Stop dreaming, start doing

Cpl Punishment

Cpl Punishment

Joined
Jan 28, 2006
Messages
7,035
OK, I had another brainstorm.

Yeah.

Anyway, I've been considering my situation. I was always a dreamer. And my philosophy was if you're going to dream, dream big.

With recent events being what they are, I've changed my mind. I've realized it doesn't matter what I plan, how well I plan, or how smart I am, it can be taken away at any time.

If nothing goes further wrong, I got off fairly easy this time.

For years I'd been planning something big, the trip of a lifetime, so to speak. That's gone now.
I've decided that I'm not doing that anymore. No more working my ass off, burning the candle at both ends to try and make something have it to be robbed of it. Oh I've been getting out here and there, but most of my life lately has been working and saving.

No more.
No more 60 hour weeks.
No more being tired all day everyday.
No more not spending time with family and friends.

I can make my bills and still save some on 40 hours a week. Oh, I'll still do an extra 8 hours a week or two a month, but not an extra 20, every week.
I'm going to spend time with friends and family. With my church family, not just on the outdoor excursions. I'm going to start teaching again.

I keep looking at pictures of the South American jungle courses the RAT guys throw, wanting to go. What the hell is wrong with me? I live in a friggin tropical state. It's not the deep jungle, but most of what they do, I can do in my backyard, literally. I live 2 miles from a lake bigger than my county, but gone fishing 4 times in the 8 years I've been here.
There's thick woods all around me, a wildlife management area not 5 miles away, and I'm lucky to hunt twice a year.

WTF?

No, time to stop dreaming and start doing.

Start living.
 
My Grandfather planned for decades to go back to Alaska, where he was a forest ranger in the 30's, but kept putting it off. When he was finally ready to go, he decided that he had waited to long and didn't have the stamina to go. He was 91 when he finally gave up on his dream of going back. My Mom and I went on the trip after he died. We were able to follow his journals and see a lot of the towns and areas he worked in and around. It was really cool, but it was not the same as if we had done it with him.
 
Reading about how age creeps up on you and your dreams never get realised started me writing a reply and then it went on and on - sorry.

Since I was a teenager I have dreamed of moving to New Zealand. As I got older I started in a career in IT to make myself more desirable to the folks down under. As I worked away earning money it became obvious that I would be better off investing in property. Met a girl and we bought a property together - a couple of years after that and we were married.

She knew my wish to move away from Scotland and she felt the same. She had only come back to Scotland herself because of her mother who had taken very ill. The doctors advised the family that she would only have a few years left. Time ticked on and we had a son. This was planned as neither of us was getting any younger. As long as we left before he went to school and made too many friends it wouldn't be a problem. Rather than getting worse over the years the arrival of her first grandchild gave her mother a new lease of life and 8 years on she is still around.

My wife is not comfortable with us leaving knowing that should her mother go downhill it will be very quick to the end. I broached the subject again and we had decided to look at getting our visas that year and renting our house out while we were away - so if things didn't work out we could come back.

Then her sister took very ill and we were on hold again. Her sister is doing great and looks to be coming out the other end of a really bad year. Once again I started looking at emigrating, this time at Adelaide in Australia as I had heard good things about it.

Then came the bombshell, my little nest egg that I had built up in my property value was wiped out. My wife had run up a lot of debt on two credit cards and two loans. She has no idea where all the money went. I suspect it went to her parents when they went through a very bad financial patch a few years before but she denies it. If my son had not been around I would have sold up and left her at this point but as a father I have responsibilities and couldn't leave. I forget for weeks and then a day like today it comes back to me. I still love her unfortunately, she has her faults but I can never trust her with money ever again.

So my dream is in a very shitty place right now. My son is nearing the end of primary school, which would be the next good time to go abroad, but I don't have the pile of starting funds I had planned. The world economy has decided to implode. Her mother is still ill and now her sister is too. If both were to go (god forbid) then her father would be pretty much alone and can barely make himself a cup of tea after a lifetime of his wife doing everything for him.

There is no moral to the story as such. I have my bed and I sleep in it, I am happy even though the text above probably reads otherwise but my lifelong dream looks like it will never be fulfilled. I think what I am trying to say is that life is full of choices and even though I may never make it to the dreamland it doesn't mean I am unhappy with the way my life has panned out. I have a home, wife, kid, good job doing what I enjoy and a WWII kukri sitting next to my tomahawk resting on a copy of Dwight McLemore's the fighting tomahawk. What more could I reasonably ask for.

Some dreams are best left as dreams anyway because they would never live up to expectations - the one were I am marooned on a desert island with Kylie Minogue and her sister and the only thing we can find to eat is a container full of viagra for instance. Actually that is a bad example because that would ROCK :)
 
Moff8 said:
Reading about how age creeps up on you and your dreams never get realised started me writing a reply and then it went on and on - sorry.
Click to expand...
IMO that's what the Cantina is for, my friend.


Moff8 said:
Some dreams are best left as dreams anyway because they would never live up to expectations - the one were I am marooned on a desert island with Kylie Minogue and her sister and the only thing we can find to eat is a container full of viagra for instance. Actually that is a bad example because that would ROCK :)
Click to expand...

I know what you mean. I had a chance to meet an actress I have had a deep, fulfilling relationship of lust with for many many years. I declined. Why? Because I know I would have found out she's human like the rest of us, flawed like the rest of us, and probably a flaming liberal being in the hollyweird set. So I decided I wanted to kepp her on the pedestal and keep my fantasy intact.

As a wise man once told me: "No matter how pretty she is, or how good she seems, there's a man somewhere that's tired of putting up with her shit."

Thanks for sharing, guys.
 
A personal acquaintance who inspires me greatly once told me: be here now.

Meaning: you can spend your life reflecting, or you can spend it planning, or you can get up and experience it.

Go get 'em Corporal!
 
great stuff, good reminders.

It is also good to be content with such things as we have, or as we must do.

Tom
 
Right on CP. Re-inventing ones self is a powerful thing. Be good to yourself:)

Mark:thumbup:
 
Life tends to happen regardless of whether you're paying attention or not. Planning is good and goals are important. It's also important that the plan doesn't become the thing, that you don't get so immersed in the plan that you become blind to life happening all around you, all the time.
 
Guess it goes back to not regretting what you do but rather what you don't do. Priorities change in life and taking a hard look at what makes you happy and then doing that isn't the easiest thing to do.

I'm glad you've taken assessment of your situation and re-prioritized hopefully it will make your life better and more enjoyable for you, your family and friends.

I'm kind of doing the same stuff with my life. Getting out more, not wasting days on stuff that doesn't really matter. Just trying to get a little more out of life than work and a distant dream.

Good luck and I hope all works well for you.
 
I'm getting tired of those 60-hour weeks, too.

I'm seriously considering commissioning. I can make more money, sooner, as an officer than I can as a teacher at even the university level.

And I really, really want to see Alaska. And I want to hold my children, and hopefully, my grandchildren, and if I live to see my first great-grandchild, I will die a very happy man.

John
 
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