i know what you mean. Sometimes people take things too literally.

BTW, what does allegory mean?

:Dmy 96 yr old great grandmother uesd to say 'everything happens for a reason' (according to my Dad since I barely remember her) -...as well as lots of other people.

But, I'll be damned...she's been right 99% of the time. As tough as it is at times, I wouldn't change my life. It's all about perspective; as Mr. FAX has observed, sh(t can get a lot worse than "bad credit" or people hounding your for their 'interest payments" etc.

Thank you Jesus, Allah, Buhda etc.(I say 'etc' because I don't worship one 'god'. )..for allow me to stay dry, warm/cool (depending on the season :D ) and to have warm food and cold beer in my tummy.

[QUOTE=luv;5775910]I've been able to prove that I can survive on my own and fend for myself. It's a good feeling. QUOTE]

I got the same feeling after returning from the Navy (and I wasn't even gay...NTTAWWT); it felt nice to know I could survive on my own.

:D
:thumb:

Ms. Luv....is it possible to pen an short stroy/book in your free time?

I didn't start saying 'everything happens for a reason' until I'd seen enough proof of it in my own life. Agreed. I'm definitely happy with what I've got, and, what I'm not happy with, I'm working on changing. Life is good.

I thought I'd be pulling down a lot more tang at this point in my life.

Other than that, eveerything is swell.

I could, but you guys get the best of me. :D I wrote all of the time pre-internet days. It was my only outlet.

Interesting thread. I'll respond separately for career and for personal life.

Career

I thought back, and realize that I was driven in my youth, but never in a strategic sense. I just picked a direction and ran unthinkingly.

I think I've shared this before, but once I got past the football player/cowboy/rock star stage of dreaming, I decided that I wanted to be an architect and was very interested in it. It wasn't a necessarily grand dream, but I thought I'd enjoy it.

Then, during my senior year of high school, they had a career day. An architect came in, and when she told me the starting salary of architects I was crushed. Let's just say that Mike Brady had six kids living in two bedrooms for a reason.

Another speaker talked about engineering, and it sounded interesting and paid more than double the architecture starting salary. So I went into that. For the most part, though, I had no idea how a professional career should work, so I kind of sleepwalked through that phase of my career.

From there I went to grad school, with the goal of joining the Foreign Service and working in an embassy, which I thought was sure to bring adventure. However, in real life I decided that I didn't really want to live in a third-world country, and it would've involved great career sacrifice by my wife, so I was lost in the woods until I found the consulting job in Denver, which was very interesting to me.

I did that and liked it a lot, but the company got totally screwed up, so I left and started my own company, which quickly veered more toward market research and demographics. It was initially a means of supporting myself until I finished the Great American Novel, which is currently in its 23rd draft a decade later. Nonetheless, I like this work, and it kind of suits my self-perception, which is to constantly learn and help people answer questions, whatever those questions might be.

While I idly dreamed of fame and fortune, I never really knew how to pursue it, so in retrospect I more or less just picked easy paths that were available and sounded interesting. Not exactly a stirring tale of drive and talent.

Now I'm kind of depressed.

Personal Life

On the personal front, my vision at age 18 was to have money, live someplace interesting, have a classic English Tudor home, and to lead an Ozzie and Harriet family of myself, my lovely wife, and my four children, two boys and two girls, preferably in a girl-boy-boy-girl birth order. And drive a DeLorean.

My vision evolved over the years to something that better fit me, as opposed to the above, which was more or less my naive vision of what a perfect personal life should be. I scored the wife, but we decided we didn't want kids. I moved someplace interesting, though it took me a while to do it. The money thing wasn't working at all until I moved to Denver (I had to borrow money for the truck to move here), and then advanced rapidly where I'm comfortable, albeit not where I'd like to be in retirement savings, particularly in the last year.

And what I really figured out over time is that I valued experiences more than objects. I'd rather have interesting stories than more money in my bank account, which is why I wander off to places like Madagascar and Nepal and Egypt. Traveling may be a trite way to achieve that, but it works for me. I just read an article today that said there's a link between money and happiness, but only if the money is used to buy experiences rather than things. I think I agree with that.

So on the personal front, I don't think I gave up any dreams so much as I learned over time what those dreams really were. I'm a happy guy in that context.

I'm Priest Holmes.

See what i mean? I had dreams of being a salesman and its not working out too well as you all can see he isn't buying any of it.

:thumb:
Rock on. You've won 1/2 the battle.
One of these days if I/we ever make it to a tailgate, we'll *clink* beer bottles as a "America....F Yeah"!

:D

Uh-oh.

Don't read my career post, FAX. Nothing to see there, nothing to see.

Sounds good to me.

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You're Philip Roth?