Know Regrets? Focus on the Future

I’m in a mood tonight. Not a good one. I don’t think it’s the holidays because I like the holidays and I don’t even mind the lines and the crowds. You have to expect that at this time of year. I think I’m just tired and burned out. I’m really wishing there was a turn-back-time machine so I could go back to that time where we think we know everything and, based on that, we make horrible decisions that we have to live with even after we do know everything. That’s when the universe, egged on by our parents, gets to laugh–a long, evil guffaw.

I know I need to remember that we should not regret the past. We can change things now. I just can’t figure out how to change them. Every time I walk into my office, look at the circa 1972 paneling and telephone or inform another customer that I do not have email at work, I want to scream. I’m not kidding about the phone, by the way. One of my co-workers saw our very phones featured on Antiques Roadshow, valued at $35 for their retro appeal.

I sell advertising and, lately, there’s more begging than selling going on. I keep saying I might as well go to Wal-Mart with a tin can because that’s the level of usage my brain is getting in this “profession.” I did it to myself. I left college in my third year to get married. I had a child and threw myself into raising him and working to pay bills.

This is what I’ve learned: I didn’t have to incur bills. I got caught up in keeping up, ran my credit cards up, always had to have a new car, was and still am constantly dissatisfied with my “home decor” so I had to revamp and spend like a champ. And, before you know it, twenty years have passed.

Finally, I’m getting it. I’m paying off credit cards like my life depends on it–because it does. I’m trying not to give in to my personal mania and rescue items from store shelves as though they were kittens at the humane society. But some days it just seems too little too late. I’m tired now. And opportunity isn’t knocking. Trust me, I keep opening the door to check.

I want to do something creative. I like graphics and I love to write. I fantasize about working a deal with Hallmark Cards or whipping out a Pulitzer-Prize winning novel followed by thirteen more. I would pick that number. Then maybe a little hiatus in the Caribbean on my fishing yacht…and that’s as far as I get. Sounds like adult ADD, doesn’t it? Can I get a disability for that so I can stay home and write my novel?

While there’s nothing wrong with dreaming, the practical side of me knows I need to focus and pinpoint exactly what I want, methodically and persistently aiming for it. It may not happen overnight but it won’t happen in this lifetime if I keep staring at the pie in the sky dropping crumbs on my chipped laminate desk.