Most days of my life involve ‘just muddling through’. I suspect that it’s like that for almost everyone. But every now and then, especially in one’s young adult years, there comes a day when a decision has to be made that really has a lot of impact on one’s future. New areas of opportunity (or misfortune) are opened, and other areas perhaps are foreclosed. I was pondering this recently when I was going through some old letters I had saved in a dusty file, involving past job searches. They were mostly rejection letters from firms that I had sent resumes to. I’ve gone through three or four major job searches in my life, and they were never easy or pleasant.

Luckily for me, something always fell into place sooner or later in most instances (usually more later than sooner). Not the perfect job, not what I may have expected, but somehow things eventually worked out. However, in the summer following my first year of law school in 1979, I was searching for a summer legal internship as to build some credentials for the future. But my search went for naught. I wound up taking a law class and some undergrad economics classes that arguably helped me later on, when I followed my law degree with a masters degree in economics.

But as to gaining work credentials (and paychecks as to help my savings account credentials), it just wasn’t gonna happen  »  continue reading …

At times I wonder, what might be a person’s biggest disappointment with their life, looking back from old age? (Which I’m rapidly entering.) Perhaps for some, it is that they weren’t more “saintly”. I.e., that they didn’t act upon something deep within their sub-conscious, that called them to less concern with self and more concern for others. Perhaps that they did not or would not have been the hero, the person who tried to tackle a crazed gunman in a school, theater or temple, or someone who would jump onto the subway tracks as a train approached to rescue a dazed person who stumbled out onto the path of the train. That they would have listened to the voice of reason in their heads and not taken a severe and yet passionate chance with their own life.

I don’t know if we all have such regrets (or if you are one of the few who actually did do such a thing — and lived to ponder it in your old age). But I sometimes do. Sometimes it seems comforting to take an eastern viewpoint and attribute my failing nature to “karma”. In some past life, or in some sub-conscious conveyance of “vibes” over the course of my life from others about me, I just didn’t accumulate enough good karma to appreciate the preciousness of being. I didn’t get over the existential numbness that many people complain of (while paying $100 per hour to a professional therapist to listen to such complaining). If there is such a karmic process, then it wasn’t all my fault. We are all part of a network with wide-ranging ties between the multitudes, spanning the past and present.

It would be nice to think that at least some little things can be done. It’s too late to jump down onto those subway tracks. Or even if such a chance did occur, I know that I still wouldn’t do it. But I could at least ponder why  »  continue reading …