situation, limited possibilities and poor future, I don't think I've ever seen a happier family more in love with each other all around.

For that reason, I've never forgotten them and can still picture that scene today. I do sometimes wonder what happened to them. The kids would all be grown now. The wife and husband in their late 40's or early 50's or so.

But they were a happy bunch then in spite of the weight of the world on their shoulders.

Cowperson

[Cheese]

ROFLMAO at you yunguns wringing your hands and trying to see what lays on the other side of the hill.
I have zero to offer that most havent...and I could never put in words what Cow does with so little effort and so eloquently...so I wont.
When you reach 50 and look in the mirror...some of you will see the same old face that has stared back at you for 50 years. You will feel mostly the same, think mostly the same, with layers of intelligence and experience added on. Hopefully you can all smile back at that reflection and say I done good and am looking forward to whatever I want to do for the rest of my life....with the person you want to do it with. That is key.
I have that pleasure and I can look back and smile at Children raised, and children growing. I also LOVE the fact that many many years later I have many good friends that shared jokes in the halls of schools I attended.

On to the next 50!

[Bend it like Bourgeois]

Originally posted by JiriHrdina@Jul 21 2005, 07:53 PM
I've had the same conversation with people in the past. The younger you are the more excited you get about stuff. Its tougher as an adult to get that feeling of anticipation. I miss it.

That being said, my decision to switch careers has given me an entire new pile of stuff to look forward too. Prior to that decision I was feeling rather down about not having something like that.

Man that's me. I hope.

I totally miss the days of anticipating reaching the top of the next hill, if that makes sense. Though I'm not even sure it was aniticpation - more like the complete confidence that once you got to the top of the current hill there'd be higher and more exciting ones forever to come.

I'm fortunate in that I just sold my business and now I get to decide what I want to be when I grow up. Again. That's exciting. The downside is that it seems so much harder now with a wife and young family. My choices affect them too.

It's a nice problem to have. Hopefully I can have a new pile of stuff to look forward to as well.

Timely thread for me.

An aside - is it just me or does a lot of this have to do with how fast time passes as you get older. You blink and a year goes by, and 40, and 50 seem to be coming awfully fast considering where I hoped to be at that age.

[Frank the Tank]

I've said it before Fotze, once you have that little baby in your arms your world will just stop. You'll seriously wonder how you lived without him/her. The first few months are crap, but when they smile at you and you realize that they are smiling at you for no other reason than the fact that they love you no questions asked (because they can't talk yet ) you'll realize how insiginificant everything else is. Work? Who cares, its just a job. Money? If you're smart, you'll always get by. You'll be busier than shinguard for the first year (which I just finished) but you slowly start to get your life back....

Oh ya, and if work is stale, then change it. My best attribute. Nothing is worth going insane at a job. Change may be hard but if you have to do it, do it.

[Cowperson]

Originally posted by Bend it like Bourgeois@Jul 22 2005, 05:40 PM
An aside - is it just me or does a lot of this have to do with how fast time passes as you get older. You blink and a year goes by, and 40, and 50 seem to be coming awfully fast considering where I hoped to be at that age.

Its true but fortunately I have my trees to help me.

I have about 140 newer trees, poplars, maples, birches, etc and was mocked a bit by a friend when I was planting them six years ago.

"But they'll take 10 years or more to grow!!!"

My reply - "Ten years will pass whether I plant them or not. So I might as well plant them."

Time seems to slow down as I contemplate the various progress of my various trees, measuring how they're doing every year, spring through summer, replacing those that falter with disease or are killed by rutting deer, etc, etc. . . . . . .

You know, its a slow process to grow a tree.

As you get older, however, the trick is to find things that slow time down because you're right, it can fly if you're not watching.

Cowperson