Win-Win
I hear this expression often these days to describe a situation in which both sides of confrontation or disagreement seem to benefit. I understand the intent but when I was a kid we used to play basketball on court with a basket that had been hit by a plow and was now at an odd angle yet still had a hoop attached. We would clear the court of snow in the middle of winter to play games on a half frozen surface with tilted backboard to WIN games. We kept score because that is what you do in sports...you try to beat the other guy and WIN. Guess what...when you win he would LOSE. It was fun to win and hard to lose. I learned a great deal playing those games...I learned about friendship,sacrifice for the team and things like hard work can be fun. I learned how to WIN. I also learned that you don't always win in life and its what you learn when you lose that can be the best lesson.
Now winning isn't everything and as I get older my need to win in every situation as turned to enjoying the game more than the score. Now I'm still a competitor and I like to beat the next guy when I have to but not every situation is competition. I guess that is what people say when the use the expression win-win. There are times when compromise works best for everyone. But please can somebody come up with something else to call it and leave the winning and losing to the rest of life
Scary Staircase
I am developing a new habit. I noticed that I have become more cautious as I walk down the stairs inside my house lately. I have a set of spiral staircases that lead to the upstairs bedrooms and I am becoming more careful as I descend them especially if I have something in my hand at the time. Also I have begun making small piles of things on the stairs. I do this so that I cut down on the amount of times that I have to use these suddenly daunting stairs.I guess it will only be a matter of time before I say goodbye to everything on the second floor. I guess I could always put in an elevator.
I may have hinted in past posts that I have recently retired and started down a new path in my life.
I worked for 28 years at one profession starting at the bottom until at the end I was in charge.
But as with everything all good things must come to an end and it was time to leave. I was in a very technical feild and paid a good salary. I use to say that if we made a mistake it wasnt going to hurt anybody or changee their life.
Well I have moved on and it feels good to try something different. To have a different schedule and in my case to pursue something that feeds a different part of who I am. Iam lucky that I am finacially able to do this but I have also given up a lot of what I had before and I have found that I dont miss much of what I gave up except of course HBO...I do wish I had HBO back...oh well.
Now I'm working part time a senior living facility and I drive the residents to doctors appointments,shopping and sometimes just out for a ride. I am paid a small percentage of what I made before retiring yet my responsiblilty in real terms is greater. I literaly have people's lives in my hands every day. I do enjoy the human interaction. Seeing these people who are a bit older and physically challenged as real people. I try to see what they were like as younger people and what their lives and the world was like when they were young. I find every day fascinating and with their help I learn something new each day. And at this time in my life I wasnt entirely sure that was possible.Re
I open my email this morning and I have received an invitation to obtain, for free, my new wheels.
By wheels I mean my new Power Scooter. Yeaaa...no more walking, running,hiking, biking or any of those things that most "young" people do with their feet. I'm mobile. I can sit my way thru the rest of my life. At least it has a motor so I wont have to rely on others to push me around. Those are the benefits.
Now the drawbacks of obtaining this email. Somewhere there is a data base that says that I am a possible customer if not now then someday and they may be right. I work now with a lot of people who need help getting around and I'm sure that they scoffed ,like me ,at the thought of ever needing help getting around as they got older. It usually sneaks up on you, age that is, or at least the less appealing side effects of growing older.
I think a lot about getting older now and seeing people a bit older than makes me think of what I might become. It also makes me think about what some of these people where like when they were younger. They weren't born this way. They were young and vibrant once. Most of them have broken down bodies but minds that are still young. Most have no regrets and understand that this is how life works. If we are lucky we have a beginning a middle and an end. If we are one of the lucky ones.
As I begin blogging I wonder what I will write about. I will probably stick to topics concerning me being over sixty. I have made some observations since turning sixty and they include the usual aches and pains but also I have observed many other things which may be of interest to only me but we shall see.
Eyes
I am typing this with eyes so dilated that a cloudy day looks to me like I'm typing on the surface of the sun. I recently saw some flashes in the corner of my eye and of course I think I;m fine since they disappear in about an hour but my wife begins looking up the symptoms on the Internet only to find out that I am about to go blind any minute. So I head to the doctor who tells me I;m not going to need a seeing eye dog soon but could use some expensive glasses now that I'm driving older people than me around and I don't want to go hitting anything that I cant see.
