When Did I Become a Fuddy-Duddy?

Remember when we were teenagers? Or better yet, in our lower 20s? We owned the world! We had friends and we could drink and vote and the world was ours! The future stretched before us in all its bright, shiny glory and potential.

We were going to be teachers, doctors, lawyers, astronauts, rock stars. We were going to end poverty and hunger. We were going to make the Earth a better planet and everyone would live happily ever after. Whales would not be hunted and baby seals would not be clubbed to death in front of their mamas. That was 40 years ago and whales are still hunted, baby seals are still dying horrifically.

What happened? In a word, LIFE happened.

I wanted to be a world-renownd singer. I started singing before I went to school and everyone said I was good. So as soon as I got a little steady income and time, I was going to start singing and wow the world. And I think that is what happened to all of us. We were going to do so much, in just a little while, after we had a little money, after we got a decent car, after we settled into the new house, after the kids were a little older.

In my thirties, I actually did take voice lessons from two different vocal coaches in Austin. I enjoyed the lessons but never got to the point that I had confidence to actually sing in public, except for one time on Austin's 6th Street with a bar band. I actually sang The Locomotion and had a pretty good response. And that was as far as it went.

Like most of our friends, I was entangled in the American Dream; get a better job, make more money, buy a nicer car and a nicer house. The Rat Race sneaked up on us and before we knew it, we were in our 40s and 50s with nothing accomplished. Like Pink Floyd said, "No one told you when to run/ you missed the starting gun."

Not to say we don't have (or maybe in this economy, we HAD) great jobs and many perks of life with more disposable income to spread around. We spend our money and others come up in the ranks and have more money because we spend more money. The key to a strong, prosperous economy is to keep circulating the money through capitalism and the free market.

Now we have a government that is trying to completely take over our lives. The Left knows what we need better than we do, they think. Our freedom, our rights are slowing being whittled away from us by one tiny step at a time. We think, "Oh, it's better for us to do this or that," but we should be deciding these things for ourselves, not having the government decide it for us. Like our opportunies, time is slowly eroding our choices to live as we want.

I think the only thing left to do is get out and live a little. Don't spend every waking moment on the computer. (That's "do as I say, not as I do!") It's not too late. Take a singing class or a painting class or travel to that place you always wanted to go. Grab life and live it to the fullest. Whatever you do, don't just fade away!