Life Is Short and Regrets Get You No Where

I get up early and sit on the couch in the semi dark cuddling up with Milo next to me and think it is Saturday. Again. Nyr. The day slowly brightens outside and the first thing I can see clearly are the pink geraniums flowering profusely. I used to think geraniums were an ordinary flower, but recently I have decided they are cheerful, and I am growing red ones to plant out my front yard next spring, or whenever you plant geraniums. I must google it.

I don't think I will ever regret stopping work, going to my specially allocated office, or, at other times, my very own cubicle, to bosses who were always more stressed than they let on and colleagues who felt set upon for the ever increasing hours they had to work for the every diminishing pay. The company can't afford pay rises despite their ever increasing profits, the usual mantra of the modern organisation. Bosses now cheat workers to make the profits look better.

Even though it cost me, but did it cost me, really? I was lucky, well clever. Lucky that I was always a saver and never really a spender. Some people may say I am stingy, I get it from my mother, but those same people are still in the rat race going to work trying to make ends meet.

Yesterday, I caught the train to Prahran to look at CDs and when I came home I wrote poetry and looked at historical photos of Melbourne, with Buddy sitting in my lap. And Friday disappeared and then it is Saturday again. No matter what day of the week it is they all have the same meaning to me now, so I don't live for one and hate another, in fact, I like Mondays, it is the first day of the week I get to spend on my own, after spending the weekend with Sam, doing what I choose.

Of course, I stopped working so I could write the great Australian novel, well, a novel, my first novel, writing something. And I am not doing that. So that is not so good. But, there is always tomorrow. I am also not in peak hour traffic struggling into an office I hate, to a job I'd rather not be doing, working for bosses who are just self interested cunts, no I am not doing that, so that is good.

This is not really how I saw it, spending my time, but life is short and regrets are not productive.

Okay, so I won’t be able to afford a new car, or to spend the weekends at shopping centres spending money for entertainment, but, I don’t drive the car I have now, and I never wanted to hang out at shopping centres anyway. My theory is, that if we all settle for a bit less, we will all be much happier. Do you really need that new 4WD, or that new phone, when your old car and phone still work perfectly well? Why do you want to work so hard to buy things you don’t really need? Work less, and only get the things you really need. Don’t get hooked into the buy, buy, buy, spend, spend, spend, mentality. How many of the things you have bought recently do you really need?