The Emerald Rose

           One of my favorite things about this country, is that it truly is an “EQUAL OPPORTUNITY” place. Anyone can be a success, anyone can become wealthy, and anyone can be happy,…..(just don’t read the newspapers, don’t go to college, and homeschool your children,…and for God’s sake don’t “spare the rod, and spoil the child”). Those are the reasons why we are here in this current ” politically correct” quagmire we call life today!

         Sound harsh,…not really. Think about it. 

        What is success, how do you measure it? Everyone uses a different yardstick. For some it’s money, for others, it’s possessions, for others it’s jut being able to go to bed each night and say the Lord’s Prayer and know you have given today your all, and as the Hippocratic oath states you have “harm noone. For still others it’s something else. But “success” truly is different, as is all the other components I’ve mentioned above. 

        Sometimes I think about my life, and my past, in terms of these three things, and remember my parents who are now long passed, (afterall I’m over 70 so it’s a “DUH!!”) But as you age you think through these things and you wonder how you would act, or say now IF they were still here.

        First thing I would do today is to Thank them, thank you for being my parents, for despite my opinions of you at 10, 14, 16, and over the ensuing years,…….I have learned,…. I’ve become aware of your sacrifices for me, and my brothers and sisters. Te most I can do now is think it, and tell you how much I was not what I could have been for your expectations, though you never stopped loving me.

       Think about wealth,….it changes as we get older. As a kid who cares,…in fact who even knows what wealth is? But as we grow wealth takes on an inordinate role for most people. For some it is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, for others it’s just being able to have something to eat, for still others it’s having something to put on the table for supper. For some it’s all about what they can buy for their own “conspicuous consumption”,….sure a Rolex is the primo watch to have hanging on your wrist,…but the Timex does the job just as well! For too many today it is about collecting that “stuff”. 

       And to wrap this entry up,…being ‘happy’. The only word in the dictionary that has a different meaning as we evolve.  A sandcastle made us happy when we were five and at the beach for the day, a good report card did it when we were 10, the words “You passed” did it when we took the test for our drivers licence at 16,  “I do” at the alter at 22, and “Thank You God the baby is healthy …and beautiful” at 25. Beyond that there aren’t too many “thank you” until you are at their wedding and they say “thank you Mom, or Dad”.

      We are indeed a strange animal,…..but that is all you REALLY value as you age. It’s not all the success you had in your lifetime, nor all the Ferrari’s, Rolexes, or Mansions you’ve had over your years, nor even the other “trinkets” of a life,….but the huge appreciation you feel for just being an American, and that possibility you presented to your children and their chilldren,….the chance to feel this way when they get to 70,………

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