Entirely and Completely Property of Geniuses Stone and Parker
But this time, Trey Parker and Matt Stone' viral animation of Alan Watt's lesson on success. I did pause to re-evaluate my view of my own life. I followed that bag full of promises to a certain point, then life got wavy and I made it to 39 without having passed those benchmarks, made those achievements, obtained the degrees and pursued the careers and have, as a result, felt so much the poorer for it.
Born and bred in Silicon Valley, I am very much the ugly duckling in this respect (normed to my socio-economic background, yaddah-yaddah). I was a middle-class white girl in the 80's--what went wrong???? Yes, there were some who also diverged, those who chose the path less followed, but they were usually some sort of artistic or technical genius whose very divergence spoke to their not-too-future innovation and success in fields they quite often invented.
And I bumble along.
And I usually get very upset about this when I do stop to consider: What have I really done?
But I've reached 40-ish (I just started saying '40', gives me a couple years with it and the sooner I do it the sooner I stop involuntarily wincing) and have taken another couple of good looks at my life. Toured the house, inspected the passport, taken inventory and seen where I've been. Yes, I'm well-married and have a great family. I have cool friends. Not just nice, or helpful or loyal. Cool. Lots of them. And a cool husband. To quote Mitt "Lost My Mittens" Romney-- 'Severely' cool. And we do cool stuff. Fun stuff, in fun places, like Portland and Edinburgh and maybe next year Paris.
I have "Hobbies and Interests". I love knitting and spinning and traveling to strange new worlds to seek out new yarns and buy them. Knit Long and Prosper. With all those cool--no, frikkin' awesome-- people, in beautiful places with great restaurants.
One day I will get through all the books I have on science. I will somehow come to grips with the most primary, rudimentary concepts of particle and astro-physics just because it's there and I want to know why it's there and where it's going. It will finally sink in that light can be waves and particles. ?????
One day I will be more adventurous with my trove of cookbooks.
One day I will publish my Treatise on the Social and Historical Implications of Potato Salad on the Formation and Migration of Human Populations. Don't laugh. Sit down, get a pen and paper and set a timer for 4 minutes. Write down all the different potato salads you have ever eaten, and their ingredients. BING!! Time's up, and I bet you were in the middle of a sentence. This is serious business. And I will do it.
I haven't woken up to 40 and opened a bag of empty promises, I've got a house packed with stuff and a passport full of pages waiting to be stamped.
And this has made all the difference....
What has made the difference in yours?
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