What do I really enjoy doing? Writing and Acting. Why don’t I do more of it? Because it’s hard and nobody’s paying me to do it.
How much time do I have left in this lifetime? Dunno, maybe fifteen or twenty years. Why don’t I spend that time writing and acting? Because it’s hard and nobody’s paying me to do it.
How absurd. People who work in hospice say that just before death, almost everyone tells whoever is within earshot (and it may just be a whisper) that they wish they had done what they really wanted to do with their life rather than what other people expected them to do. It’s a continual lament by concert pianists who ended up working in offices, oil painters who worked in department stores, poets who taught school.
I guess if ever there was a time to do the things I really want to do, it’s today.
“Waking up to who you are involves letting go of who you imagine yourself to be.” – Alan Watts
geezersabroad 
—- wow —– experience the same thoughts every moment I am not demanded, or required, to do the ‘chop-wood-carry-water’ aspects to life/existance…. hmm.. a free space… maybe work on…. but first a nap…..
……. should-a done more motorcycling while in Alaska for years….
……. maybe work on Jim Turner’s family history as it relates to DM Parks Dept….
……. bette check facebook……….. wife says: “lunch”….
now gotta do dishes and clean kitchen…. then a nap…. favorite three-letter word of retired guy with no one paying me anymore to do stuff………..
so ? thanks, Dan… ??
Hi – this is Steve’s wife Sha7ron… he shared your post and I reminded him about “The Christmas Letter” incident and he asked me to relate the story to you.
This was a letter that came from a friend’s uncle. Year by year, more relatives told this man not to bother. The uncle was offended… (also because no one wrote back one for him). It was always 70, or more, pages long (and no email at that time)… The “letter” was a day-by-day monograph of minutia of the events of each day of the year. A dry, reciting of the contents of meals consumed, what the waitresses said, teevee viewed, how he had done in Publishers’ Clearing House… you get the idea.
He was not deterred — only death stopped him. He, of course, was not paid anything for his effort. He just loved what he did.
To get to the point, I think if we can make ends meet we will always be happiest doing what we love…
[[ Your friends — since the days of your sharing at ISU in Ames and on WOI radio…]]
It was Bertrand Russell who noted the the happiest old people were doing what they loved to do at age 15. I liked …. like…. to go fast, by foot or by bike. I like to make art and give it away— including food. I like reading and making gardens and dogs. Nothing special.