Life is odd. Looking back, there are a lot of things I wish I hadn't done, and a few things I wish I had, but I suppose I don't have any real regrets. Every step and act and choice of my life has led me to where I am sitting now, at my desk, in my store, puttering while a customer shops.
And I am perfectly happy and contented here. And I am lucky to be here.
Hindsight is quite accurate, but pretty short term, lacking immediate perspective. Life is long term, and the repercussions from all the choices are not always apparent, though I guess every life has a Robert Frost moment or two:
Robert Frost (1874–1963). Mountain Interval. 1920. 1. The Road Not Taken TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same, And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference..
I took the "road less traveled" when I made the deliberate choice to drop a good-paying job with good side benefits that I hated and become a book dealer, but a lot of previous choices and some factors that I had no control over shaped me for this to be the right decision -- for me!
Even a disastrous marriage, that I sometimes wish I hadn't been in, was a force in my choice of paths -- it was the final nudge to do SOMETHING I would enjoy.
TBC
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