Envy

I've said, in the past, that I have no regrets about the choices I made when I was young, but, like so much else…

Some days, I would give it all - all I've experienced, all I've learned, all I see - to have what they have. I wouldn't care if it made me dumb, and boring, and blind, and utterly devoid of unique or valuable thought. I would trade it all- the travel, the mission work, the idealism, the lessons learned, the “unique” perspective, the “art”, the “vision” , the imagination, everything ….I would trade all that for a bankable skill, a respectable job, a soul-less box in the suburbs with a two-car garage, a big screen TV, an SUV, and a trophy wife.

It isn’t that I actually WANT any of those things – it’s the powerful allure of perceived normalcy. Success… or a particular definition of it. Not a definition I agree with, but that’s not to say that, at times, I don’t feel its tidal pull. Kind of like you always wanted to be one of the popular kids, even though you knew full well the popular kids were vain, shallow, backstabbing jerks.

And I’m well aware that, much like my disdain for “the popular kids” ... my rejection of this particular ideal of “success” has less to do with counter-culture heroism than with the fact that, frankly…

…the option isn’t really on the table.