Moving Forward While Looking Back

Change is a perplexing fact of life. As children we all run around without a care in the world pretending to be astronauts, soldiers, race car drivers or one of many other professions. Then we get older, adults around us ask the age old question, "what do you want to be when you grow up?" Usually by that time we have more realistic aspirations such as pro athlete, doctor, lawyer,etc. Time marches on and we make it to high school graduation and for some straight into the adult world of employment (generally not any career that was the focus of our imagination as children), others of us go onto the purgatory of employment- college. During this time we are expected to have some idea of what we plan to do for a living and take classes that prepare us to be successful but most list their major as undecided... (I majored in partying and would have received an Associates degree if offered). We graduate from college and either enter the workforce or choose to become a "career student" and go on to graduate school to improve our "marketability". Once all the education is obtained and we start our careers, we look back and see every mistake, wrong direction and poor choice. We find ourselves, when we hit our 40's, burned out and looking around trying to figure out just how we arrived at our current place in life. Time replays in our mind and we run through each failure and success. Some call this the "mid-life" crisis, a time in which boredom and stagnation takes hold and an extremely dangerous mindset to find oneself. It leads to financial ruin (the purchase of a Corvette), marital ruin (the Vette and a blonde) and other very poor decisions. Fact is, many make a series of devastating decisions trying to regain the vision of how we see our ideal past. Relationships are impulsively sought to be rekindled that were disastrous "way back when" and will be even more so now. More importantly though, some reach this time having chronically destroyed all in their life. They value the intangibles while neglecting the tangibles. They always have an excuse as to cope with reaching mid-life and having nothing to show for it except broken homes and a rap sheet. "I had no way to go to college", "I'm was unable to work", etc. Truth is, it all started when a little child running around pretending to be a cowboy, cop, astronaut, etc. The maturation process was stunted and when it was realized that in order to be those things a dedication to work hard was required. They got stuck in their imagination and now all they have is excuses. They are unable to move forward due to looking back. Successful people do the opposite- able to move forward while looking back. It is those that look at mid-life as a time to change and improve the years to follow instead of making excuses as to why they are aren't where and with whom they think they should have been.