I'm 36 years old now, which if you're a long-timer here, is pretty frigging old in some senses, seeing as I was 21 when I started writing these things. And over the last 15 years, my general perception of the world has changed quite a bit. For most subjects, there's guidelines and dialogue on how to adapt to changing times. You can learn a lot of things from others. But one thing I never, ever hear people talking about is the process of getting old (with one notable exception being athletes around my age who start to decline).

It's a worrisome thing in some respects. There's stuff I try to do now that I'm just not as sharp at as I used to be. There are plenty of things I can still do. But you notice things slip just a little bit and it plants worries in your mind. If I go and talk to the older guys at the bar, when they mention things like that, it's always of a physical sort. My joints aren't as good. I got this pain here. I had the gout last week. That sort of thing. But it's never the kind of talk about coming to terms with the gradual decline. The thought process involved. Especially when you hit that mid-thirty/forty range.

You have people that experience these mid-life crises, and some of it is impacted perhaps by that uncertainty of not knowing how the decline will go. You have people clinging to the glory days, and some going to full extents to try and string it along as much as possible. People want to stick to what they know more often than not, and getting old is something they can't experience firsthand until they get there.

So over the weekend, I'm on what's becoming the yearly getaway with all of the guys from our inner circle. Most are married and have kids now, but part of them all seemed to be trying to capture a little of the magic and excitement from the past. I don't fault them for that - I've tried to do it myself by and large over the past couple years. But I'm now starting to see that things are different now. The landscape of life isn't what it used to be. There's other things of importance out there. And I think I'm now starting to be at peace with letting a bit of the old ways go.

In any event, the moral of the story is that regardless of what stage you are in life, you don't have to compare where you are now to where you were. People do it constantly, but it's not always necessary. Sometimes, you can just appreciate the past, but embrace the future and act based on how that will turn out. As the old man says, Better Day and Higher Love are comin' soon. Best of luck.

Bud

When it comes down to it, right now you're looking for some interesting stories to tell others, and you can make decisions based on what seems to be the more interesting path. Where this might get you into trouble is when you veer so far from the beaten path that you have no idea where you're going. Drifting a little is fine, but you don't want to end-up in no man's land. You will tend to have more success using others as a baseline for your decisions. Look at what they're doing and mimic things that are successful, while steering clear of things that they haven't done so well.

...Show some Love...