You know that’s a really profound question that I really yet to find the answer to. While I didn’t view my dream of what is a good life – the off-grid homestead – as materialistic now I’m coming to the sad realization that it mostly is. Happiness is ultimately not what you buy – be it a big screen TV, pigs and cattle or a tractor with a manure spreader – but your ability to find Zen and meaning in the now.
For too often I’ve been consumed with the thoughts of tomorrow, planning for that house on the hill with that burn barrel out back and cows mooing in the field with the big jacked up truck and four wheelers in the front yard. Maybe not the glamorous homesteads you see in the magazine but some working land. All the thinking of the accrued benefits of hardwork and saving. I was concerned about the memories of the past. But maybe those things don’t matter as much as I used to think they once did.
There is no time but the present. It’s not to say that the past has no impact on the present or that today’s actions won’t impact tomorrow. But in many ways those things are meaningless as the only thing that exists is the present. That said, I still continue to work for the future even while I try to find more of now.
At age 35, I often struggle to figure out what is better to do today versus wait for tomorrow.Every year as a mature and get older, options close, roads not taken are forever closed off to me. If you overshootyour exit, you can’t back up on the highway. There is no turning around the clock of time. I will never be as young as I currently am, I will become less physically able to do certain things that I once had the potential to do while I was younger.
Time per se is not a bad thing. A little money saved each week over time adds up and compounds both as an investment and with interest.Moneyopens up options, and buying with cash is always much cheaper and flexible than credit. Cash just goes so much farther.
While by no means should I take the first exit on the highway,I should be a thoughtful observer of every exit that I pass on by. A some point the highway of life may come to an abrupt end – accidents, cancer, heart attacks – sometimes strike people much too young.But honestly I know it’s worth the risk as their are better exits ahead on the straight and narrow highway, and just because a sign is shiny and new doesn’t mean that is the exit you want to your ultimate destination.
My conservative estimate is that I will likely live until age 70. Maybe longer, maybe less. In ten years from now I’ll have 20 years in with the state, fifteen it will be 25. I’m generally happy with my course, I have a great job, a beautiful office with million dollar views of the mountains. I think I’m fairly good at my job. So even if I decide at age 45 or 50 to do something else, I’ll have many options still ahead of me. But I should really pay attention to what’s coming up on the highway of life, and give every passing exit another thought before leaving it forever in the rear view mirror.
The other day I was reading a light-hearted post on Facebook about the dangers that turtles face while crossing highways and that people can help them by avoiding hitting them. Then of course there had to be a completely irrational animal rights extremist on that post, who had to warn people about those who would go out an intentionally hit turtles on the road, because apparently there are a lot of turtle haters in the world who have leak-proof steel tires and ultra-durable suspensions on their cars. I do not recommend hitting turtles, bricks, tin cans, glass bottles, large rocks, and other debris on the road – and certainly not intentionally. You can damage your suspension of your car, not to mention dent a rim or get a flat tire.
Political paranoia is the greatest threat facing our country. There are too many people who have a paranoid view of the world – and believe everybody is out to get them. Animal rights extremists believe that there are people out there actively to kill turtles for nothing but the fact they are turtles, and apparently people hate turtles – and want to destroy their cars in the process. Not that there is much evidence to that fact. But the paranoid don’t want to hear that. They want to believe that there are evil forces out there, actively working to destroy their world. Such people are not helpful to our country or the process of it’s governing, because they are demeaning well meaning, hard-working individuals and are distraction to actual needed change in our country.
Every year as a mature and get older, options close, roads not taken are forever closed off to me. If you overshoot your exit, you can’t back up on the highway. There is no turning around the clock of time. 
I will never be as young as I currently am, I will become less physically able to do certain things that
I once had the potential to do while I was younger.
and compounds both as an investment and with interest.
Money opens up options, and buying with cash is always much cheaper and flexible than credit. Cash just goes so much farther.
I should be a thoughtful observer of every exit that I pass on by. A some point the highway of life may come to an abrupt end – accidents, cancer, heart attacks – sometimes strike people much too young.
But honestly I know it’s worth the risk as their are better exits ahead on the straight and narrow highway, 
and just because a sign is shiny and new doesn’t mean that is the exit you want to your ultimate destination.
In ten years from now I’ll have 20 years in with the state, fifteen it will be 25. I’m generally happy with my course, I have a great job, a beautiful office with million dollar views of the mountains.
I think I’m fairly good at my job. So even if I decide at age 45 or 50 to do something else, I’ll have many options still ahead of me. But I should really pay attention to what’s coming up on the highway of life, 
and give every passing exit another thought before leaving it forever in the rear view mirror.
