OK...so I ended up pulling my laundry out of the dryer and putting it away before I realized what I was trying to get at...There's that point in life where we wake up to the reality that life isn't always going to be as easy as it currently is. It's not going to be as safe and secure forty years from now when I'm pushing 70 and can't get a job...a job I need because I didn't plan for the time when I'd BE pushing 70. Sure...youth has it's privilages, and being wild, zaney, and impulsive is not only fun, but conducive to a healthy and well rounded life...yet there's a point, a line, where being immature and impulsive isn't fun...it's stupid and reckless. 
We always spend our money on simple pleasures, easy come and easy go things we could quite easily live without...things that, two weeks later, we don't even remember. We have so much we neglect just because we want the newer model...It's like the mind-set of so many younger soldiers here on Okinawa...so many of them want big bad fast and fly cars. They spend they hard earned cash on a upgrades and paint jobs and even the cars themselves. Two years from now when they PCS or ETS, they're faced with a huge loss on their hands...a loss that could have been placed in a saving account or a mutual fund...money that could be used when they're out there pushing 70. When I was younger I wish I had known what I know now, had saved my money...but just like all the young soldiers I blew it on worthless things. I lived beyond my means for a long time and now I have to readjust my habits to compensate for that. 26 years old and I'll be 28 before I have any sizable amount of retirement plan, not to mention just basic savings, set up. And then, of course, I'll have a mortgage to hump around on my back for a good twenty, twenty five years or so. And then assuming I have a family sometime down the road...I can't even begin to imagine how to juggle a family with a retire plan... 

All I have ever wanted was to live a life of basic comfort...nothing extravagent, nothing ritzy. I'm a simple kind of man really...I have simple pleasures--a good cigar, a little sipping whiskey or good merlot, a good view of the world now and again, happy memories. I am not bothered too much by what phase the moon is in, or whether the stock market is at it's all time high. I am quite satisfied with your basic Taurus vs apposed to a tricked out Volvo or a BMW. I don't need a large house with acres of land...just a small little two or three bedroom place with a small yard in a quiet, restful neighborhood. I don't need to spend my summer in Rome, winter in Sydney, autumn in New York, and spring in San Francisco (though that WOULD be lovely). I don't want some supermodel iconesque picture of beauty and I don't need rich in laws. I don't seek to be remembered by more than a few close friends and family, and I seek no fame from anything I do. A simple man and a simple life. Of course I have my share of dreams and ambitions. I even have my fantasies. If I have my druthers I will get to as many of them as I can before the ground claims me.

A simple life of basic comfort. None of that has changed. For the most part, I am comfortable right now. There are just certain things in my life right now that need some alteration...and my future? My life pushing 70? I'm working on that one.

In the words of the Dead Boys, "Ain't it fun?...It's such fun, such fun." 

current mood:  contemplative
current music: Pearl Jam 08.15.00 

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