posted on December 18, 2005 10:40:38 AM new
A Time For Reflection...
Another year is coming to a close and of course with it we are another year older and (wiser).
I believe our board regulars are all over 21, more likely 40, 50, and 60'ish, and many are in the Fall or Wintertime of life.
A time for reflection.
Have you accomplished your dreams and aspirations?
Looking back, have you made a difference?
What have you done to better the planet, your country, your family, yourself?
Have you made the most of your time here?
Have you invented something? Been Published? Had an art exhibition? Contributed scientifically, helped find a cure for a disease? Helped change a law? Found fame? Become a millionaire? Become a missionary of help for others? Cared for the lonely, lost or discarded? Have you traveled the world, either in the physical or through learning? Have you done most of the to-dos on your to-do list?
What would you say your biggest accomplishment has been to date?
This thread is about feeling good about what you have done, and how far you have traveled so far in this lifetime.
Like most, I have never been famous, discovered, or invented anything or made a name for myself and will be remembered by only friends and family members.
But I have lived, loved, cared and cared for others. Ive played by the rules, danced in the moonlight, lived and learned different languages, lived among the rich and the poorest of poor and enjoyed all equally. Raised a family, and proudly watched them become independent , healthy, happy adults. And learned that being a worker ant or bee isnt such a bad thing..we all cant be the Queen.
Care to share your thoughts and reflections?
posted on December 18, 2005 11:00:37 AM new
Good morning Maggie, and a fine morning it is!
Nice post! I think I'll reflect to myself(hate to boast but being first on the moon AND a Nobel Prize winner is hard to keep hush-hush).
OK, I'll try to behave ...your post is quite deep and I WILL ask myself a few questions.
Dancing in the moonlight???
I have an aunt, Margie....considered eccentric but has been told by a psychiatrist friend that she's the sanest person he ever knew....one moonlit night she placed candles around her garden and danced in the moonlight...until the neighbor's lights started coming on ...curious as to what was going on ....and the candles went out...but she did exactly as she pleased without hurting anyone and enjoyed herself immensely
I'd like to hear about YOUR "dancing in the moonlight" and your travels.
ONLY "by only friends and family members." ?? Those are the most important! The ones who count
posted on December 18, 2005 11:33:45 AM new
If you aren't happy answering Maggie's questions, just remember it's never too late to change. If you don't want to reflect on the past, try reflecting on the future.
All my life I have worked in business and with computers.
I had a pre-owned entertainment store, one of the biggest stores of its type in my state. I bought used movies, music and games from people and resold them at a discount. I could help out people who needed cash and also help out people who wanted a distraction from their lives but couldn't afford new. Everyone was happy.
Then the local economy took a big downturn and everyone needed more. They stole movies and music off the Internet rather than buying them at a discount. If they didn't have the internet, they stole them right off my shelves. People kept bringing in broken junk and stolen goods. People kept wanting something for nothing. I stopped feeling good about the business, and often felt dirty after a day's work. I closed the store and went exclusively online.
That was two years ago. I quickly found that selling online exclusively left me with way too much spare time on my hands, so I decided to go back to school and get a degree. I quickly became totally addicted to it. I never much cared for school in my younger days, but quickly fell in love with it this time around.
As I near 40 (not yet, but close!), I am preparing for a new career in academia. It would never have occurred to me that I wanted to teach a few years ago, but now I can't wait to do it. You just can't get further between a used movie peddler and a University professor, but I WILL do it. I'll still have at least 20 years to work in this new field, probably more like 30.
I tried to use my business to help people in the past. I plan to do the same thing in a different way when I can teach.
No, I still have no family of my own, and I'm getting to the age where that probably won't happen. But I can still make a difference in the world. Everyone can, and it's never too late to change directions!
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Let's see if we can keep this thread from devolving into the usual name-calling garbage. It's getting REALLY boring.
[ edited by replaymedia on Dec 18, 2005 11:36 AM ]
posted on December 18, 2005 12:51:32 PM new
replaymedia - You've shared before about going back to school...and I think that's such a great goal you set for yourself. Wishing you continued luck with your studies...and success in your new career.
On the marriage issue....don't give up. Many are meeting and marrying later in life now.
Plus many who have been married, re-marry at ages much older than yourself.
Maybe in a university/college situation you might just find Ms. Right. You never know...they say it's when you least expect it to happen...it does.
posted on December 18, 2005 01:32:51 PM new
Replay: College??? I thought for a minute you was gonna be a REAL teacher...Just kidding of course, advanced degrees are the sweetest masochism. Good luck in your endeavors. Since you'll be spendin' the rest of your workin' days around them brainy types, who get paid to think about stuff and sit around drinkin' cappucino and talkin about all the stuff they been thinkin' about... I thought you might enjoy the Graduate Level Version of The Night Before Christmas. Course #NBXM-799, prior approval from instructor required. Here it is:
Twas the nocturnal segment of the diurnal period preceding the annual yuletide celebration, and throughout our place of residence, kinetic activity was not in evidence among the possessors of this potential, including that species of domestic rodent known as Mus musculus. Hosiery was meticulously suspended from the forward edge of the wood-burning caloric apparatus, pursuant to our anticipatory pleasure regarding an imminent visitation from an eccentric philanthropist among whose folkloric appellations is the honorific title of St. Nicholas.
The prepubescent siblings, comfortably ensconced in their respective accommodations of repose, were experiencing subconscious visual hallucinations of variegated fruit confections moving rhythmically through their cerebra. My conjugal partner and I, attired in our nocturnal cranial coverings, were about to take slumbrous advantage of the hibernal darkness when upon the avenaceous exterior portion of the grounds there ascended such a cacophony of dissonance that I felt compelled to arise with alacrity from my place of repose for the purpose of ascertaining the precise source thereof.
Hastening to the casement, I forthwith opened the barriers sealing the fenestration, noting thereupon that the lunar brilliance without, reflected as it was on the surface of a recent crystalline aqueous precipitation, might be said to rival that of the solar meridian itself -- thus permitting my incredulous optical sensors to peruse a miniature airborne runnered conveyance drawn by an octet of diminutive specimens of the genus Rangifer, piloted by a miniscule, aged chauffeur so ebullient and nimble that it became instantly apparent to me that he was indeed our anticipated caller. With his undulate motive power traveling at what may possibly have been more vertiginous velocity than patriotic alar predators, he vociferated loudly, expelled breath musically through contracted labia, and addressed each of the octet by his or her respective cognomen ... "Now Dasher, now Dancer..." et al. -- guiding them to the uppermost exterior level of our abode, through which structure I could readily distinguish the concatenations of each of the 32 cloven pedal extremities.
As I retracted my cranium from its erstwhile location, and was performing a 180-degree pivot, our distinguished visitant achieved -- with utmost celerity and via a downward leap -- entry by way of the smoke passage. He was clad entirely in animal pelts soiled by the ebon residue from the oxidations of carboniferous fuels which had accumulated on the walls thereof. His resemblance to a street vendor I attributed largely to the plethora of assorted playthings which he bore dorsally in a commodious cloth receptacle.
His orbs were scintillant with reflected luminosity, while his submaxillary dermal indentations gave every evidence of engaging amiability. The capillaries of his molar regions and nasal aptenance were engorged with blood which suffused the subcutaneous layers, the former approximating the coloration of Albion's floral emblem, the latter that of the Prunus avium, or sweet cherry. His amusing sub - and supralabials resembled nothing so much as a common loop knot, and their ambient hirsuite facial adornment appeared like small, tabular and columnar crystals of frozen water.
Clenched firmly between his incisors was a smokingpiece whose gray fumes, forming a tenuous ellipse about his occiput, were suggestive of a decorative seasonal circlet of holly. His visage was wider than it was high, and when he waxed audibly mirthful, his corpulent abdominal region undulated in the manner of impectinated fruit syrup in a hemispherical container.
Without utterance and with dispatch, he commenced filling the aforementioned hosiery with articles of merchandise extracted from his aforementioned previously dorsally transported cloth receptacle. Upon completion of this task, he executed an abrupt about-face, placed a single manual digit in lateral juxtaposition to his olfactory organ, inclined his cranium forward in a gesture of leave-taking, and forthwith affected his egress by renegotiating (in reverse) the smoke passage. He then propelled himself in a short vector onto his conveyance, directed a musical expulsion of air through his contracted oral sphincter to the antlered quadrupeds of burden, and proceeded to soar aloft in a movement hitherto observable chiefly among the seed-bearing portions of a common weed.
But I overheard his parting exclamation, audible immediately prior to his vehiculation beyond the limits of visibility: "Ecstatic yuletides to the planetary constituence, and to that self-same assemblage my sincerest wishes for a salubriously beneficial and gratifyingly pleasurable period between sunset and dawn."
I haven't had time to think about maggie's original question. If I do, I'll respond, but right now, there are animals to feed.
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Habla siempre que debas y calla siempre que puedas....
posted on December 18, 2005 04:26:27 PM new
When I was younger i wanted "to be known" and to have lots of money. Unfortunately I am tone deaf and I never got the acting bug so I started working behind the scenes. The problem was the I learned way too much about the industry i was working in and began to hate it. I moved to another aspect of the entertainment industrry, I worked there for 8 years. Problem there was that I have a hard time not pouring heart and soul into whatever it is I am doing so after 8 years of 80 hour weeks I burned out and decided if I was going to give my heart and sould to something, it was going to be to advance my own personal interests, not someone elses. I also got to see what happens to people when they lose their aninomty and lost the desire "to be known".
Since then I have done a number of different things. I set new goals, achieve and set the bar a little higher. Who knows if I will ever find the thing that I want to do with the rest of my life but as I look back on what I have done in the past, I have very few regrets and many great memories. I have achieved goals that others strive for, I have helped others to achieve goals that they have strived for, met amazing people that were generous with their knowledge and experience and learned from their example.
So far I consider mine a life well lived but of course I now have bigger and better goals. Some are moving along slower than I orgininally hoped for but since anything worth having is worth working for, I keep slugging along. I have realized that you often learn more in the midst of a percieved failure than from success but that the lessons learned make the success that much more rewarding.
I look forward to the new year. I REALLY look forward to releasing the pause button I placed on my life to help my mother out this past year but I have no regrets. In four weeks I get to see the culmination of her years of hard work come to fruition as she moves into her dream home and lives the life of leasure she has worked so hard for all these years and my step can retire to his studio to bring all the art that has lived in his head all these years to reality. Someday that may be my dream. I hope I am as successful in it as they have been.
Oh yeah... I have to decide on a new tattoo.
~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~
An intelligent deaf-mute is better than an ignorant person who can speak.
posted on December 18, 2005 08:58:27 PM new
LOL Fenix, I already have the Tattoo. It was my own private badge of honor after going thru a growth phase and making to 40 relatively intact .
Much of what you wrote applies to me.
I was busy breaking the glass ceiling in the 80's, finding myself in the 90's and am now fortunate enough to be able to dedicate most of my time in helping others find their strengths. Life has been very good to me and I like to share it with others.
Currently, most of my time is spent helping make life easier for older folks. It feels good to be able to give back to the generation that made all the "successes" in my life possible.
As for fame, I had several "15 minutes". As for fortune, had it, lost it, found it, ignored it, am now moderately comfortable. Can't afford everything most people want, but haven't wanted much (material junk) for myself in a long time.
And Replay, never give up on love. I was happily single for 11 years and then fell in love , much to my surprise!
He was single for a long time too. I think allow yourself personal time can give you a maturity that makes for a good relationship once you find it.
My DH is retired military and now working on his PHD. He hopes to teach one day. Currently we both teach multi-denominational spiritual growth classes. We don't do it to make money, we are simply motivated by the desire to share.
I think that is the gift of our generation. We have been blessed with much and in our mid-life can now share it with others who are struggling. I don't think learning ever stops. The older we get, the more we can appreciate learning opportunities.
posted on December 18, 2005 11:56:28 PM new
Lt - I have others - When I got my first one I got something that was symbolic of what had the biggest influence on me at the time and when I planned on going next. I swore then I would get one every ten years. Now it's time for number three. I know what I want the new one to symbolize and I have the art for it almost finshed - just have to clean it up and find the right person to do it.
~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~
An intelligent deaf-mute is better than an ignorant person who can speak.
posted on December 19, 2005 07:18:05 AM new
Merry Christmas Dble - Go have some eggnog and stop trolling for a conflict.
~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~
An intelligent deaf-mute is better than an ignorant person who can speak.
posted on December 19, 2005 07:18:48 AM newI have realized that you often learn more in the midst of a percieved failure than from success but that the lessons learned make the success that much more rewarding.
You sound like you think youre 60 years old already! But then again, this is a line now being shopped about by the networks that some old fart football coach has been sayin in the twilight of his coming retirement.
Who is trolling for a conflict? You wrote something here. I gave my opinion on it. Well I havent yet, but here it is: D- for feigned earnestness.
So what did you want to be known for? As a know-it-all? As somebody who's had a terrible childhood and now has all of some 14 years of adulthood that has overcome insuroumountable odds to success as an internet junkie? LOL!!
..
posted on December 19, 2005 07:35:35 AM new
And your opinion is that watching the effects of loss of anonymity on another person is synonymous with personal exploitation?
Just to clear things up, I don't believe that one has anything to do with the other.
Go find someone else's life to attempt to dissect and distort. I don't have time to play today. I'm heading out in 15 minutes.
~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~
An intelligent deaf-mute is better than an ignorant person who can speak.
posted on December 19, 2005 07:46:04 AM new
Perhaps you could dig deep Fugger and find something about your life worth reflecting on that you'd care to share, instead of mocking others?
posted on December 19, 2005 07:46:52 AM new
Profe, I was going to print out that "Twas the nocturnal segment" thing so I cut and pasted it into MS Word. It's AMAZING how many of those words weren't recognized by the spell check. I'll never rely on auto-check again!
It reads like something from the GRE exam books.
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Quidquid Latine dictum sit altum sonatur.
posted on December 19, 2005 08:07:02 AM new
Heres a reflection for ya maggitfaggit;
The starter on my car went bad. I had to wait two weeks until payday to get it fixed. Four months later, you are still "reflecting" and apparently having anxiety attacks on oh so troublesome me without a car! Meanwhile, I'm breezing around and have forgotten all about it.
ya dbl, (mumble marble mouth says "can ya dig deep and give me some reflections on your life that I schlep around for six months or more?"
posted on December 19, 2005 08:40:31 AM newPerhaps you could dig deep Fugger and find something about your life worth reflecting on that you'd care to share, instead of mocking others?
Now why would he do that. He wants to be like his idol Archie Bunker. He wants to die a stubborn, grumpy old man, alone in his bed.
Absolute faith has been shown, consistently, to breed intolerance. And intolerance, history teaches us, again and again, begets violence.
---------------------------------- The duty of a patriot in this time and place is to ask questions, to demand answers, to understand where our nation is headed and why. If the answers you get do not suit you, or if they frighten you, or if they anger you, it is your duty as a patriot to dissent. Freedom does not begin with blind acceptance and with a flag. Freedom begins when you say 'No.'
posted on December 19, 2005 08:47:08 AM new
whys logansdad, how did you know Archie Bunker is my idol? He really had the right idea about homo sapiens like you! :0
posted on December 19, 2005 01:54:35 PM newHe really had the right idea about homo sapiens like you!
Homo sapiens like me......that I am loving caring white man
Twinkle toes, you better learn what the definition of homo sapien is before you try to use it in a sentence again.
Absolute faith has been shown, consistently, to breed intolerance. And intolerance, history teaches us, again and again, begets violence.
---------------------------------- The duty of a patriot in this time and place is to ask questions, to demand answers, to understand where our nation is headed and why. If the answers you get do not suit you, or if they frighten you, or if they anger you, it is your duty as a patriot to dissent. Freedom does not begin with blind acceptance and with a flag. Freedom begins when you say 'No.'
posted on December 19, 2005 02:33:34 PM new
Did ya have to go look that up before you responded? to be sure?
Perhaps I should have used another of Archie's terms, homo-out-pasturized queen.
...try reflecting on the future.
My new signature line!!! It just sounds so edgeujcated, like ya really know the meaning of words. Ya'd think maybe ya studied latin or somethin'?
posted on December 19, 2005 04:05:06 PM newPerhaps I should have used another of Archie's terms, homo-out-pasturized queen.
What a kind thing to say, you meathead.
I see one more rightie on this board has to hide under a different user id. What's the matter twinkle toes, was twelvepole not good enough for you any more?
Absolute faith has been shown, consistently, to breed intolerance. And intolerance, history teaches us, again and again, begets violence.
---------------------------------- The duty of a patriot in this time and place is to ask questions, to demand answers, to understand where our nation is headed and why. If the answers you get do not suit you, or if they frighten you, or if they anger you, it is your duty as a patriot to dissent. Freedom does not begin with blind acceptance and with a flag. Freedom begins when you say 'No.'
posted on December 19, 2005 04:20:54 PM new
oh, poor logans, so longing for his beloved twelevetoes to get his sado-masochist groove on! LOL!!
Sorry, dairyqueen, i will just have to play your overbearing critical gay turning toilet bowl fetish inspiring mother instead. But you can play dress up and be maggie, libra, or big-pee-pee-, since we know you so you like to flame it
).
.