Lost and Finding Joy

Ever Wish You Could Start Your Life Over Again? I don’t know what it is or why I’m feeling this way. It might be a “mid-life” thing. It might be all the craziness in the world. It could be both. I keep feeling like my life is almost over. My mind wants to think about, and kind of mourn, the passing of the way things used to be.  From my childhood all the way through my 30’s (until about 2010), it felt different. It felt like there was more good than bad still left in the world. Now it feels like there may be more bad than good. I don’t know.  It just seemed like simpler times back then.

I feel sad that my children and my children’s children may not be able to live the life of freedom, morals, values, and the pursuit of happiness and success that my generation and past generations were able to pursue. The freedoms our forefathers granted us might’ve sadly been taken for granted by my generation and the generations following.  Now those freedoms are significantly diminished whether anyone wants to admit it or not. 

On the other hand it did get extremely superfluous going to work every day, just to try to make more money to buy more stuff. By the late 80’s or early 90’s, to keep up, both parents were having to leave their children at home while they worked. I think more people are working from home these days. I guess you can say that some of the changes are good. It is better now that people are remembering what’s most important — like God and family. It seems like people with good intentions are waking up and getting more spiritual and worrying less about “keeping up with the Joneses.”

I don’t know. It just seemed simpler when people had to wait until you got home to talk to you on the phone. People had to mail us a letter if it was important, rather than getting inundated with digital emails. We didn’t have 1,000 television channels. We had 4-5 channels that had morals and values on the shows they aired. We didn’t have social media to expose our private lives. We weren’t being video taped and spied on or recorded during every conversation. We actually had a public side and private side to our lives. 

I am hopeful things will improve and get better; but what do I know?  Maybe things are better in more ways than I can see or understand. I do have faith and believe God has a plan. I have learned to trust in God and build my house upon the Rock. I’ve stopped building on the sand of circumstances. Lately, I’ve just been missing the good old days like the song says, “when the lines between right and wrong didn’t seem so hazy.” (Song Grandpa by The Judds). 

For me, looking back, it just seemed like simpler times.