Still Making Stories

The other day I happened to see a friend of mine downtown. He was talking to guy I didn’t know. My friend had to tell some of the stories of the adventurous things we’d used to do. That was fine but it got me thinking. For the last twenty years I’ve been asking this guy if he wants to go with me on adventures. I haven’t stopped. He always said he’d love to but just could not get away. You’d think by now I’d catch on and stop inviting him.

The thing is there are other people out there to ask. Sometimes they join me. There’s another friend of mine who is involved in a lot of different activities. Even though we live hours away, we end up doing things together. One time he was with a crew and they were trying to figure out who was oldest. As it turned out my friend’s beard was older than the next oldest guy. That’s the sort of thing that can happen when you marry someone quite a bit younger than yourself. My buddy says he’s doing all he can to “avoid the habits of the old.”

That phrase stuck in my head. What are the habits of the old? Well, one habit is talking about all the things you used to do without doing any more new things. It’s easy to get stuck in one’s ways. People get comfortable and don’t want to leave that comfort zone.

Sometimes people lie to themselves about all the things they are going to do when they retire. Unless they’ve been actively having adventures all along, it’s rare they are going to start when they retire. They sell their dreams for a paycheck until one day there are no dreams left.

-Sixbears