Self Improvement
Home. Nice. Easy drive in yesterday. There was traffic but there’s always traffic, and I have learned there will always be people with a less than solid idea about what they’re doing. My trick these days is to ignore them as best I can. I still find myself muttering but the volume and intensity is turned way down and the number of times when they get no reaction is actually going up. I wish I could have done that when I had kids in the car. I might have set a better example.
Of course, there are lots of things I wish I could have done better as a father. But life is full of regrets, and I could hash them all out, but I’m not sure where it would get me. Probably better to concentrate on today and the person I am now because that past guy is a past guy and there’s not much I can do about it. I guess what I’m doing is trying to set myself up for a good exit because most people only remember what you did for them yesterday. I’m all in on good impressions.
Although I do believe there are people in my past against whom I have sinned in the sense that I did something at some point to tick them off or make them not like me and I doubt they find it easy to forget. Heck, there may be people right this moment who feel that way. Because we’re human and we don’t love everyone. Because if we did, what a weird world that would be. I mean, what would we talk about? It’s hard to even imagine. So, the only person under my control is me, and that’s the guy with whom I’m working. And we have long talks and he’s doing better and I think he’s on the right track.
John W. Wilson is the author of The Long Goodbye: A Caregiver's Tale