Midlife Crisis?

As the story goes, a doctor once said that "no one on their death bed says they wish they would have spent more time at work". Well, right now I'm feeling that way more than ever.

It seems most people let life lead them, rather than vice versa and I feel I've fallen prey to this a little bit. After all, how many people do you know that can say "I did exactly what I wanted to do". The reality is that most people can't. And there is a stark reality in knowing that generally we aren't afforded that much discretion in our lives. Can't get up one day and say "I'm not going to work, I'm going to spend the day fishing with my kids", or do whatever feels like the right use of the time for the day.

Nope. We have responsibilities, accountabilities, duties, expectations ... blah, blah, blah. Most of these are self inflicted. Self inflicted based on a few key life choices we make. It's an interesting analysis when you think about the four or five decisions that had the most material impact on your life.

Education? Profession? Place to live? Marriage? Kids? That's my four or five. The latter two have undeniably been the best decisions in my life. The first three? Well, these choices were the best for me at the time and place I was in my life. But I'm changing in mindset. In hindsight, maybe I would change them. But suffice to say, I've worked hard to get where I've been ... and been lucky.

Most people would characterize the same four or five choices I've named as being the biggest of their life choices also. Perhaps one or two changes, but generally the same. And it's hard to imagine that if these choices are made consciously that someones life could turn out too much differently than what they wanted.

Funny how "life stages" play such a role in these decisions. Yeah, that's a nice way of saying, getting old.

I'm spending a lot of time these days contemplating my decisions. And the decisions I want to make for the rest of my life. I'm not normally a planner and my thinking of the subject certainly hasn't been refined to what I would consider planning.

But there are a lot of things still on my bucket list to accomplish.

I do feel good about what I've accomplished to date, and the fruits of that effort. But it's a long race and hopefully when it's over I can look back on it with even more satisfaction.