I have always been a dreamer and a person who constantly looks to the future. When I was a very young boy I would go out into the backyard of our 1950s $14,000 tract home and lay on the dewy grass and look at the stars and dream about my future. It seems like there were a lot more stars on those nights than I have seen in decades, maybe a result of pollution?

In some ways I think my fixation on the future stifled some of my present. I frequently think about what might have been, if… In other words I am always evaluating how my reality stacked up with my dreams. I am also a serious “lessons learned” person. I try to learn from my mistakes in the past so that I will make better decisions going forward. This characteristic has matured as I have aged but still has a long way to go.

Thinking about it at a higher level maybe I just enjoy living in parallel universe where I can invent the future instead of having to wait for it to happen. 😎 This could have been a great motivator in making life changes throughout the years but for the most part that wasn’t the case. Regrettably, I most often let financial security drive way too much of my decisions in life. If only I had listened to dreams more often. My conservative roots too often won out over my dream world.

It was just too hard for me to take the financial risk required to accomplish a dream. That is perhaps one of the most serious mistakes of my life. There were way too many “roads not taken”.

One of the reasons for my life stories here on RJsView is to try to get others who might come by these words to learn a little from my mistakes. I want to close out this post by giving you a clue about your future. Even when you are 70 you will still see yourself at a 30-something year old, maybe not in body but definitely in spirit. If only I had the wisdom then that I do now, I would likely have made some very different choices in life. But, those are roads not taken. Maybe I shouldn’t ponder on them so much. I still dream of my future as if I were a thirty-year-old, but I realize now that for the most part they are only dreams that will never be fulfilled. But, that doesn’t stop me!