Thinking about the funeral today made me realize that my post yesterday reads as a bit morose; I was trying for a more philosophical tone. While it’s true that I find myself in a place and a situation I had never really planned for, the fact of the matter is that I’ve a lot to be happy about. Such dissatisfaction as I feel is primarily focused on large issues of money and finance, and this is only a relatively small piece of the puzzle of happiness.
In virtually every other area of life, I’ve got few worries. I’ve got an interesting, challenging job doing something I enjoy. It pays enough to support our lifestyle, and soon enough The Wife will have a job (with some luck) and we can use her earnings to save up to buy a house in a year or so. I’ve got a good education, I’m smart, I have hobbies I like. I’ve got some good critters and a nice place to live. I’m blessed with a supportive, loving family, and many good friends. I’m healthy and alive. Most of all, I have a wonderful wife who is my best friend and an ideal life companion. And there is no reason that long-term, larger-scale wealth cannot come in the future.
And my friend Nancy Spungen is right about quite a few things in her comments: a) women don’t really like Pink Floyd all that much and growing up I wasn’t a cool kid in part because I didn’t have much access to hip contemporary music; b) the major career choices I’ve made were, especially viewed in context, about as good as could have been made; and c) different choices could easily have resulted in a much worse situation than I am currently in, due largely to factors beyond my control.
So mine has been a mixed bag of some good and some lukewarm results in life. But the question remains — to what extent am I here due to good choices I have made and to what extent am I here due to forces beyond my control? The more I think about it, the more I’m coming to believe that I have a lot less ability to influence my path in life than I would like to believe.
Hey, I didn’t say I didn’t like Pink Floyd. My point was really just that you and Salsola are dorks.Then again, the guys who liked the music I liked back then tended to like eyeliner, and each other, more than they ever liked me.
I’m going to massacre the cliche, but life is what happens to you while you’re making plans. None of us know the impact any one decision of ours has on what will happen to us in the future — we just close our eyes and jump in feet first. You remember where I was headed and what I wanted to do in college. Does my life now in any way resemble those goals? It’s not to say that I’m not happy with where I am, because I am. And I’ve been lucky to find some measure of financial and personal success along the way. And it’s also not to say that I don’t spend vast quantities of time daydreaming about how I should just chuck it all and live a relatively simple life on a Caribbean island. (But that would mean going through an extremely messy divorce, and besides the bugs on many of the islands are just terrible.)Ahem. Anyway, back to my original track…I’m glad that you can recognize the happiness that you do have. Many people can’t. But what is more wonderful is that you’re willing to take the risks you need to in order to achieve what you want. You were willing to give up what you had in LA for a chance at happiness in TN. So, it didn’t work out. But don’t let that stop you from taking a leap of faith again. That (and hard work and loving family and friends, natch) is what will get you to where you want to go. It’s only when you give up dreaming that you get stuck in a rut.
I love Wikipedia. This, re Fundamental Attribution Error, and this, re Just World Phenomenon, makes my case much more coherently.
I like Pink Floyd