Growing Old
My time traveling self went on an adventure last night. At about 3:30 this morning, I found myself back at my first job out of college. I wanted to give my young self some advice. But I knew it was too late, so I just felt sad and spent a few moments wandering around looking at the awards on my office wall, wondering why in the world I felt so self-assured, and thinking about the mistakes I made.
Of course, it’s hard to call them mistakes. Life is a long hike and you choose your path as best you can, and while you might miss some views, you see some others, and in the end it’s your story, and you have to stick to it. Although, you can certainly embellish it and step around some of the bad bits. Our public face is almost always one of success even if there are failures, and sometimes even your loved ones don’t know when or where things went wrong.
The thing I miss most about the past is the feeling that there were lots of tomorrows. The future seemed relatively endless and there was plenty of time to correct those mistakes. Bad news now. I’m sailing a battleship in a bathtub, and there’s no space to turn around. I think the trick will be to rediscover some of that self-assurance, and make the best choices I can, knowing that its all about the short run, and when it’s over I won’t be around to regret anything.