If I could...

[TheMailMan]

go back in time and tell my younger self things.

1. Don't date much less marry that girl.

2. Don't waste 13 years in retail.

3. Move to Texas NOW.

4. Get a job where you create things.

That last one is important. I spent 13 years in retail selling hunting and fishing equipment. I was pretty darn good at it and enjoyed it. However there's no real future in it.

I then went to work for the USPS as a letter carrier. I really enjoyed that work. However 20 years of walking 10 miles per day and climbing 4000 steps really took it's toll on my body. If my back had not given out I'd still be doing that.

Now that I'm terminally and permanently broken I've found that I derive my greatest joy in creating things. Casting and painting fishing lures, casting bullets, reloading, building shelves or a workbench, all these things give me great pleasure. I really wish I had spent 35 years creating/building things.

 

[grasshopperglock]

Your arms still work. Your fingers typed your message. I'd buy a $1000 Mig welder and start sculpting.

 

[Gummi Bear]

Some things are cheaper to rent, than to buy.

Wear hearing protection. Tinnitus sucks, and my hearing is getting worse all the time. I’m gonna need hearing aids in the next few years

Quit drinking. I’m unable to self moderate. I should have learned that lesson sooner in life.





I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately...

Henry David Thoreau

 

[easy rider]

go back in time and tell my younger self things.

1. Don't date much less marry that girl.

2. Don't waste 13 years in retail.

3. Move to Texas NOW.

4. Get a job where you create things.

That last one is important. I spent 13 years in retail selling hunting and fishing equipment. I was pretty darn good at it and enjoyed it. However there's no real future in it.

I then went to work for the USPS as a letter carrier. I really enjoyed that work. However 20 years of walking 10 miles per day and climbing 4000 steps really took it's toll on my body. If my back had not given out I'd still be doing that.

Now that I'm terminally and permanently broken I've found that I derive my greatest joy in creating things. Casting and painting fishing lures, casting bullets, reloading, building shelves or a workbench, all these things give me great pleasure. I really wish I had spent 35 years creating/building things.

I've told myself that many times. I'm afraid though that if I could I would have to spend the rest of my life in the past, my skull was a lot thicker then.

 

[easy rider]

Your arms still work. Your fingers typed your message. I'd buy a $1000 Mig welder and start sculpting.

Unless you have been a weldor for past 43 years.

 

[ZX9RCAM]

I've often thought that if could go back I would change things, but damn I had a lot of fun....

 

[grasshopperglock]

Unless you have been a weldor for past 43 years.

Then buy a bass boat. Metallic red flake Skeeter with a V6 Honda.


Something like this:

 

[easy rider]

Then buy a bass boat. Metallic red flake Skeeter with a V6 Honda.


Something like this:

View attachment 130387

In the 70's and 80's I loved to fish, but then I got spoiled on where I lived at that time. I've since moved on to other interests.

 

[Charlie]

Some things are cheaper to rent, than to buy.

Wear hearing protection. Tinnitus sucks, and my hearing is getting worse all the time. I’m gonna need hearing aids in the next few years

Quit drinking. I’m unable to self moderate. I should have learned that lesson sooner in life.

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately...
Henry David Thoreau

Huh?

 

[grasshopperglock]

In the 70's and 80's I loved to fish, but then I got spoiled on where I lived at that time. I've since moved on to other interests.

As long as you keep moving on to new stuff in life. It's a win.

 

[easy rider]

As long as you keep moving on to new stuff in life. It's a win.

Well, like the OP, I too have beat my body over the years, so things like shooting and riding (motorcycle) is easier on me.

 

[ZX9RCAM]

Well, like the OP, I too have beat my body over the years, so things like shooting and riding (motorcycle) is easier on me.

Not if you ride like me, lol..

 

[easy rider]

Not if you ride like me, lol..

I've been riding for 45 years, I hope I have learned something in that time.

 

[ZX9RCAM]

I've been riding for 45 years, I hope I have learned something in that time.

I had for 30 or more, but I sold all my bikes after my last wreck.
I just can't ride slow.

 

[easy rider]

I had for 30 or more, but I sold all my bikes after my last wreck.
I just can't ride slow.

AHHH, I'm the opposite, I go with the adage "It's not the destination, it's the journey". Of course when I was a teen I raced motocross and there I often found my need for speed.

 

[nlam01]

As I am still in my 30s, I'm refusing to continue this path I'm still on. To be honest, I hate nursing. People say the medical field is rewarding. You know what, if your a man, it probably is. Women, though, no. They suck to work with. You never know what day they decide to hate you and when they decide to like you. It gets old. When the staff is mixed male and female, Yea it can be fun. All female? Hell no. I'm female, but I've learned how truly evil a lot of women are and it's ridiculous! I refuse to run with that pack. I always hear people say, "Thank a nurse." "A nurse works so hard." "The nurse is such a hard job." Pffffffffft! No! Most are lazy. They don't want to carry their own weight. Almost their whole job gets thrown on a CNA. They expect a CNA to pretty much hold their lisence down. These CNAs never get recognition. You want to talk
about a hard job?! Try being a CNA. This is not happiness for me.
I've enrolled into Texas A&M. I'm going to get that extra degree Texas requires for me to do what I did in Colorado. I'm going to live my dream of one day being a Coroner. I cleaned up homicides, suicides, decomposing corpses, etc. Then, I read crime scenes. Blood splatter, hairs, bones, etc. I loved what I did. That was what I was meant for. I hear the elderly always tell me stop chasing dreams and just go after them. Well, I'm going to take that advice. I read everyone's post here and it only turned my desires to concrete. I was never meant for the medical field. It was actually someone else's dream. Not mine. The university told me with all my credits from the degree I currently hold (and can't use here in Texas by itself ) it will only take me a year. So, I'm going for it!

Sent from my SM-T230NU using Tapatalk

 

[ZX9RCAM]

I hear the same from my step daughters, as far as working with women.
The problem is, there are going to be women everywhere they go, regardless of what their job is.
Being a coroner might be a bit different though.

 

[SQLGeek]

I'd tell myself not give up so easily on my dream job.

For better or worse, we are the sum of our experiences. If I had gotten my "dream job", I would not have worked for the company that would have moved me to Texas. Without that, I doubt I would have ever ended up living here.

 

[DwnRange]

I've been riding for 45 years time.

I had for 30 or more

I got ya both beat at 54 years - and 28 of those years as "scoot" only 24/7/365 in Houston, Texas, rain, floods, sleet, snow and crazy drivers on cell-phones, mattresses, refrigerators and bed-liners on 610 to beating semis off with a baseball bat, ain't much that I ain't seen while on 2 wheels - (Yamahas, Hondas, Harleys, Ducatis and Kawasakis)

PS - I also hold the unofficial record for driving from Carrolton, Tx to my old home on W23rd Street in Houston in 2 hours 38 min (I averaged 97.6 mph for the 256.4 mile trip - even with "5" stops for fuel on my old 1999 Kawasaki Nomad, which topped out at 130 - Bro-n-law still owns Mabelline). I still have my '05 Nomad, named Mable, in the barn and still ride it, just not daily - shaft drive, water cooled V-Twin, hydraulic brakes and it'll still do 137 downhill with the wind at your back, (which is as fast as the shaft-drive can turn apparently).

 

[easy rider]

I had to come to Texas to find my dream job.