By Chuck Woodbury
PUBLISHER, FOUNDER AND ROVING OUTFIELDER
I never doubted when I was a little fellow, or even in my teen years, that when I grew up I would enjoy a happy, successful, meaningful life. I don’t think I even thought about it.
In my single-digit years, I was busy playing, and then in my teen years, chasing girls. Nobody ever asked me: “Do you think you will live happily ever after?” If they had, I would have said, “Of course I will.”
In college I fell in love with journalism. I also found my first true love (or was it lust?). My life was going just great. And it just kept getting better, until age 30 when I started a rock-and-roll magazine. Rock stars visited our offices. Rolling Stone quoted us. It was fun for a while but, ultimately, it sent me to the poorhouse. I lost everything. I typed term papers for awhile to earn my rent.
My road for the next two decades was rocky. I never gave up on being successful. In my case, I got lucky (or was it by hard work and determination?) and overnight my life went from mediocre to magnificent—about as good as I could have ever imagined. Business boomed, my writing reached millions of people, I got married and was then blessed with my precious daughter (Emily, now our editor). My life was suddenly a dream!
Today, life is far less exciting and not without its difficulties, but good. I must say that now, when I look back, I believe my life has turned out as well as I could ever have imagined. What about you? Does your life today meet, exceed, or fall short of your younger self’s expectations?
Please leave a comment. I plan to follow up on this question in a future post.
MORE INTERESTING LIFESTYLE-TYPE POLLS
- If you had a time machine, would you take a month-long trip 200 years into the past or future?
- Do you primarily use your RV for camping, traveling or living?
- If you suddenly became filthy rich, would you buy a new high-end RV?
- How many grandchildren do you have?
- Do you feel ‘old’?
- How much research have you done on your family history?
- Did your parents take you camping as a child?
RVT1218
My original dreams sprouted but never bore fruit. Thanks to the wonderful lady with whom I share life, it is far better than I could have imagined.
“Do not grow old, no matter how long you live. Never cease to stand like curious children before the Great Mystery into which we were born.” —Albert Einstein
Life is: Not better, not worse, just a curious journey – and we can choose to be fulfilled and happy. Just enjoyed a sailing vacation in celebration of my 80th birthday – with my kids and grandkids. My sailing “career” included ocean crossings and lake relaxing, watching my kids learn to water ski, and being on launch teams for several ‘first’ launches of commuications and weather satellites.
Every adventure was anticipated with some fear of a new activity and motivated by the Grand Mystery Einstein reference. Life is good.
Well said, Stuart…well said! 👍👍
Don’t allow regrets color your current perspective – Regrets can be poisonous. Enjoy the life you have and as the expression goes, “Don’t let the old man (woman) in.”
I wished I would have study harder in high school and learned a trade. I didn’t retain a lot in high school. I froze when I took tests. I feel for kids coming out of high school. How do you know 30 to 40 years down the road what type of jobs will be out there. I know there probably trades, auto mechanics, and health care.
No one told us when were kids in the 50’s and 60’s that today’s current events would be disastrous…but then they never said anything about Vietnam either…some of us had to find out for ourselves.
No way could we have envisioned our present situation. We started, 1966, as a sailor on submarines and an RN one year out training, in CT with our wedding. Honeymooners across to Seattle for a year of schooling. Then Hawaii two years, two submarines and two babies. Idaho for instructor duty. Made CPO. Selected for WO and now VA for a surface ship as an Engineering Officer. Quit the Navy and went to Maine to work in a power plant in 1974. Small farm and house rebuilding added a third child. Plant closed in 1997 and I was unexpectedly and unprepared suddenly retired. Fortunately we had discovered RV’s again and bus conversions. We are now on our second conversion but have quit full timing.
Amazing how different reality is vs dreams! My life took so many different paths and each turned out different than I envisioned! This last path has been the best though, so better late than never! My last career and my 2nd husband, then my dream of seeing the US in an RV, made everything else that happened before it all worth it! Life is great and still going at 80!
My biggest problem is with all the aches and pains, arthritis, I now have.
Most of it was because of the type of work I did for 40 years.I worked in a maintenance at a hosptial. Long hours on ladders, under desks and countertops, heavy lifting and outside in all types of weather.
My 76 year old body is worn out, but my mind is still young.
It doesn’t stop me from doing what I want, but just makes doing things slower.
I hear you….many years working in the oilfield humping iron and then slaving under semi trucks to replace clutches and transmissions.
The only thing guaranteed in this world is death and taxes…everything else is just a given.
As a “younger self”, I had no expectations. I lived in the now, accepting whatever serendipity presented. It was not until my mid-40s that I started to consider the future. I was fortunate in going back to school and find a job I worked at for 10 years, retired at 56 and am now 82. Life has been good for us and RVing is one of its more enjoyable aspects.
I had to pick the “least wrong” response. I didn’t wind up doing what I had dreamed of, but I had a satisfying career “driving a computer” to support maintenance work in national parks.
I voted that it’s better than I ever imagined. I never envisioned myself having a home on a beautiful lake in the summer and being an rv snowbird in the winter, but that’s how things worked out and we love it. When I was young I figured that I would be working until at least 62 if not 65, but I was blessed and lucky enough to get a job with a very large corporation when I was 21 yo. They had a very good pension that was available after 30 years of employment. I retired at 51 and have been a snowbird for over 20 years. I never imagined getting this many years of retirement and no aches and pains to go with it. I hope to continue this way for many more years.
While I am satisfied with my life today and comfortable with daily living, it isn’t the life I dreamed of in the 50’s. A RR engineer dream was replaced with a pilot’s career which I did manage on a limited basis – flying charter and operating a fixed base co., and air mail carrier. I did not envision retiring from a military career – which is a great part of my life now; I did not envision losing our two kids; or my wife this past year. On the other hand, I have a comfortable retirement, a wonderful granddaughter and her husband who have blessed us, just me now with 4 great grand kids to live my life thru again-hopefully to help them avoid some of life’s wrong turns and make good decisions.
Life is so much better, satisfying and fulfilling than we could ever imagine. After 62 years (with the same woman) we go on together believing in forever and leaning on each other. We believe life is neither good or bad it is what you make of it. Learn to roll with the good and the unpleasant.
I doubted that I would live to be my current age (75). Dad passed at 48 and many of his brothers passed early, too. But, I’m happy and relatively healthy.
I grasped at opportunities to do things in life that most people wouldn’t get. Being diagnosed with MS 30 years ago has slowed me down but I’m happy that I did the things I did when I could. Just didn’t expect to be alone at this point in my life.
Things seem okay, probably because I learned early that it is not practical to try to script your life too far in advance.
My younger self couldn’t see this far ahead. I was never so rich as to be able to afford everything I thought of, but I don’t remember ever seriously wanting that. I am well enough off to be able to pretty much what I choose to do, and that is pretty good. I had a rewarding career hopefully making at least a little of my world a better place, have independent and successful children and grandchildren, and a wonderful wife. Now full timing in a roomy diesel pusher, what more could I want?
I don’t know that I had any “younger self expectations” per se. I just hopped on the bus every morning and it took me where it was going. God drove the bus and this is where I am at the moment. Each day has been satisfying and many of them absolutely amazing. I am not sure that my “younger self” has ever changed. However, there are days that I wonder how that younger self ended up in this seemingly older body, but I trust that is just part of the ride.
When I was a young man in school I was just hoping for a good job when I graduated. If someone had told me at that time where I would go and what I would do, I would have asked them what they’d been smoking. You have to get older but you don’t have to grow up! I don’t plan to. Now that I’m 70 and semi-retired I live in San Diego, get to work with people I like, doing things that I think are fun, play (including writing for RVtravel!), and traveling a few months of the year with my wonderful wife of 36 years in our RV. There have been challenges and a few close calls along the way, but I have been very lucky.
I saw The Long, Long Trailer when I was 11 years old. It became my dream to have my own RV and travel all over. My life has had many twists and turns, ups and downs but in April 2017, I hit the road with the man met to be my life partner. Life is good and I am so blessed!
Thank you for the question, Chuck! I never thought much about a long-term future. My focus for many years (12-34) was running and I pursued it by a nomadic wandering through higher education. Eventually, I managed to secure a wife and had to approximately grow up and get a job. DW was competitive, bright, and driven, so I learned to approximate #1 and #3 in self-defence, and gained a sometimes-satisfying career. In that we both retired short of age 62 and live comfortably, my life is far better, easier, more satisfying than I could have imagined. It also is very different than I might have imagined. Have a great week and safe travels!