It’s early Sunday morning and as expected, the sleeping in after Saturday night crowd has left the streets a bit thin of movement. And other than the coffee shop crowd and open houses of worship, people are sparse wherever I roam.
So I decide to drive the rural areas in getting out of my regular geography. And of course, the sleepier the community, the lessor the population circulates in the cool morning sun, sort of a sad finding, with such a perfect morning forming.
I cruise aimlessly, windows down, cool breeze slapping me in the face and mind open in watching the world blur by. When, in passing a small little park on the outskirts of Los Angeles County, a figure, about one hundred yards to the North of my forty mile an hour trajectory, forces me to rubber neck into a rather aggressive U-turn. Gosh! Sometimes I feel like such a stalker.
But as I absorb the g-force of my rapid course change all trepidation escapes me when a feeling of, “you are making the right choice,” enters my psyche.
I pull into the park and over the sound of welcoming dog barks, I introduce myself to Father, Husband, Human Resource Manager and Expert Downhill Mountain Bike Racer… Jim.
“You have to have fun and enjoy life… do things that you enjoy… no matter how old you are.” Jim proclaims.
“In everything that you have going on… you have to have fun.
Don’t worry about the things that are going on now, or about getting old, we have to enjoy where we are. Think about the things that we worried about five years ago, they are no big deal now. They were at the time, but you can say now that they were not that big of a deal. It took me a long time to learn that, and now I apply that to the way I react to things.
We have to learn to appreciate where we are, and to not stress about the little things in life.
In five years… hopefully the economy will be better… I don’t know. But I see a future where people are getting more aware with the challenges of pollution, issues with the earth… things like that, and hopefully that will carry on.
Looking further is tough… It’s hard to say. It seems like in the last twenty years much has changed with technology and stuff. It will be amazing the see where we will be in one hundred years… I don’t even know.
It’s going to change though. Think twenty year ago to now – cellphones, digital cameras and all the things we can’t live without. I don’t even know where to start with looking one hundred years ahead. It’s a tough question.
The question is, how much can change in one hundred years?
It’s not like we have the flying cars they said back in the sixties that we would have by the year two thousand. But, still it would be amazing to see where we will be with technology in one hundred years.
I have hope for my kids and their kids, we’ve learned a lot, and hopefully the economy will be better by then.
The advice I give my kids is to stay in school so they can rely on themselves to be professional in whatever field they choose. My daughter wants to be a doctor.”
Jim, I appreciate you openness to chat with a stranger this morning, and for your candor in the way you see the future. Many of us unite with you in calling in a better world to come. And we dream as do you, “May it be amazing.”