When I was young, and idealistic, I believed I'd be able to make the world a better place, that I would be able to leave it better off when I left than when I came. It's awful when you realize that no matter what you did, things only got worse. My children should be angry with me. Fortunately, they're not. They don't think it's all my fault. They're good kids.
When I was young and idealistic, I wanted to be a teacher. That was all I ever really wanted to be, professionally. It was a given I'd go to college and get a teaching degree, which I did, and then I could start realizing my ideals. Funny how life always manages to get in the way. I never did get to teach in America, like I had "planned". Uncle Sam had other plans for me, even though he never asked me what I thought of them. Three years away from it all (but fortunately not in Vietnam) put me at the back of the teacher pack. Just another good idea gone to waste.
Most of my friends, girlfriends, and fraternity brothers did go into teaching. Most of them stuck it out for the required 30 years so they could retire, and most of them have. I'm still working, of course, because I never really got into that teaching groove like I had intended. Still, I managed to teach for a while, in Germany, at a boarding school, but fate determined that I wasn't going to change the German world either, I suppose. It didn't take all that long and I was on a plane to the States (California to be exact) and leaving teaching for good. Not that I wanted to, really. At some point you realize that you do what you have to do because of the family ... well, if the family means anything to you, that is. Mine did. And so I found myself out in the hard, cold world of business, and watching us produce the handbasket that was going to take us to Hell. I suppose I was making my contribution. I just never thought it'd be that one.
Oh, don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining. I've been a very lucky guy. I may have never been able to do what I once dreamed of doing, but I got the family fed and raised, I met some extraordinary people I probably would have missed otherwise, and I learned one hell of a lot about life and the world as most people have to experience it. I managed to get an inside look at more than one culture and I've been able to experience a good chunk of the world.
But, that original dream is fading. I think about it a lot these days, and when I look around, I realize that at the moment, the world is in anything but a better state than when I found it. I'm not solely responsible for how it is, that's for sure, and just one little guy in this big, jumbled mess probably isn't a real recipe for success. Still, I can't help but wonder why it is that apparently I'm the only one that sees this. Just about everybody I talk to tries to convince me that the world's always been a pretty nasty place and you just have to make do the best you can. Maybe, but why do I just have to try to do the best that I can, why haven't we figured out how to the best that we can?
The world as it is cannot be the best that we can do, can it?
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