Looking Around

I suppose most people view the new year as an opportunity to look ahead and plan or hope for better things than they had in the year just completed. I might do a little of that, but for the most part the new year observance, for me, imparts the desire to look back over my life and assess how much of the things I wanted to do I have or have not accomplished. Sounds depressing, doesn’t it?
Actually, it’s not, though. I am fortunate enough to be doing what I want to do for a living, and I am well aware that there aren’t that many people who can say that. Also, although I’ll never be wealthy (too @#$*¶§ honest), I earn sufficient income to be comfortable. Again, I realize there aren’t many folks who can honestly say they are adequately rewarded for doing what they want to do.
My good fortune extends into my private life, wherein I have a life partner with whom I get along swimmingly and who is tolerant of my maddening eccentricities.
I am a lucky man.
As a result, I can examine my progress thus far along life’s journey with a contented mind. I know that many of the things I thought I wanted as a young man were silly, or extravagant, or both, and I am better off without them. What on earth would I do with a solid gold Cadillac, anyway? You couldn’t drive it anywhere, because either people would be pulling pieces off of it every time you parked, or some nimrod would run into it because he just couldn’t believe it was really there. Can you imagine what a new fender would cost?
That’s another thing I’ve had to come to terms with over the years. Although I used to think I would enjoy being financially extravagant, I’ve grown to learn that, not unlike my father, I’m really something of a tightwad. Dad had me beat though. He could squeeze a penny until Lincoln begged for mercy, whereas I am a sucker for my wife, kids and grandkids.
So I can use the new year to examine a life, now in deepest, darkest middle age, that has been pretty good. There are some things I wish had turned out differently, mostly in regard to people I thought, incorrectly, I could trust, but we’re supposed to learn from those kind of experiences and you can’t learn from them if you don’t have them.
Gazing into the future, I hesitate to predict anything definitively. My batting average as a prognosticator wouldn’t keep me in the big leagues. There are a few things I feel reasonably confident about, however.
The economy will rebound, eventually. Although I think it will require a genuine effort at economic recovery and not a lot of saber rattling inspired by the oil industry and massive increases in federal spending on the military. You can call it “homeland security” if you want to, but if it walks like a duck, quacks and lays eggs, it’s a pretty good bet that it’s a duck.
Once again, eventually folks will recognize a lot of current fads for being just that. Unfortunately this will result in a desire to get things back to the way they were in the “good, old days,” never stopping to notice that what were the good old days for some folks were a period of misery and strife for others. Believe me on this one, gentle readers, we won’t really get anywhere until we can all get there together.
I hope we will get around to understanding that politicians can’t fix things for us. We’ve got to do it ourselves. It is in the nature of the political system that those seeking public office frequently are the least able among us to actually accomplish much. There are exceptions, but very few.
My last prediction is more a matter of wishful thinking. I predict that Britney Spears, Eminem, Christina Aguilerra, Whitney Houston and Prince Charles will form a business partnership and start their own supermarket tabloid. Wouldn’t that be great? Tripe turning out tripe. There isn’t a whole lot that would make me happier than that.