Many of us are NOT 100% in love with who we are at any given moment in time, or maybe, in or at any precise moment in time...

The answer, or at least for some relief, is to hope to change who you are and become someone else.

This can help us focus on finding a target/goal/obsession, which wraps in the question:  Who do you want to be?

What brought the topic up to its current ranking in my cerebral penthouse is that I've finally decided who I want to, at least emulate, if not totally become, has finally been revealed to me.  And, of course, you can't actually BE that other person, you can only become somewhat LIKE the other person, assuming those qualities (positive or negative) you wish to emulate.

I shan't reveal who that person is, lest you mock that person, and thus, me!  We, that person and I, don't need your approval, but we'll take it, but leave your opprobrium at the door.

But I do want to leave the topic available for any discussion in which this august group might care to engage ... in.

I don't understand. :P

Actually, this is very philosophical. Interesting to ponder.

I'll get back to you.


ETA: This post is because my above post was just a joke.

Short answer: Isn't it lovely to be making our own decisions, not dependent on church mandates? A person can be whoever they want to be. Because they are their own boss. Not the bishop. Not the prophet. They themselves. What a concept!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/18/2023 07:18PM by Nightingale.

I'll check my email . . .

Everyone knows you've been searching for a role model.

But seriously, Britney???

In my head, I call her Brit-ti-ney, because it reminds me Lord Peter.

I want to be me.

But I want to leave my baggage of insecurity and self doubting behind. Anxiety and second guessing is not a well played game of chess.

    If I'm on the same wavelength as you, then we're talking about "someone" with all the positives (and maybe some 'bad boy' pseudo-negatives) that you have but miraculously missing elements that have you pointing an accusing finger at yourself in the mirror...

    Because that's all I've really done, just focused my admiration on someone who seems to have all the positives I have but none of the negatives.

    I don't recall how long it's been, but back in time here on RfM, a poster said he "knew" me my last year in my old Las Vegas ward before I left on my mission.  

    He was a Lamanite, as am I, which he said is what drew his attention.  He said some kind things about me, which, of course, I richly deserved.  Now, I'm projecting: He may have thought I "Had it together!"  I didn't.  I was a mess!  But he wasn't privy to that part of my life.

    And it's likely that the person I wish to emulate is in the same boat, cognisant of being admired/respected but knowing that people's impressions regarding character and other objects of fascination are almost always incomplete or distorted.  ...Along with the possibility that my object of emulation has someone on the radar whose seeming 'perfection' is a goal.

    These thoughts (along with a whole lot of reading over the course of my life) have left me with a bit of gratitude regarding how my life has turned out and with the occasional sadness that way too many people lack the power/blessing/curse of introspection, which quite likely includes faithful mormons.

Quetzalcoatl?

Hmmmmm....let me ask a certain feline poster here so I'll know for certain, or at least have a choice of a few names, and I'll get back to you. I just want to make sure I'm worshipping the right hero.

Hahahaha haha hahaha.

The Hero with a Thousand Asses!

A hero with a thousand asses can always find a place to sit.

Add an "h" and a litter box and it works too. Meow!

I never did figure out who I wanted to be and this just happened.


I read this the other day from someone musing on the subject and felt I could have written it myself:

"It's strange to be 43 years old and have no clue as to what the future might hold, to realize that you might have stepped onto the wrong train at some point in your life and somehow ended up in a place you hadn't expected or wanted or even known about when you were young. It's akin to waking up from a dream, I think, only to discover that you yourself were not the dreamer."

Of course I have 30 more years on that guy, but I still feel like I stepped on the wrong train and was never the engineer. And still don't know who I want to be but would like that to be someone who doesn't even think to plague myself with that question.

I've retailed this conversation before. It occurred several years ago.

Child's young friend: "Gladys [it's as good as any other name], how old were you when you knew what you wanted to do professionally?"

Gladys [ibid]: "Well, Paul, I'll let you know when I get there."

We know that we don't have an itinerary.

We have to stay on our toes, watch our 'six' and have fall back plans.

Imagine being born into wealth and/or aristocracy and having immutable way-points in your life that you HAD to touch!

Think of mormons following the covenant path...

I like the way we did it, D.  And we didn't have any ironing to do, like Gladys!

> I like the way we did it, D.  And we didn't have
> any ironing to do, like Gladys!

As if you, Britney, have enough clothes to require ironing. . .

Please stop. I'm having a really hard time with this mental image.

You have no idea!

Yes we did it right. As Mae West said, "Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before."

Hey!  There's nothing
'wrong' with picking
an evil and sticking
with it!!

I just try to be as good a man as my father.

  
  

What is this “grow up” you speak of?

I've gotten crabbier over the past few years, what with the current political climate, years of bureaucratic and other nonsense from work, with a dollop of increasing age. I'd like to get back to my somewhat kinder, gentler self.

But maybe most of all, in some ways I wish I could regain the endless capacity for leisure that I had in my late teens and 20s. I think that would be very useful for my retirement years. I used to thoroughly enjoy my downtime. Now I just feel guilty about my endless to-do list.

I look forward to seeing you decompress and regain some of that useful complacency, that comfort, both for your sake and to give me hope for my future.

Ideally some of the political stresses will dissipate over that horizon as well!

Your words made me think, 'Yeah me too. But I know too much now."

Watching Seinfeld I noticed nothing is about a social issue, not really. Clueless seems to be a major positive. Too late for that but . . . Nowadays nothing is about nothing. Everyone is a warrior for something. We will never run out of wrongs to right. A life about nothing could be good.

I have started consciously "wending" which helped me get home through all the RUDE traffic without getting mad like I was getting with all the cell phone use or weaving at high speeds. I wend my way and it helps. Big deep breath and then wend.. I am attempting to apply the wending to more of my life. It's going so-so but is helping.

I am in awe of EOD because I think he could be a major wender and would have fit right into Seinfeld.

He told me a few years ago that he was offered the lead role but turned it down because the directors insisted that he wear pants.

My agent shouldn't have even talked to them!

I was being offered the role of a Puerto Rican pimp living across the hall from Jerry's apartment, who went by the nickname, Charmer...

My agent knew very well that at my sainted mother's request, I do NOT play Puerto Rican characters!!!

I was quite moved when, in solidarity, Cheech Marin also turned down the role.

All reasonable.

I was chagrined, however, to learn that Sr. Marin ended his friendship with you over your sartorial appropriation from Ms. Spears.

So sad.

When I grow up, I want to regress to 23yo me and learn from her as she makes different choices in her life. At 48 I'm grown up in age, but not in the wiser/experienced/have joy in life sence. My only hope is time travel. I;m as grown up as one can be, **, would not live it again. Just riding the 24 hour rotations, my literal meaning in life.

anonynon Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> When I grow up, I want to regress to 23yo me and
> learn from her as she makes different choices in
> her life.

I just might get a cover for the spare tire in my truck to read, "Caution! Watch For Geezer Who Thinks He's Still 25!"

> At 48 I'm grown up in age, but not in
> the wiser/experienced/have joy in life sence. My
> only hope is time travel.

I'll have my chum Mephistopheles get in touch with you.

I;m as grown up as one
> can be, **, would not live it again. Just riding
> the 24 hour rotations, my literal meaning in life.

And remember to have your tires rotated every oil change!

My desire is to be Kilgore Trout in the flesh. Part Henry Darger, part John Kennedy Toole.

All I ever wanted to do was to write the Great American Novel. Back when my ex was in Vietnam, sending home $300 per month for our rent and other expenses, I had begun writing and selling short stories to magazines. I even acquired an agent in NY.

I sold about three out of every four stories I wrote, at about $300 per sale. I was living the good life, and was very happy. I lived in SoCal then. The apartment pool was just outside my front door. I swam laps, then went inside for a shower and breakfast, then spent from about ten in the morning until well after midnight curled around my aunt's little old Olivetti. All in all, from beginning the first draft until proofreading and preparing the final draft, took about a week.

In the back of my mind, the novel was beginning to take shape.
Then the future ex got back from Vietnam.

He started screaming that my stories weren't bringing in enough money. He wanted to see a regular paycheck. Jaysus, the fights we had.

I interviewed with the local Social Security office, and they liked me. Mainly, I think, because I already spoke Spanish. (Having been an exchange student in Guadalajara, I can speak Spanish with a Jaliscan accent that would shrivel your ears.) Also, with Social Security, every time the future ex got transferred somewhere, there would be SSA offices there and I could transfer.

At home, every time I tried to settle myself down and work on a story, Himself would start bugging with "You haven't cleaned up the dinner dishes and the house is a pigsty." When my son was born a few years later, I discovered that despite being married, I was a single parent. Himself declined to participate in ANY aspect of baby/child care.

I did manage to write and sell a few more stories after that, but with such intense harassment all the time, I eventually lost the Muse. No more desire to write. When his GF moved in with us "just until she gets her feet under her," I'd had enough. Divorce, remarriage, yada yada.

I always figured that once I was retired, I could write again. But the Muse is gone. No ideas, no desire to run stories through my keyboard. I've tried to force it, but that doesn't work.

So, I'm just a retired Federal paper-shuffler. Sigh. At least the benefits are good and I found a sweetheart who doesn't cheat.

Catnip, you've taken a long journey to happiness.

I feel what you say so hard. Somehow my younger self, who longed for the financial and time freedom of retirement, never quite figured out that I would no longer have my youthful body and joie de vivre. A lifetime of work just beats it out of you. I'm just hoping that I can get some of that joy back again.

"With it, you become the master of Time and Space..."


DJ Kim — "Time And Space" (Alphazone Remix) (2003)
https://youtu.be/_MmQAGCm8cI



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/20/2023 10:04AM by anybody.

When I was a teenager, I wanted to be like Johnny Cash. I had heard some of his recordings,, and more importantly for this topic, his Christian conversion story. It wasn't until I was an adult that I learned about his drinking, his two marriages, and the fact that, for the most part, he didn't write any of the songs he sang.

I'm now retired with some health issues living in the same house my parents lived in when they passed and enjoying myself. I just hope that the fight over the Federal debt ceiling doesn't bring it all to a screeching halt!

We never grow up-- we just learn how to act in public . . . as the old saying goes. Well. Some of us. I'm not sure I should even include myself.

But in the end what we are really talking about here is wishing that what we have learned after a life time could count for something; could matter. I guess that is why we invented heaven. And that is why I never liked the idea of Heavenly Reward but I did crave Eternal progression.

Now if the kids these days would just listen to me dammit!N I know stuff!

I look at young people in their 30s and 40s, and think to myself, enjoy that because it's a great place to be. But they probably have all of the same worries and concerns that I had at that age. I have maybe 20 years or so left in my lifetime, and it doesn't feel like enough.