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If you're over 50, I have a question for you.
Chockfull O Nuts
Member Posts: 646 ✭✭✭✭
Has your life turned out the way you expected or planned? Are you living where you thought you would and working at the job you wanted or anticipated? I realized the other day that nothing in my life turned out the way I expected. As a youngster I never would have imagined living where I live and doing what I do for a living.
How about you? Life as planned or full of surprises?
How about you? Life as planned or full of surprises?
Comments
Althought I am not complaining as to be honest I never thought I would live to see 53 (which I am now).
All in all though it didnt turn out like I thought, I am fairly content (for now) with my life.
Got a decent job(subject to change at a moments notice), a good wife, small comfortable house, in debt up to my butt, a few close friends and an ankle biter for a dog[:D].
Life could be much worse and has been so I am a happy camper now.
JuJu(reasonably content)
As for as working conditions, winding down from the earlier years, went from office bound large corp., to medium sized locally owned business, more time to screw around without the man being on your butt.
Got a SUPER GOOD wife, 2 grown daughters & 7 grandkids, home is paid off,got more free $ that we have ever had. Yes all that is good.
The down side, nagging problems with health, worried about if one of us passes away. What will happen to the other and their future health and living conditions.
Never made the first millon dollars by age 21, oh well....
Still kicking Walte & Doris
If you can get through your working years with out getting involved with ATTORNEYS and DR. You should have a good retirement.
"Women marry men thinking they will change and they don't. Men marry women thinking that they won't change and they do."
I don't know who said it, but there is a lot of truth in it.
Ben
I root for the
If I can't spell, so what!
Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
The job is very interesting and if there is a need, it allows me to work when and where I want.
No children or wife has a lot to do with how I've spent / spend my life. Pure unthinking luck has played a large part, coupled with NO bad luck (knock on wood).
BTW: Fail to adapt,,, and your new job title might be "un-employable". Seen this many times over of years. Computer skills and implementation being the main obstacle. NOT programming,, knowing how to use the system. I've seen people with 10 times the intelligence required that failed to adapt. For some reason they get it in their head they did not, could not, etc. want to learn or even get someone else to apply something new. They just didn't want to face facts. Younger people,, born after approx.1982 ? grew up in a different environment and appear to have a big edge.
Having your own business is the best of all I've seen. The trades (post by the electrician) can allow you to eventually work for yourself and become very successful.
Funny, but learning how to touch type has proven the most valuable skill I acquired in school.. just to think,, they only reason I took the course was because of the girls. Got lots of great help back then,, (Pay ATTENTION,,, just put your finger here).
Other freedoms are IN COURT NOW and under attack. Click to read latest report.
"There is nothing lower than the human race - except the french." (Mark Twain) ". . . And liberals." (me)
Didn't expect I'd have neat firearms to play with, or that I'd be a professor of Communication. (Me at 10-years-old: "I know howda talk an' doeneed innybody da teach me.")
God is good.
Lord Lowrider the Loquacious.
Member:Secret Select Society of Suave Stylish Smoking Jackets
She was only a fisherman's daughter,
But when she saw my rod she reeled.
Now, at 57, the only goal I reached is I still have most all of my hair.
"the difference between the almost right word and the right word is like the difference between a lightning bug and a lightning bolt" - Mark Twain.
BW
IT'S WHAT PEOPLE KNOW ABOUT THEMSELVES THAT MAKES THEM AFRAID.
IF YOU WANT TO MAKE GOD LAUGH TELL HIM ABOUT YOUR PLANS!
You can't learn any younger!
"Let him step to the music he hears, however measured or far away." Thoreau
The one "yes" would be that God gave me a wonderful wife and a wonderful marriage and even four miracle children! Anything is possible with God![^]
cbxjeff<P>It's too late for me, save yourself. <br>
have a good trade under your belt just in case. Things change and sometimes new employment is needed in a different field. Be prepared
for it just in case. Went through the whole bit and never lost a days
employment till I got back into my original trade each time. Also,
having a trade to go back to is quite handy while waiting for employment
for your original trade if so desired. Dont just depend on what you are
doing as of now only. Things change, so do oportunities for employment.
Part time work in other trades gives you a backup unless too lazy.
I would certainly include the loss of my first wife as one thing that I never expected to happen.
My current wife (Mrs njretcop) Carol, has absolutely taken up the slack of that loss though, so life is good (post heart attack, LOL.)
njretcop@copmail.com
Charlie
I have learned that when the stuff hits the fan it is never evenly distributed.
I thank God everyday for taking care of me. He has made me content.
No, I'm noone with a big bank account, fancy cars, or clothes but I really believe my friends and those I meet are where my riches are.
"Save the Whalers, they need jobs too."
Out of high school in '66 and was told I had to go to college. I didn't much like school and I really didn't want college so I showed everybody... I signed up with the Marines. A really smart move given that the Marines were looking for a few good targets at the time.
But the Marines rejected me because of a heart murmur and I was then out looking for a job... Just as I planned. That job turned out to be servicing business equipment I didn't even know existed in a city over 100 miles from home and then being moved to another city 150 miles farther from home. All before I turned 18! I planned to grow up real fast I guess and was being paid $2.00 per hour to do so!
Oh... Then my company sent me to school. Not a mamby-pamby college, but to a real eight hour a day, five day a week school that lasted for 10 long weeks. I sure showed everybody... Just as I planned cause I really liked school, you know. And then they sent me to another, then another, etc.
Met my future (and current) wife after I got back from school. She's from a little Pennsylvania town that I'd have never known existed if I hadn't planned so well. We have two fine sons that I planned for before I even knew why there were girls on this earth. Yup, planning's everything!
Lot's more things that I planned... Another job, then a business I did well at. A pilot's ticket and three aircraft to my name before my older son got me into other projects. A stay in Russia teaching SONAR to a bunch of characters in the Gulf of Finland. Time to be with my wife, my boys and my grandaughter every day. Yup! I planned all that.
Everything I've said about planning up to this point has been true, but in jest. My life has been blessed beyond any reasonable expectation and nobody could have planned what has passed... Except what I'll now share.
Please don't be sad, nor feel sorry for me. I was blessed beyond belief to have a failing father become my child for a few short weeks before his death. I was blessed to have the time to be with him as he died and to feel his last pulse as he departed this world. I was blessed to wash him and place a blanket over him for the last time, then send his body to a university for medical education and training. We both planned for this, though neither of us probably thought it would come true.
I was blessed this past weekend to take my last physical trip with my dad. We went to a lot of places that meant a great deal to both of us in life. Then we went to the cemetery as had been planned and I buried my father's ashes. The ceremony was between a father and a son and there was a great beauty in what I had to do... And great hurt. Shoveling earth over one's father isn't something one does every day. Standing in the grave of a parent gives one a new perspective on a lot of things.The pain is beyond description, but I owed it to my father.
These two things I planned in life. These two things will probably be the most memorable events in my lifetime. Planning sometimes is a tough road. Sometimes you get what you planned for.
Nord
Find a good women, travel some, have a couple of kids, move to the mountains. Start my own business, that would allow me to go hunting, fishing, skiing and ride my bike whenever I wanted.
Got a good woman, traveled some, have great kids, live in the mountains, own my own business working 2 days a week, which allowed me to hunt and ski for decades, until health would not allow it anymore. (double black diamond....tree bashing....oh ya) Still do "some" fishin, and ride quite a bit.
Guess I got what I wanted.
The gene pool needs chlorine.